[Music]
this is one that i was very excited to
hear as well uh
well
it's a heuristic park uh why we can't we
can fake it until we make it
uh so our presenter iscomo is going to
share on these topics
why do we believe in fake news and what
are new silos and more topics this
lecture discusses the psychological
reasons as seen from the perspective of
a social engineer and we were talking
beforehand he wanted to uh point out
that you know if you're thinking of
social engineering just in terms of of
one area might come up in a
security-focused con like this
thinking just in terms of manipulation
to say bypass a security protocol you're
missing a lot of the apparatus of what
he'll be talking about
this talk
explores further and focuses on ways
that we respond neurologically hardwired
uh to to details and uh and what some of
the consequences are related to this
topic so thank you very much
thank you
um so um first and foremost i might need
to apologize up front because i might
look a little fatigued
and off-balance and that's not because
it's day three and it's 11 a.m at a
hacker camp because it is
um
kudos to you for being here at this time
and the only advantage that we have is
that it's not too hot yet in this stand
so with me it's actually medical
i'm suffering some post co-fit things so
if you see me wobble around a little bit
that's medical and it's okay i'm fine
but it looks a bit funny sometimes
that having said
i can fully uh adhere to what you said
wear a mask when asked protect each
other be careful because coverage is not
over
so that being said a small introduction
and this is very scary for me
in my spare time i do some magic for
children a little car tricks and a
little
making stuff disappear and reappear
and the most scary thing you can do is
perform for magicians because they know
all your
and they will call you out if it's not
perfect and i have the same feeling here
because it's all hackers you know you
guys know about social engineering
and probably because you're here you
know a little bit more or at least
you're interested in social engineering
so i'll have to do my best today and
i'll try this talk is meant to be a
little longer than the 15 minutes that i
got so i might skip some things but
first by raise of hand how many people
understand dutch quite well
okay so there is some slides in there uh
which are examples but they are in dutch
so i'll be showing them um not taking
too much time about them but they're
funny to see so
uh that's good
a small introduction i'm a social
engineer i have been for a lot of time a
lot of years
i've been pentesting companies
professionally for 15.
after that my face got you know on too
many wanted posters and i had to stop
doing that because well if you show up
and people say hey that's the guy from
last time that is
problematic uh also for the rest of your
team still conducting the test so i
decided to go and teach and that's why i
do at this moment
so
furthermore i'm a researcher
this stuff is very interesting it stays
very interesting so you read all about
it and you you delve into it very deeply
and i do stuff like this public speaking
i attend conferences
and of course we have this wonderful
angry nerds podcast it's in dutch
find it it's funny
right um
i have been sweating on this one for a
long time because i needed to form a
definition of social engineering and i
started writing its techniques
psychological techniques to uh get your
password no that's not it it's uh to to
make you do things that you actually
don't want or
cannot or no that's not it either and
and it became a very very long and
confusing definition like most job
descriptions very long and confusing and
half of it is not even true
so i came up with this actually it's two
words
there's the word social which is any
interaction you have with other people
you can
initiate or undergo it
and you have engineering which is
you have a plan you you design something
and from that design you go and build a
house a bridge anything
so if you combine those two and you say
okay i'm going to have a social
interaction with anyone
by a design to get to a certain goal
that is what social engineering is it's
nothing more it's nothing less this is a
very clean definition that i could come
up with just by translating those two
words
so what is it
it is being clever with the truth
and that you can do that by words just
by playing lying we'll get to that later
on
you can you could uh indirectly lie
by showing up in a nice suit
just because you have an interview or
something uh or you could um
fuddle with the truth
we'll get to that later as well
or you could just
set the scene
you see it in bitcoin it's great bitcoin
is great look at all these fancy offices
and these great companies that do all
kinds of wonderful stuff
of course bitcoin is not a very good
idea at least that's my opinion but
it gets hyped a lot sorry for the guys
having bitcoin i mean
yes it's not a good time for bitcoin
so who does it
and this is uh actually a small nerd
joke
some of you will get it
um criminals lawyers um sales people of
course um but parents also
we have a four-year-old
and we have to socially engineer the
hell out of her to get her to eat her
fetchies
and get to sleep in time
but children can also social engineer
very well especially ours
she knows exactly how to look how to
smile to get candy or
um to stay up later or
