Social engineering, scams; Scapegoating, projection

These definitions of 'social engineering' and 'pretexting' appear at http://memes.org

Social engineering is a collection of techniques used to manipulate people into performing actions or divulging confidential information. While similar to a confidence trick or simple fraud, the term typically applies to trickery for information gathering or computer system access and in most cases the attacker never comes face-to-face with the victim.

Social engineering techniques and terms
All social engineering techniques are based on specific attributes of human decision-making known as cognitive biases. These biases, sometimes called "bugs in the human hardware," are exploited in various combinations to create attack techniques.

Pretexting
Pretexting is the act of creating and using an invented scenario (the pretext) to persuade a target to release information or perform an action and is typically done over the telephone. It's more than a simple lie as it most often involves some prior research or set up and the use of pieces of known information (e.g. for impersonation: date of birth, Social Security Number, last bill amount) to establish legitimacy in the mind of the target.


Search 'social engineering' etc. at Google or on Wikipedia
Basically this is any form of impression management or 'information' which is designed with the aim of creating a desired behaviour or outcome from a 'mark' or 'patsy' - which could be you!



Confidence Tricks & Scams
Some other relevant concepts are Con tricks or scams


Psychological Manipulation from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_manipulation



'Doc Matrix' website is at http://trubbles.angelfire.com

Youtube channel 'theCojent'


See also the books mentioned below

Social engineering etc. can be as simple as driving an expensive car, portraying an image, acting a role, or it can be elaborate with several co-conspirators setting up a convincing scene or skit. Social Psychology demonstrates how we tend to behave according to how we view or experience a particular setting, almost like acting out a part. It's easy to believe what is presented - how someone looks possibly using disguise, what they say which probably contains elements of truth, something to convince people known as a 'convincer', and they may also have found things out about you to make it easier.

Skit is a word sometimes used in the form of harassment known as Gangstalking or maybe Gaslighting where someone is targeted by a group to scare or demoralise them, but where anyone they confide in are likely to be disbelieving - that's part of the 'set-up' or design. See the link below:

Gangstalking or Gaslighting are an extreme form of psychological harassment see
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=psychological+harassment+gangstalking+gaslighting&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

Links on Gangstalking, Gaslighting, Harassment, Stalking

from website http://trubbles.angelfire.com/yarn/addendum.html

Check out the following written from a psychoanalytical approach:
'On the Need for New Criteria of Diagnosis of Psychosis in the Light of Mind Invasive Technology' by Carole Smith www.btinternet.com/~psycho_social/Vol3/JPSS-CS2.html

'Hacking the Mind - Intrusive Brain Reading Surveillance Technology'
http://rinf.com/alt-news/sicence-technology/hacking-the-mind/2029/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting




Check out some of the following Books
'The Blue Nowhere' by Jeffery Deaver
'Tourist Trap: when holiday turns to nightmare' by Patrick Blackden
'The Sting' by Nigel Blundell
'More Scams from the Great Beyond' by Peter Huston
'The Con Artist Handbook: the secrets of hustles and scams' by Joel Levy
'The Art of Deception' by Kevin D. Mitnick & William L. Simon
'Vital Lies, Simple Truths: the psychology of self-deception' by Daniel Goleman
'We Know What You Want: how they change your mind' by Martin Howard

BOOKS dealing more generally with themes on this Blog can be found HERE.

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From ITV Channel 4 Website – Faith and Belief: Debates & Controversies

http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/C/can_you_believe_it/debates/derrenbrown.html

Derren Brown: Messiah
First shown on Channel 4 in January 2005

Derren Brown, mind-manipulator extraordinaire (who sparked the most ever complaints to Ofcom for his recreation of a séance on Channel 4 last year), has taken his latest debunking mission to America. In a country where his mind control skills are unknown, he sets out once again to show us, not that our beliefs are wrong, but just how easy it is to dupe people into believing 10 impossible things before breakfast.

Seal of approval
The five experiments he sets up vary from standard tests for psychic ability to physical methods of religious conversion. They cover all areas of belief, organised religion and purchasable salvation. In each case his stated aim is to get a reputable authority to endorse the results of the experiments in order to demonstrate the validity of people's experiences in the confusing world of belief. By securing this validation, he aims show how little such endorsements mean, even if they are genuinely motivated. After all, we know that he’s not a Messiah – he’s just very good as pretending to be one.

