Caveat: This article is mine and mine alone. I the author of this article assure you, the reader, that any of the opinions expressed here are my own and are a result of the way in which my meandering mind interprets a particular situation and/or concept. The views expressed here are solely those of the author in his private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of other martial arts and/or conflict/violence professionals or authors of source materials. It should be quite obvious that the sources I used herein have not approved, endorsed, embraced, friended, liked, tweeted or authorized this article. (Everything I think and write is true, within the limits of my knowledge and understanding.)
Social engineering is a term or phrase used in computer communities to describe a form of intrusion for the purpose of gaining access to data or some other critical or sensitive system. While studying self-defense I learned of a system used by criminal types called “The Interview,” where the same type of access is being sought, i.e., their access to your proximity for the purpose of fooling you into letting them apply their trade, i.e., either a process like hurting you or resource like making a withdrawal from your wallet.
There is a difference, in social engineering they are trying to win you over allowing them access while the interview goal is to have you successfully complete the interview. In reality, you want to fail the interview and in reality, the adversary wants to win you over similar to successfully completing an interview to get the job.
The job in one is access while the job in the other means you are going to get hurt, robbed, badly damaged or even killed. Kind of like a yin-yang thing where one is a positive-negative where the damage is non-physical and the other negative-positive where you get damaged, robbed or even killed. Does this make sense.
What I read about the interview and found that you had to fail it, it seemed odd to me because most of us upon entering an interview naturally and instinctively want to PASS that interview. In a computer attack of social engineering the idea is to stop the intrusion by recognizing it and then avoiding it, de-escalating it (in other words telling the guy to stop, etc. or just hanging up or ignoring the social engineered email, etc.) or by some means dictated by the company policies, i.e., level of appropriate force like deleting the email, hanging up or POLITELY asking the intruder to leave while signaling for help from security as appropriate.
Social engineering is inherently without physical violence being on the table while the interview often has physical violence as an option to get the job done if you fail the interview.
If we want to apply the phrase, “Social Engineering,” to conflict and violence we want to stop the attempt in an appropriate manner using the same techniques and languages, etc., as one uses to fail the interview. We want to recognize that normal looking polite inquiries from a stranger along with interpretation of bodily language and attack indicators, etc. are about stopping the social engineering, i.e., those techniques meant to get you to comply socially so you give up something the adversary wants by either compliance or violence.
Because of how important this is, i.e., in the street it can become violent, you must have it worked out, trained and correct for such situations before using it in training and practice. In such situations where violence is on the table confusion can be deadly. This is just an idea that crossed my mind because I work in the IT industry where social engineering is one of those things you learn for security postures, etc.
Note: Social engineering just seems less confusing yet “failing an interview” is so counter intuitive it actually triggers some sort of learning process that may stick and work better, hum, haw, him-n-haw, something to consider. Then again, once learned and trained you won’t actually stop and think, hmmm this is an interview I want to fail. You just do it and be done with it, labels are fine but the actions are better, right?
Note II: You want to fail the interview, you want your attacker (potential) to fail social engineering. When your potential adversary tries to weasel into your range to fool you into giving up what he wants, either a process oriented or resource oriented thing, you shut him down fast, etc.
Primary Bibliography of Self-Defense:
MacYoung, Marc. "In the Name of Self-Defense: What It Costs. When It’s Worth It." Marc MacYoung. 2014.
Miller, Rory Sgt. "Meditations of Violence: A Comparison of Martial Arts Training & Real World Violence" YMAA Publishing. 2008.
Secondary Bibliography of Self-Defense:
Ayoob, Massad. “Deadly Force: Understanding Your Right to Self-Defense”Gun Digest Books. Krouse Publications. Wisconsin. 2014.
Goleman, Daniel. "Emotional Intelligence: 10th Anniversary Edition [Kindle Edition]." Bantam. January 11, 2012.
Miller, Rory. "ConCom: Conflict Communications A New Paradigm in Conscious Communication." Amazon Digital Services, Inc. 2014.
Miller, Rory and Kane, Lawrence A. "Scaling Force: Dynamic Decision-making under Threat of Violence." YMAA Publisher. New Hampshire. 2012
Miller, Rory. "Force Decisions: A Citizen's Guide." YMAA Publications. NH. 2012.
Miller, Rory Sgt. "Facing Violence: Preparing for the Unexpected." YMAA Publishing. 2011.
Elgin, Suzette Haden, Ph.D. "More on the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense." Prentice Hall. New Jersey. 1983.
Elgin, Suzette. "The Last Word on the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense" Barnes & Noble. 1995
Morris, Desmond. “Manwatching: A Field Guide to Human Behavior.” Harry N. Abrams. April 1979.
MacYoung, Marc. “Writing Violence #1: Getting Shot.” NNSD. Amazon Digital. 2014.
MacYoung, Marc. “Writing Violence #2: Getting Stabbed.” NNSD. Amazon Digital. 2015.
Elgin, Suzette. "The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense" Barnes & Noble. 1993.
Elgin, Suzette. "The Gentle Art of Written Self-Defense" MJF Books. 1997.
Maffetone, Philip Dr. “The Maffetone Method: The Holistic, Low-stress, No-Pain Way to Exceptional Fitness.” McGraw Hill, New York. 2000
Strong, Sanford. “Strong on Defense_ Survival Rules to Protect you and your Family from Crime.” Pocket Books. New York. 1996.
and more … see blog bibliography.
Jahn, C. R. “FTW Self Defense.” iUniverse. Amazon Digital Services. 2012
Jahn, C. R. “Hardcore Self Defense.” iUniverse. Amazon Digital Services. 2002.
No comments:
Post a Comment