and and i don't know how many of you
have kids
respect
so this is very hard you know they they
come up with all kinds of crazy stuff to
not have to go to sleep i need to pee i
need to drink i need to do that's also
social engineering you just adjust your
normal behavior to to make it logical
what you're doing so actually anyone
everyone social engineers
i am not at this moment because this is
what i actually look like but at work i
wear other stuff of course you don't go
to work in the in the
couch outfit let's say it like that
so why do we do it this is still
an introduction that you're probably
familiar with
you could go for influencing people
and there is a subtle difference but a
very important difference between
influence and manipulation
because i think manipulation is the bad
kind and influence is good you can also
you can influence
people to get them in a certain track
which is actually in their own interest
um an example that i sometimes use is
that when you go to the hospital and
there's a doctor he comes up to you with
his hands in his pockets he says oh yeah
you have cancer that is weird right
so these doctors they get trained
to bring this news
in a special way
you have to surf it up
so you won't
black out if i go and tell you hey you
have cancer i can be sure that anything
i say after that will not
not land you you just don't hear it
and it's in your interest and in the
interest of the doctor that you keep
listening
so he probably invites you over okay
come sit down i have some coffee i
looked at your test results
this is what i found
there's treatments but it is severe so
we have to do this and this and this and
this and this and you won't use the word
cancer
until it's absolutely necessary just to
keep you
listening
and doctors know this so that's what
they learn
social engineering influencing
also has a good side but when it gets to
manipulation
that's bad you don't want that
so there are some techniques and i love
listening to radio commercials uh i'm
the only one i guess
uh and it can be really funny because in
in in the netherlands we have dot nl
and that rhymes with snell you do dutch
word for fast
so they make all these rhymes
that's not because it rhymes
and it's not because they think they
have a unique little slogan but it
implies
um
urgency
very subtly but it implies urgency oh we
have only a few left
that also implies urgency and scarcity
so we we want it more
so these are techniques that
you see in marketing but you see them
and a lot of other places
too um the
the last one that's uh
one i learned very late in life um
you get a free phone when you
renew your subscription the phone is not
free
it's not
you pay for it several times
through the higher subscription rates
that you accept it's it's not a free
deal
but these are tricks the actually they
tell you that it's a free phone right
so what's interesting is i would
love to see a judge
look at a case like that and say look i
said it's a free phone
it's not free i want a free phone so
and try to
there is actually a guy who does that
with all kinds of commercials and he he
wins those cases as well
this is very funny um
so we can play on emotions and this is
where it gets interesting we know that
fear is a big one insecurities lots of
people are insecure
and if you go and stress them um and
later on we'll see why
they will cooperate
sooner
than there is greed when i tell you that
i can double your money in two days of
course you want to you wouldn't want it
um
but it's also a cue for you to start
thinking because when it sounds too good
to be true it is
um and then there is confidence of
course we can get the other way around
and get people really confident about
something and then
take them along for a ride
and they fail miserably
because we are very good at getting them
that's the confidence games right you
see them on tv all the time
and then the last one and that's the one
i'm talking about today
there is cognitive biases and there's
heuristics
and these are
properties of your brain
that we try to exploit
because what would be better for a
social engineer
to find a flaw in your brain
play on that flaw and you don't have any
defense against it
i mean you will go for it
even though you know you are scammed
um it's like
it's impossible not to be startled
think about it it's not you you can't
not be startled and we tested this with
a a guy very highly educated guy very
very smart and we told him okay we have
a haunted house here we build it
and there is a few rooms so i will tell
you from from any second when you go in
uh after two seconds you feel a little
bump there is uh something on the floor
the doorknob is slimy
there is
like fake spider webs and there is stuff
and there is wind blowing and an evil
sound and you hear this and you hear
that and after exactly seven seconds
a guy in a black suit on the floor will
grab your ankles
seven seconds
so just go in there and count one two
three
and it was impossible for this guy not
to be startled
even when we counted down
through an intercom
we sat there and we said five four three
two blah and it was he still was
it's impossible because this takes place
in an other part of your brain
and if you can tap into that as a social
engineer you always win
so this is where this talk gets
interesting
and of course there's identity fraud
this is the first recorded case effort
of identity fraud i just wanted to show
