Social Engineering: How Crowdmasters, Phreaks, Hackers, And Trolls Created A New Form Of Manipulative Communication isbn:9780262543453

Manipulative communication—from early twentieth-century propaganda to today’s online con artistry—examined through the lens of social engineering. The United States is awash in manipulated information about everything from election results to the effectiveness of medical treatments. Corporate social media is an especially good channel for manipulative communication, with Facebook a particularly willing vehicle for it. In Social Engineering, Robert Gehl and Sean Lawson show that online misinformation has its roots in earlier techniques: mass social engineering of the early twentieth century and interpersonal hacker social engineering of the 1970s, converging today into what they call “masspersonal social engineering.” As Gehl and Lawson trace contemporary manipulative communication back to earlier forms of social engineering, possibilities for amelioration become clearer. The authors show how specific manipulative communication practices are a mixture of information gathering, deception, and truth-indifferent statements, all with the instrumental goal of getting people to take actions the social engineer wants them to. Yet the term “fake news,” they claim, reduces everything to a true/false binary that fails to encompass the complexity of manipulative communication or to map onto many of its practices. They pay special attention to concepts and terms used by hacker social engineers, including the hacker concept of “bullshitting,” which the authors describe as a truth-indifferent mix of deception, accuracy, and sociability. They conclude with recommendations for how society can undermine masspersonal social engineering and move toward healthier democratic deliberation. Cover Half title Title Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Introduction | The Emergence of Masspersonal Social Engineering Why “Social Engineering” Is a Good Label On Social Engineering On Masspersonal Communication Masspersonal Social Engineering Plan of the Book I | Engineering the Social 1 | Crowdmasters: The Rise and Fall of Mass Social Engineering, 1920–1976 Engineering Society Social Reformers Managerialist Social Engineers Public Relations and the Mass Social Engineers “Social Engineering” Becomes a Pejorative Conclusion 2 | Phreaks and Hackers: The Rise of Interpersonal Social Engineering, 1976–Present Intellectual Roots of Hacker Social Engineering The Phone Phreaks Phreaking and Hacking via Social Engineering Hacker Social Engineering as Interpersonal Communication Relating Mass and Interpersonal Social Engineering Conclusion II | The Social Engineering Process 3 | Trashing: From Dumpster Diving to Data Dumps What Makes Social Engineering Trashing Possible? Making a Trash Society: Sanitary Engineering and Mass Social Engineering A Philosophy of Garbage In the Dumpster The Digital Dumpster Trashing in the Digital Dumpster Conclusion: Surveys, Dumpster Diving, and OSINT 4 | Pretexting: Recognizing the Mitnick Mythology Hacker Pretexting Mass Social Engineering Pretexts The “World’s Most Famous Hacker” Theories of Identity Play Recognizing Mitnick’s Pretexting Successes: Structural Factors Social Engineering and Stereotyping Conclusion 5 | Bullshitting: Deception, Friendliness, and Accuracy On Bullshit with the Phone Phreaks Bullshitting the Operator: Best Practices Bullshitting in Hacker Social Engineering Bullshit among the Mass Social Engineers Conclusion 6 | Penetrating: The Desire to Control Media and Minds Interpersonal Penetration Metaphor: Sexual Conquest Professional Penetration Mass Social Engineering Metaphors: Bullets Media Penetration by the Numbers Penetrating Us for Our Own Good? Conclusion III | Masspersonal Social Engineering 7 | Contemporary Masspersonal Social Engineering The Social Engineering Process Masspersonal Social Engineering Cases: Russia and Cambridge Analytica Masspersonal Social Engineering since 2016 Conclusion 8 | Conclusion: Ameliorating Masspersonal Social Engineering Is Masspersonal Social Engineering Effective? Can Masspersonal Social Engineering Be Ethical? What to Do about Masspersonal Social Engineering? Notes Introduction Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Bibliography Index The United States is awash in manipulated information about everything from election results to the effectiveness of medical treatments. Corporate social media is an especially good channel for manipulative communication, with Facebook a particularly willing vehicle for it. In Social Engineering, Robert Gehl and Sean Lawson show that online misinformation has its roots in earlier techniques: mass social engineering of the early twentieth century and interpersonal hacker social engineering of the 1970s, converging today into what they call ?masspersonal social engineering.? As Gehl and Lawson trace contemporary manipulative communication back to earlier forms of social engineering, possibilities for amelioration become clearer.00The authors show how specific manipulative communication practices are a mixture of information gathering, deception, and truth-indifferent statements, all with the instrumental goal of getting people to take actions the social engineer wants them to. Yet the term ?fake news,? they claim, reduces everything to a true/false binary that fails to encompass the complexity of manipulative communication or to map onto many of its practices. They pay special attention to concepts and terms used by hacker social engineers, including the hacker concept of ?bullshitting,? which the authors describe as a truth-indifferent mix of deception, accuracy, and sociability. They conclude with recommendations for how society can undermine masspersonal social engineering and move toward healthier democratic deliberation "From the phone phreaks of the 1970s to Anonymous, how how hackers deploy persuasion, helpfulness, manipulation, and deception to gain access to sensitive information"-- Provided by publisher