>>4032
>>4033
>But what's most important thing to consider here, is that Shining Armour applied too much security measures. Yes, that's right, he went overboard. And that's a bad thing.
>"Security at the expense of usability, comes at the expense of security."
>And last but not least, the biggest gaping hole in Shining's plan, which this episode highlighted in awesome way, was an issue of implicit trust.
Multi-tiered system that required too many ponies to be in the know is probably worst than even security through obscurity in this case. It arguably drew attention to the Canterlot tunnels entries and let everypony know they were important. I mean he could've gone with a system with that didn't require to lean on so many, though even than if he still had all those layers and few ponies in the know that would still be not an ideal do to complexity.

>Second issue here, "doubled the ranks of security" and "ponies protect every hallway and door". That's clearly lot of ponies. Lots of ponies you're giving access clearance too. Unless it's been in the making for a long time, increased drafting sure led to decreased training (seeing as easily they left their posts when distracted by AJ or Pinkie this is all but 100% the case I'd say)
This is the best explication as to why they sucked so bad here. I'll take over the normal royal guard ponies being that level of stupid anyway.

>The issue with the fans (and the guards too) is that this is probably a very costly precaution. Plus the fans are very disruptive to the surroundings (and noisy, I guess!), which depending on the location and size of protected area, and worthiness of protected thing/person can be an issue too if the increased security is that much more important then this can be overruled.
It's not subtle, but if only higher skilled fliers could navigate through it, it could be perhaps an asset in the event of swarms of flying enemies, as the changeling invasion demonstrated. As an anti espionage measure I'd be far more skeptical of its value. It would be an obstacle but there were plenty of other ways to circumvent it. As you say with...

>Another nitpick with the guard system is that besides the medals there is no formal verification of authority. If you have a medal and an armour, you're a guard for all intents and purposes. Though allegedly obtaining those two things to an outsider takes some effort, so this is a minor nitpick.
Social engineering. Perhaps it is hard to obtain but there is a lot of things in this show that are supposedly ascribed
skills and traits that they do not actively possess. Though I still agree that it's a minor nitpick.