you that
um
okay
who's very fast at thinking but because
we see patterns all the time right who's
very fast what's on the question mark
who knows
just by raise of hand who can see it
okay
any answers
25
okay any anything else on 25
it's not true
it's not 25
and this is because the fast part of the
brain there is two systems actually uh
daniel kahneman a very famous
psychologist a writer
he talks about these two systems we have
the fast and the slow system and the
slow system is the reasonable part i
think okay look what is what is it what
does it say
and what is this
and the fast part says 5 10 feet oh it's
25
and you're done with it
so we tap into that the fast part it is
not 25 because the answer is right there
it's five one is five so five is one
right
that's what what it says
this is not a range it looks like a
range
but it is not
and only if you tap into the slower part
of your brain say look what what
oh yeah it's right there it's five
then you get the right answer so this is
a perfect example for what we call
heuristics and heuristics are shortcuts
in your brain why do we have these
it does not it says so
oh
of course mathematically this is
incorrect
true
true but for this example it is um
because you know
but okay i should have i should have
said one x or something
so i could move it away with it you're
right very very sure
okay so why do we do this uh the brain
has uh an energy saver
and luckily lucky for us because if your
brain would be on all the time and in in
thinking mode it would consume about a
quarter of your energy
and for something that has a weight of
only two percent of your whole body
using a quarter of your energy that's a
lot
so your brain taught itself to go into
saving mode
and saving mode is very easy because we
have all these heuristics we can we see
a range you say oh yeah you see that
that's 25. i don't have to go and
calculate i don't have to go and check i
think i see it it's right there i see a
pattern
and this is what the brain does
also the brain has if you they call it
neuroplasticity
it forms new
paths
between your neurons and
when you do that often enough
they become common sense
later on we we go into
uh the the guys that deny
co-fit and stuff like that
that has a reason
no one is that stupid right
i i hope
okay
so there's a few of those and some of
them are very funny
and some of them are not
actually they're all not but some are
you can laugh about them the expert
heuristic
if there is an expert and we we know
that he is or she is then we believe
if the doctor tells me that something is
wrong i believe him um if my
garage tells me there's something wrong
with my car i
wrong wrong example maybe but
doctors
normally you trust so there's the
consistency heuristic
uh it's all about um
when you see something often enough
you see it there and you see it there
and you see it there and there's several
sources and they all say the same well
it should be true right
that's the consistent consistency
heuristic then there's a bandwagon
heuristic and that's everybody does it
who of you has what's up on their phone
on a hacker camp
are you kidding
okay who is signal and who if you have
trouble convincing their family and
friends
to leave what's up alone
almost everyone right and what's the
argument you always get
yeah they all have it
i won't miss out because if i don't have
whatsapp i can't message all my friends
so and i have this discussion with my
dad he's yeah all my friends are on
what's up i said you have only two
friends left
the rest is dead
um he doesn't like that argument but
it's true
so there's no reason for him to be on
signal
but i couldn't win that argument as a
social engineer that's very frustrating
so i
found another way to win it
even though his argument was
valid in his eyes i said okay so you
don't want any pictures of your
grandchild
now he has single that's very good
that's the bandwagon heuristic
persuasive intent is actually refers
i have this very strongly if i see a
salesman something with a plastic smile
and hey
hello
i recognize all these techniques and i
my my the hairs in the back of my neck
they just stand up and i'm like okay
off
that's the
persuasive and time heuristic um and on
the expectancy violation heuristic
that's uh i have a slightly illustrated
that's very funny but it's in dutch so
this is the expert heuristic
in the old days this was the expert he
was on a square in the market and he was
there and this was the doctor right
he said oh yeah you're sick we'll just
let some blood out because your blood is
probably sick we let something out and
you'll be fine and take this
it's only four pieces of gold but it
helps against everything
sounds a bit like the guy that comes
over to your office and said look i have
the problem to your network solutions
right all your network
problems right i said it right i have
the problem to all your network
solutions
but this guy has a nice silk tie and he
comes over to you and says look if you
buy this you have no further problems
this is a super modern firewall
and it's smart and it has blockchain
recognize this
these guys
but it's the same as this guy
so i have some experts here um
any opinions who is the real expert
we have uh this guy from a dutch
commercial long time ago bye from the
ain't obviously saying
um
expert
no
okay then um
person b
the guy from twitter
um
expert
name
okay see that's a guy that's an actor