But there is another agenda in the programme: to encourage people to investigate what they believe more rigorously. Derren himself used to be an evangelical Christian until his mid-20s. Then he started to realise that his faith was just as vulnerable to suggestion as any of the New Age theories that annoyed him so much. His faith was rocked and he abandoned it. That could certainly be one response to this programme since, while we know that his amazing acts are done by suggestion, they are immediately endorsed by almost all the 'authority' figures he approaches.

Good questions
Derren Brown causes a lot of anger (and complaint!) through his experiments because he causes a lot of fear. Fear that your whole life has been based on a lie, that you have been manipulated, that there is no comfortable higher authority making sense of your world – or that there is. This is powerful stuff. But what, after all, is wrong with his questioning of people's beliefs? If you haven’t investigated what you believe independently and looked at the arguments standing against you, your beliefs have little validity. Investigation doesn’t have to mean the end of your world view, it can be a very constructive process, providing confirmation of what you already thought, or showing you new avenues for development.

Derren Brown is right. Many people are being duped, innocently maybe, and this programme exposes how easy it is to do that. However, it doesn’t necessarily follow that all the belief systems he investigates are fraudulent – just that a fraudster could use them. It is up to us to ensure that we approach our beliefs with an open mind; that we allow them to be challenged and perhaps through that learn more about what real truth is.

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For an account of another of Derren Brown's shows, involving cues that people picked up on, go to Riding the Tides on Be Doubty site www.measures.we.bs/doubty/christmaseve.html#ridingthetides

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Comment by Norman

Derren Brown: Messiah has just been shown again on Channel 4 19th September 2008

He travelled to the United States in the guise of 5 different individuals with the aim of persuading people who are apparently knowledgeable in a particular field to endorse his own expertise, while admitting to the TV viewers that he did not have those specific abilities.

He began by saying it was not beliefs which were of interest, but people’s relationship to the beliefs. He wanted to demonstrate that it is quite easy for people to become convinced, by someone skilled, into a particular or different belief. In one exercise he demonstrated to a room of people who came ‘for a discussion about spirituality’, though with no religious belief, that they would change to admitting some. He said this would happen simply through his touching people. This seemed to happen with the first person, a girl who claimed not to have been drawn into any religious beliefs of her family. He talked to her gently, then slowly moved his hand to the right side of her head, holding it there and moving it a little, and the girl became deeply affected saying she now understood things her grandmother had said.

At some point after this, about half the people in the room were feeling uncomfortable and left. Showman style, Derren took time to connect and re-group with remaining members, with an appropriate display of diffidence underpinned by confidence that he could probably ‘wing it’ somehow. A young man came forward and Derren quietly reassured him while moving his hands around a lot, and the man fell backwards claiming he now had religious belief. Derren then worked on the whole audience in meditation or group relaxation, achieving much of the desired effect. So it seemed to be a step-by-step approach, gaining ground as and when he could.

The resident Minister for the locality said that he felt Derren had a personal energy that was connecting with people, and admitted that he himself forms a relationship before discussing religious matters with people because that’s how things work. Derren made some points about religious ceremonies, such as they might be either high energy, or monotonous and mesmerising.

His next assignment, in a different location, involved a silver box which he said contained crystals and recorded people’s dreams. This smacks even more of being of the nature of ‘convincer’, something to help people to think something will work. In all, quite a lot of social engineering! With the folks who seemed to get converted, the TV programme makers claimed that everyone had been through a process of reversion back to their original belief system.

While applauding Derren Brown for tackling some of these issues in his own style, I get uneasy about messing with important areas of people’s lives. Those people became very emotional, and it’s not so easy to take that element out, although some practitioners claim to be able to. That is sometimes carried out as part of management training. I have doubts about the ethics of that too!
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Click HERE or carry out your own searches for some issues relating to:

scapegoating
territorial behaviour
projection
status quo
one-upmanship
abuse
manic defence
denial or disbelief
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