Everything You Wanted to Know about
Social Engineering -- But Were Afraid to Ask...
"I
enlisted directly into NATO."
"But you can't. The only way to serve with NATO is to
enlist in one of the Services. You know, Army, Navy, Air Force?"
Se7en insisted, however, that he had enlisted directly in
NATO. I countered, "Se7en, there is no way I will believe
that. In fact, a few years ago I did a consulting job on the
history of military procurement law in the US. I've been a contractor
on military projects for many years. There is no way you can
persuade me you enlisted directly with NATO."
I expected Se7en to admit to faking his resume and them claim
it was a practical joke just to test me. I still really wanted
to believe the Se7en legend. However, he looked at Thieme imploringly.
"Would you believe me if I produced documentation?"
Thieme shook his head.
"I have photos to prove it."
"There is no way," replied Thieme.
Then I turned to the listing in Se7en's resume that claimed
he had been a Unix system administrator for one year. I figured
the fellow was kind of in shock by now, so I took an oblique
approach. I tried to strike up a conversation about Unix and
TCP/IP arcana. After a few minutes Se7en confessed, "I'm
not a computer hacker. I'm a phone freak."
Se7en was really in trouble now. At the time I was working
as a consultant for American Paging looking into advanced telecommunications
technologies. My first modem was a wooden box that could do 150
baud with an acoustic connection through a phone line to a PDP
11/23. I once built a blue box. (I confess - I wasn't always
perfect, but it was way back in 1974.) Oh, yes, you could verify
this by asking the management of American Paging whether I really
had worked on this for them. Now I'm not claiming to be an Überexpert
on telecommunications - but I do know a thing or two.
More on social engineering --->
Back to the index of "Everything You
Wanted to Know About Social Engineering -- But Were Afraid to
Ask --->