with a white coat
pretending to be a dentist no
remember that guy by with d remember him
he was hilarious
that was great yeah i mean war is never
funny but this guy was he should have
had a red nose
there are no american tanks in iraq and
you saw them pass by behind him
it was hilarious so um
then
he's the weather guy dutch weather guy
expert
yeah maybe okay
let's continue yomanda remember yomanda
[Music]
you're all healed
if only
um and then we have who's that
g
i don't think
anyone at a hacker congrats
would have heard of this woman
ryan very broke expert
well maybe an expert social engineer we
don't know
but the true expert is her team star
weather guy he has two masters and five
bachelors
in all kinds of climate studies he knows
a lot about his work
and the fact that he comes on tv and
very casually tells you that the sun's
gonna shine tomorrow doesn't mean that
he is
not very very very smart like because he
is
okay and then context is also very
important
i know a lot of pcs
cybers i know a lot of cybers you all do
know a lot of cybers but don't let me do
that
because that will not
play out well
so then there's the consistency
heuristic i told you about this already
is about fake news and when you read it
over and over and over and over again
it might become true for you
the danger is that we form bubbles
the algorithms of facebook twitter and
all the other stuff there
they
are meant for only one thing to keep you
on their side
to keep you watching reading looking
and they can do that by only one way and
that's by showing you more of what you
already like
so they choose for you what news you get
to see and you don't get to see any
contradictory news because you don't
like that and you might just close your
browser
so they show you more of the same
only they don't check
if it's true what they show you
bandwagon we told we talked about this
persuasive attempt i like the
illustration on this one
um and this is for the dutch guys here
uh i'll just give you a second to just
to read them all
expectancy violation has to do with
you you have an expectancy in this in
this case it's the city and you might
think that guys working for the city
doing all kinds of official business
they know what they're doing right
what they don't
at least not always and these are
examples of really really gross spelling
mistakes very funny ones as well
i mean
this this
here in
this should mean goes for the entire
street
but the way they spelled it means
there's money for the entire street
so it's maybe they they won this
postcard low today you know the truck
comes in that that could be true but
why could a sign up
this is weird so
i like the expect to see violation bias
it's very nice
sometimes people make mistakes and this
is a pretty rough story
we have the dutch ministry of defense
and i can speak about it some because
it's a long time ago and it's fixed in
the meantime but but this is the website
of miroslav mindev
and the domain is mindef.nl
but that is also with one different one
little letter difference it's the
ministry of defense.nl
so the guy that ran this domain
got all kinds of emails for the dutch
ministry of defense because people made
a little spelling mistake
and there's those were
not funny these males
so when people make mistakes
even tiny ones it can have large
consequences and if we can get people to
make these
mistakes on based on of the heuristics
we already know
we just invite you to make the mistake
like like the little table there it was
not 25 but it's very easy to go for it
and you're in trouble right so truth
what is true
and this is a very hot discussion at
this moment
some things seem true some things
feel true it's it has to do with
experience and what you can see and what
you can hear and what you can touch and
but is it
when i do a car trick or trick with some
ropes with turnout turn out to be the
same length or they don't
people see it happen but what you see is
not what's happening and what's
happening is not what you see that's the
definition of an illusion
and that having said truth is very very
fluid
indeed
so in the us they have this very very
cool oath when you go before a judge
guys know that
you hear it on tv all the time right
do you solemnly swear to tell the truth
the whole truth and nothing but the
truth i think this is genius
because what you say is
okay do you swear to tell the truth
that covers lies of commission
plain out lies
you just tell something that's not true
the other one the whole truth covers
lives of omission
stuff you leave out
and it's also very easy to do
yeah i went to bolivia on a business
trip
i don't have to tell people that i have
a mistress there
it was actually a business trip
sorry dear um
not true by the way um and nothing but
the truth is lies of influence and they
are the tricky ones
because
how many times have you seen this in
courtroom dramas that a suspect does not
really answer the question but
look i'm a respectable guy i would never
do something like that i'm
a bible salesman and i'm volunteering at
the school and i'm doing this something
he didn't answer the question
he's trying to get way around
and these are lies of influence just by
getting yourself into what we call the
halo effect being
a true angel
become an angel by the way that's very
they need angels um but getting yourself
on that
level of look
i i would never
you know
