::scr hacking in life

[Piers Cawley]

Simon Wistow <simon@thegestalt.org> writes:

> On Tue, Feb 05, 2002 at 05:06:52PM +0000, Chris Heathcote said:
>> I've always said that if someone gave me 100 grand, I could get them a UK
>> number one. I'm interested in the poor, poor systems put in place to stop
>> rigging.
>
> Didn't the KLF do it for cheaper than that? ;) 
>
> Seriously though, I'm interested, how would you do it?
>  
>> Another one is going into an office, and sitting down and pretending to
>> work. For 6 months. Also, walking into an office and attending a random
>> meeting.
>
> Social Engineering is by far the most interestingaspect of hacking
> AFAIC - organisations work on the beehive principle : bees will
> attack anything that tries to enter their hive but, once it's
> inside, they won't even notice it. Similarly half the time if you
> just sit down in an office people will assume that Someone has put
> you there. It's Douglas Adams' "Someone Elses Problem Field".

It's also, at some level, how magic works. The barefaced lie (with
supporting 'cues') is a remarkably powerful tool. Watch someone like
Derren Brown doing his thing and even when you know how he's doing
what he's doing, it *still* looks like magic. A large part of the
'magic' of magic is in selling the lie. Ask me to show you 'twisting
the aces' tonight and I'll show you what I mean.

> Some friends of mine from the Army were given a letter from their CO
> which stated that they were on an initiative exercise for the army and
> that they had no money but had to complete several tasks such as travel
> from Oop North down to London, stay in a 5 star hotel, wear more than a
> grands worth of clothes, interview the policeman outside 10 Downing
> Street and then get home.

Hmm... sounds like an idea for a constrained walk.

> Put it this way (in an effort to make this more of a discussion) how
> many people here would like to do this sort of thing (rob banks etc
> etc) and is this a fairly common desire or is it a kind of hackery
> personality trait?

Frankly I wouldn't want to do the robbing banks thing, but one of the
aspects of magic that's always fascinated me is pickpocketing,
especially stage pickpocketing, so yeah, maybe it is.

-- 
Piers

   "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in
    possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite."
         -- Jane Austen?