Social Engineering - Christopher Hadnagy [128]
It was a shocking scene and while I was on the phone with my wife that evening I said, “Wow that news story on what’s happening in Europe is crazy, huh?”
She hadn’t heard anything about it. Why? News media and news stations are masters when it comes to framing and manipulation.
A social engineer can learn a lot from looking at how media utilizes this skill. By using omissions, or leaving out details of a story or the whole story itself, the media can lead people to a conclusion that seems like their own, but really is the media’s.
Social engineers can do that, too. By omitting certain details and only “leaking” details that they want leaked, they can create the frame that they want the target to think or feel.
Labeling is another tactic used by the media. When they want to frame something positive they may say things like, “the strong defense of…” or “our healthy economy.” These phrases paint mental pictures of stability and health that can help draw positive conclusions. The same rules can apply for negative frames, too. Labels such as, “Islamic terrorists” or “conspiracy theories” paint a very negative picture.
You can utilize these skills to label things with descriptive words that will bring a target into the frame you want. Once, approaching a guard booth that I wanted to gain access to, I walked right through as if I belonged. I was instantly stopped abruptly. I looked at the guard in shock and apologetically I used a phrase like, “Oh, yesterday that extremely helpful security guard, Tom, checked out all my creds and let me pass. That is why I assumed I was still on the list.”
Labeling the previous guard as “extremely helpful” automatically puts the present guard in a frame I want. If he wants to receive such a prestigious label, he better be as “extremely helpful” as Tom was.
Framing is effective because it bends the truth but not so much that it becomes false, so it remains believable. A social engineer can create a desired impression without departing too far from the appearance of objectivity.
I read a white paper called “Status Quo Framing Increases Support for Torture,” written by Christian Crandall, Scott Eidelman, Linda Skitka, and Scott Morgan, all researchers from different universities. In the white paper they supplied a very interesting data set that intrigued me on this topic. In the U.S. it seems many people are against the use of torture in wartime as a tactic for gaining intelligence information. The purpose of this study was to see whether the researchers could get a subset of people to agree that torture is less disagreeable by framing the message differently.
They took a sample group of roughly 486 people and asked them to read two paragraphs.
The first one read:
The use of stress by U.S. forces when questioning suspects in the Middle East is in the news. This kind of stress interview is new; according to some reports, it is the first time it has been widely used by the U.S. military. American forces have used many different methods, including strapping detainees to a board and dunking them underwater, stuffing detainees face-first into a sleeping bag, and long periods of hanging detainees by ropes in painful positions. Detainees are also kept awake and alone for days at a time.
This paragraph paints the thought that these are new techniques being employed by the U.S. Government to obtain data.
The second paragraph read:
The use of stress by U.S. forces when questioning suspects in the Middle East is in the news. This kind of stress interview is not new; according to some reports, it has been used for more than 40 years by the U.S. military. American forces have used many different methods, including strapping detainees to a board and dunking