it's also lying but it's very very
subtle and it's very hard to catch
and this is sometimes it's it's
um
how do you say that politely
sometimes it's by design and sometimes
it's just plain stupid
umptenades
it's the language that civil servants
tend to use
i see a lot of memos
in my line of work
and i have to take a lot of time to
decipher what they really say
and for dutch speaking these are and i
have permission to show these
these are
actually what's up messages
of um students
working with the dutch government um
trainees
talking to each other about what they're
going to do next
and if you read their whatsapps
holy that's not going to be funny
if this guy really gets
to be a civil servant or this guy
that is bad
but we do that ourselves because this
is part of the hampton out of it
it's the rules and regulations that
dictate what a civil servant should and
should not do
look how that is written
could you expect for for any normal
person to know what just says exactly
with all the ins and outs you need a
lawyer for that
you can't do that
and that causes a lot of mistakes as
well
and then this is a favorite of mine
it has been decided
light on the forum is in dutch i i don't
really know the english translation for
light on the forum because i'm not a
grammar student but um
passive stance
thanks uh passive then so you say well
it has been decided
and so what has been decided by who when
uh what were the measures uh what what
were you guys talking about anyway what
meeting was that and who decided and was
he even competent to do that or
was he in charge
anyway
no it has been decided you know we uh we
talked about it and uh
so just be careful when you see this in
a memo always try to get things very
clear and my colleagues hate me for it
because i always return their memos so i
don't know i i don't understand just be
clear and short
if you can't put it on the back of a
coaster i won't read it
they hate me for that
then there's critical thinking
this is a problem we have a lot these
days but i saw it on the internet so it
must be true
i saw it a lot of times on the internet
oh that's a consistency heuristic right
but if you're in a certain bubble and
things get filtered out
you don't know what gets left out of
your bubble
it's a very dangerous thing to do
anyone can learn to be a critical
thinker but no one seems to be
or do so because it's inconvenient you
need your system too the slow system for
that
and that takes a lot of energy
which we don't always have
not the time not the energy so that's a
problem
there is a drug to help you
so you could take this if any of this
comes your way and this is a grain of
salt
so
think about that when you hear some
ravel and it comes
over you like a thunderstorm take this
grain of
salt take a step back go and use system
two
and if you're too fatigued or pressed
for time or whatever just don't do it
so look i have to look at this more
closely i'll get back to you
don't let them suck you into it
new silos are very dangerous this is
what
this is where the consistency heuristic
lives
i told you about this the
the facebooks and the twitters and
instagrams they they want you to stay on
their page so they will all always tell
you what you want to hear not what you
should hear
and they tell all your friends too and
they select friends for you
to see
in that same bubble
as very dangerous um we tried this with
several accounts we made new accounts
and uh we posted just one remark on
twitter at one account and the other and
one was um
for trump and the other was against
trump and we left the accounts alone
and after a while we we looked at their
separate timelines that was horrifying
the differences that you see and the
truth
truth in in quotation marks that they
try to tell you
because actually the one that was quite
positive about trump
got a love this is true and this is true
and this is true and trump this great
guy and you would almost believe it and
the other one was exactly the opposite
it can't both be true right
this guy says it very well if you want
to take a picture of the screen this is
this is the picture you should take
um
he says this these bubbles you don't get
to decide what gets in or out
and you don't know what gets left out
this is a very very strong remark
and always be aware of this thanks
so
you have an opinion right
that's great
um
these guys
if you know dutch politics these are the
most left guy and most right guy
and they try to make you believe that
there is such a thing as left and right
which there is obviously not
i mean you can be all for climate
and we have to save the climate and i
think so too but you can't be against a
lot of other things that we also need to
just only save the climate and only give
money to poor people and be very very
very left and
that it's ridiculous you have to keep
thinking about each separate problem and
and try to
get
to the bottom of it
a lot of people don't get that um but
i've looked into this and daniel offman
has made a
diagram and i thought i could use that
to to illustrate what i mean
so if you take a core quality let's say
we have mobility
uh you want to get from here to there
and maybe you work a long way from home
so you need a car right but a car
comes with problems
if it's too much we have pollution we
have traffic jams we have all these
things
so we need to mitigate we need to find
some ways
and that could be anything we could make
