Social Engineering Blogs

An Aggregator for Blogs About Social Engineering and Related Fields

Quick deception links from December 2010

Here are the deception-related crimepsychblog tweets from last month.

Technology-facilitated deception detection (brain scans and machines that go ping):

Thermal Imaging as a Lie Detection Tool at Airports http://retwt.me/1QhzC
New research on fMRI-based deception detection measures’ vulnerability to countermeasures http://retwt.me/1QbCJ
Article on fMRI in court is one of Nature News top stories of 2010. Well worth a (re)read. http://retwt.me/1QfBJ
New research: Improving efficacy of Concealed Information Test? “Denoised P300 & machine learning-based CIT method” http://retwt.me/1QbCC
Psychophysiological Response Pattern in Symptom Validity Testing Arch Clin Neurology http://retwt.me/1QbDE
Great write-up of a rare study of fMRI countermeasures (via @ResearchBlogs) How To Fool A Lie Detector Brain Scan http://goo.gl/fb/7oNFv
Free access: The Polygraph and Forensic Psychiatry (Don Grubin) J. American Academy of Psychiatry & Law http://retwt.me/1QggR
Beliefs, predictions and shortcuts in the deceitful brain (Uni of Cambridge article): http://bit.ly/eK1rVw
Ocular motor deception detection technology http://secprodonline.com/articles/2010/09/01/seeing-through-the-lies.aspx
Frequent truth telling makes lying more difficult, but frequent lying makes lying easier. http://is.gd/hQeIM
Articles on cognitive neuroscience of confabulation, free access til Feb 28 (scroll down ->symposia) http://ht.ly/3qYl8
“When volunteers suspected they were being lied to activity levels rose in dorsomedial prefrontal cortex” New Scientst http://retwt.me/1Qcgj

Interviewing (deception detection the good ole fashion’d way):

Eliciting Cues to False Intent: A New Application of Strategic Interviewing http://retwt.me/1QhzA
Influence of Investigator Bias on the Elicitation of True & False Confessions http://retwt.me/1QhzB
Looks & Lies: Physical Attractiveness in Online Dating Self-Presentation and Deception. Communication Research 37(3) http://retwt.me/1QgIz

And some other deception-related stuff that caught my eye:

From Scientific American: What Makes An Honest Smile Honest? http://bit.ly/hkX7HN
Can deception be a life skill? http://bit.ly/e4jYYk
@evbasedmummy discusses how and why parents lie to their children http://is.gd/ivosZ
Cricket’s old boys are proposing lie detectors as a way to combat corruption: http://ht.ly/3q4KH Sigh
Great summary of the DWP ‘Lie Detector’ trials from @Unity_MoT http://tinyurl.com/2366dlg. Big sigh.

Scout Motto… Always be prepared

Apologies its been a few weeks since I posted, what with starting a new day job, and many many things to sort out at home I have struggled to get the time and the mindset to get something written.

So I thought I would do a quick post on how important it is to always be prepared, dib dib, dob dob and all that :) This might sound obvious but a key part of social engineering is research, as obviously as this may be many social engineers spend little time doing thorough information gathering.

This information gathering is vital to increase our chances of success. With this information we can get information about the target organisation, how it interacts with other organisations and the public. We can identify specific key subjects, and then gain information on them and their social connections, preferences, and history.

This then gives us the ability to create informed believable pretexts, and improves our ability to think on our feet, adjust accordingly and make some what informed decisions. Social engineers often overlook these points and I can understand why, the reality is that we are so often unchallenged in our engagements that we don’t have to think on our feet to much, and when it does happen perhaps we can bluff and fluff our way through.

I am sometimes cocky myself and don’t do the right level of prep work, and being sloppy can lead to disaster. As we continue to educate and bring awareness to the masses about social engineering, I really hope that companies and Joe Public will become more aware and more challenging, meaning that social engineers finally have to up their games.

Give this some thought, and don’t forget to do your homework. Next year I aim to put some posts together on Open Source Information Gathering and the information that can be revealed.

Quick deception links

The news that made me happiest in the last few weeks is here: Government abandons lie detector tests for catching benefit cheats (The Guardian, 9 Nov):

The government has dropped plans to introduce controversial lie detector tests to catch benefit fraudsters after trials found that the technology is not sufficiently reliable. The Department for Work and Pensions has given up on “voice risk analysis” (VRA) software after spending £2.16m on trials to assess whether the technology can identify people who are trying to fiddle the system when it eavesdrops on their telephone calls to benefit offices.

Though obviously it would have been good if they hadn’t had to spend £2.16 million to find that out.

Freebies

Open access to Springer journals means you can grab some good deception research for free, but only until 30 November (so hurry) :

Interviewers outperform thermal imaging technology in identifying liars & truth-tellers. Great study, FREE til 30/11 http://is.gd/hxePN
Police Lie Detection Accuracy: The Effect of Lie Scenario from Law & Human Behavior 33(6) Free access til 30 Nov http://retwt.me/1Pl5J
The Reliability of Lie Detection Performance in Law & Human Behavior 2009, currently free access til 30 Nov PDF: http://retwt.me/1Pl6M
Outsmarting the Liars: The Benefit of Asking Unanticipated Questions in Law & Human Behavior 2009, currently free access PDF: http://retwt.me/1Pl6l

You can also bag a free copy of new research on trust and deception courtesy of Sage Publishing:

Carter, N., & Mark Weber, J. (2010). Not Pollyannas: Higher Generalized Trust Predicts Lie Detection Ability Social Psychological and Personality Science, 1 (3), 274-279 http://retwt.me/1PyQX

Not free (as far as I can tell) but looking interesting:

Jo Are You Lying to Me? Temporal Cues for Deception — Journal of Language and Social Psychology http://retwt.me/1PORv
In press: Role of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in deception when remembering neutral & emotional events Neurosci Res http://is.gd/hxdN4
Neat new study on deceptive groups: Extracting Concealed Information from Groups in J. of Forensic Sciences. http://retwt.me/1PO2N
Aw, bless. New research in Psychol Science 21(10) shows 3-yr-olds have highly robust bias to trust what people say. http://is.gd/g5hB2
Fascinating in press article on how honesty is rewarded and deception punished across cultures, in Pers Soc Psychol Bull http://is.gd/g5h3s
Articles on reality monitoring, deceptive handwriting (ok, this one is free) & false memory in latest issue of Applied Cog Psy 24(8) http://is.gd/g5iAc

And some other miscellaneous articles and blog posts:

In The Job Hunt, People Do Lie, But Honesty Pays Off, Study Finds http://retwt.me/1PyQd
Misguided: Polygraphs provide false reassurance. Sigh. “Polygraph Testing Against Border Corruption” via Secrecy News http://retwt.me/1Pr4k
To detect lies it’s equally as important to be able to detect when someone is being truthful. http://retwt.me/1Pr3Q via @humintell
Blog post from @humintell on interesting new research: Are Children Good Liars? http://retwt.me/1Pr3k
Is It Always Bad To Lie? Review of a new book on deception, via http://retwt.me/1POR5