bigger or better roads or more roads or
less cars or try to spread uh traffic
over a period of time or there's a lot
of things we could talk about to
mitigate the problem that arises from
mobility
but if you
go too much the other way
you get to be amsterdam
ban all combustion engines
sucks by the way if you have a car don't
go there
[Music]
so
um that's the allergy don't go there
and what we see is when you have a
debate about things
best do it in the green zone
this is what we actually want
we we recognize the problems
and we have a challenge and let's talk
about this
what you see in debate
in politics
this guy is going nuts about that
because it's very strong right burn all
combustion engines
yeah
good for you right but it's not a
discussion you should want to see
it should be in the green zone
so and and then there is of course uh
the dunning-kruger effect heard about it
i love the dunning-kruger effect
um it's the theory is that the less you
know about something the more you feel
like knowing about it
so when i bought a computer in 1983
uh i i learned some basic and i did some
which stuff i i'm the biggest expert in
street in fact i was because i was the
only computer user in the street but
you get a lot of confidence from that
and of course you do
when you grow into that profession you
you think okay now i do i know a lot
about it and you come here and you think
i don't know
so that's
that's um so probably when you think
that you are somewhere here on the slope
of enlightenment
but everyone
seems to start at the peak of my mount
stupid your confidence is really high
but your knowledge is not
and i love this diagram it's my favorite
slide of the entire deck
so then there is influence by proxy
and centric hates me for leaving this in
they asked me now several times to get
their logo the out of there but
we know we all know what influenced by
proxy is by now right
it's leon from rybrook against herrera
sandring
he is whispering in his ears isolating
him from the rest of the world because
this guy is not stupid
he's a millionaire
he knows what he's doing the only reason
he believes in her is that he doesn't
get any other information he's in a
bubble
so that's a problem
and influenced by proxy he is the boss
of all these companies but she runs them
it's very dangerous
this i'll leave for now
this is why i meant with brevity when i
get a very long memo and it's very
elaborate and there is a lot of
passive tense thanks um
i just sent it back so i i don't get
what you're saying here it's too long to
read
it's too complicated for me i don't get
it
and i'll just play stupid
so
tell them explain me like i'm five
and you gotta love the discussion about
that and say okay but you're not five
years old you went to university yes i
know but explain like i'm five
because it prevents you from lying
and hiding it
so and and that's actually very hard to
get to the point so that's why this
phrase is very nice i'm sorry i had to
write such a long letter but i didn't
have time to write a short one
because you have to think about that
get to the point
okay fishing i'll leave out because
everyone here knows about fishing right
this is a very nice tweet these are some
random shots that i collected here and
there
professor fooling you
he is
a security philosopher actually it's me
and he said well criminals they have a
new way to make you pay a lot of money
for
you know anything so um
for only 3 500 i'll tell you all about
it
of course this is funny right
but not why you think it is
it's not because i might be the criminal
and i get to the 35 just by saying okay
i'll tell you the secret
that's not what it is
because in
the boardrooms
we cut swindled a lot
and if you get a consultant for 3500 and
he says look
that is 1.6 million not well spent i
wouldn't do that
this money was spent right
they save you from a lot of trouble
so nothing is really what it seems this
seems to be a bad idea but it's not not
in every case so just give me the 35 and
that's good
um here are some countermeasures most of
them i already touched ask for clarity
and details
and just tell them it's too long too
long i didn't read it's too complicated
make it simple make simple statements i
want to know what you're actually saying
go to your system too think about it
don't let yourself get pressed into time
your brain consists of three parts
ten minutes thanks
we have
the frontal lobe prefrontal cortex this
is your this is where the thinking
happens this is what most of us do here
um
then there's the middle part which is
mostly medical there is all kinds of
subsystems there hormones drugs
there's all kinds of stuff going on
there
and then there is the reptilian brain
and this is the link to jurassic park
the dinosaur at front
which is
actually the boss of them all
and this is where fear flight fight all
those responses come from so if you try
to tap in this here
all the other brain parts will be silent
or at least distorted enough not to
function very well
if you tap into this one
the emotional bit hormones that's why
men do stupid things
you see nice lady and think that's right
and this stops working
that's why ladies that's why we do that
so
if you want them to piss off tap in the
other one because the hierarchy is from
here to here this is the boss
scare them
propose that's very scary um
so call in external expertise that's a
very good counter measure
and discuss
scope creep we have seen that in several
projects
also in amsterdam the new subway system
way over time way over budget but it
couldn't go back
so that's a problem discuss it and
discuss the exit terms
because you can't
build half a subway system say oh yeah
okay
you will just stop get some landfill
close it up
shame
so you have to discuss those things
our world in data i want just wanted to
mention it it's a very good resource for
statistics
if you want to know if something is
actually true
poverty is rising
well these guys
they they kept records of poverty over
the last 20 years so go look
is it actually true
our world in data is very good
yes
so reclaim your brain get rid of bad
apps from your phone this is
i i told you the talk is actually bigger
so and tell people to get rid of
whatsapp and stuff like that uh browser
extensions that's also for the larger
part
and ask questions this is very important
try to be the boss of the conversation
and try to
pinpoint all the heuristics they're
getting to and
you know marketeers good marketeers they
know all this stuff already
it's up to you to also know
[Music]
um
segregation we also know uh communicate
this is this is important as well if i
social engineer someone let's say i want
to get into this
this complex here and i don't have a
ticket and i go try it that way
and i make a lot of fuss and they send
me away and i'll try the other entrance
and they don't know about me
it might work
but if there's those guys got on the
radio say look there's a weird guy here
trying to get in so everyone be on
lookout you know it's weird
my chances are very slim after that
so these are some sources
um
here's an egg it's a dutch
machitscorn
neurosurgeon
very very good book
read it
factfulness hans rosling is no longer
alive but he left us a great book
and
richard nisbet with mindware also very
very well recommended
and
listen to the podcast because it's fun
now you don't have to
right cyber thank you
and uh if there's any questions i'll be
happy to answer
[Music]
great uh if you have a question uh
please line up uh by the microphone in
the middle and uh first we'll check with
signal uh so we okay none for the
internet right now why don't you go
ahead and start with the first question
i thank you at first for the talk it was
very interesting and i learned a lot
i was wondering about the principle of
people like which are in extremely uh
bubbles but
but they know
but they think everyone else is in a
bubble so they know the theory about
bubbles they know the theory about how
you get the information you want but
they think they're the only one with the
truth and that everyone else is being
lied to in the bubble and etc and like
for example the flat earth
people
some things like that like the most
ridiculous truths but still they they
know
they know all the theories which are
being discussed they but they can't seem
to
apply it to themselves they only they
use it to discredit everyone else can
you
tell us have you had some tips yeah of
course these these are complete
theorists and this works exactly that
way there's bubbles and they get served
all the stuff they want to hear and
sometimes some some little proof seeps
in like we have a picture of the earth
right
it's not flat
but they flat they just deny that see
look but you're all out to get us i see
this the entire day and everybody's
telling me and so you must be wrong
and that's what's happening and if your
bubble gets large enough you you get you
tend to be
you know these these neuropaths the new
parts that you are creating by
constantly seeing the same and the same
and same over again these parts are very
hard to break
so this is what happens
most curious in is like
they they tell so they know that bubbles
exist they know that oh you're in a
bubble you're so of course yes why can't
they um
mirror that to their own situation why
because if i get a new theory like if i
hear this and i wouldn't know about it i
think oh maybe this applies to me maybe
this but
how can you
know that it exists but then not
applying it to yourself that's that's
the thing like i'm wondering what
happens that's called confirmation bias
and you are naturally inclined to always
look at what supports your belief
so things that don't support your belief
they don't feel good
because nobody likes to be wrong
so i have some pieces of information and
because of the bubble i have a lot of
this and there is this and that doesn't
just feel good so i'll try to find some
reasons to deny it or
ignore it or whatever because uh and
that's confirmation bias you're always
looking for confirmation
what you already think is the truth
that's a natural tendency it's one of
the heuristics
and yeah we just have time for one last
question if it's somewhat brief and
direct concise like he was advising i'll
try uh thank you for the talk um can you
talk a bit about how you got started
with social engineering excuse me can
you talk a bit about how you started get
with social engineering oh this is a
very long story but um if you guys like
i'll be over there somewhere or we'll
find a nice spot drink some water do
drink water uh and just find me here and
we can talk some more if you like
and given uh his his expertise uh you
should engage to see what it's like to
to be social with a social engineer and
with that let's let's thank him again
for amazing i can tell you
[Applause]