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Social Engineering 101: The Science for Change or Control?

• Scratchwerk Tech

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Unlock the transformative power of social engineering as we challenge conventional perspectives. Ever wondered how technology and policy silently shape our daily lives and societal norms? This episode promises to reveal the dual nature of social engineering, from its sometimes negative reputation to its potential for driving positive social change. 

We trace social engineering's fingerprints across modern society, observing the shift from traditional habits to new norms driven by ride-sharing apps and streaming services. Policy and tech have reshaped our behaviors, and we, in turn, influence their evolution. Our discussion extends to developing tools aimed at nurturing communities and addressing societal concerns often left at the dinner table. The Scratchwerk Podcast invites you to step beyond conversation and into the realm of action, harnessing creative thinking to imagine and inspire solutions for a better future.

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Speaker 1:

We've all heard the term social engineering, particularly when it comes to trying to get a large group of people to think and act in a certain way, and, at least for me, social engineering has always been somewhat of a negative concept in my mind. Nobody wants to be socially engineered, nobody wants to be a part of a social engineering experiment, but in a lot of ways, if social engineering is inevitable in which I believe it is, it's constantly happening all of the time. If social engineering is inevitable, would we rather be the engineer or the one being engineered, if social engineering is going to happen anyway? But I'm so frustrated. Hello to my loneliness. I guess that endurance is bliss. Take me back to before the noon, go away and take it out of Q. So in my tech incubator program that we host, we normally meet with students every single day of the week online for about an hour and a half and they're learning all kinds of different things AI and video game development, machine learning, things like that and we have a lot of just excellent, brilliant, brilliant students, brilliant young minds, and normally class lasts for about an hour hour and 15 minutes, but we always after class allow sometimes almost like office hours, so we just allow students who want to hang around after to ask a few questions, maybe show off some of the personal projects, and over the last week or so we had a few students who were working on a personal project of mine. Matter of fact, when we're on these virtual calls with the students, sometimes it's 60, 80 something students on a call and for the most part everybody's highly engaged. I mean, you're talking about 16 to 21 year olds. They're interested in technology, they're locked in, so for the most part everybody's highly engaged, but of course you're talking about 60, 80 kids. Somebody is not going to be paying attention sometimes, even if they have their camera on.

Speaker 1:

And I challenged some of the students who were staying after during office hours. I was challenging them to maybe create some type of AI algorithm model or something that can actually detect participation amongst the students on the call. And it was just a good activity, if for nothing else, for them to just kind of think through how would they do that? Right? And when you think about participation on the call a call like that there's a lot of things to kind of consider. Right, a, is the student even on the call? Right, that's part of participating. Are they on the call? Do they have their camera on? Are they chatting in the chat? Are they speaking up? Are they sharing their work, all those different things? Are they, you know, laughing in the background, or are they actually paying attention? And, in terms of participation, sometimes it's really kind of hard to determine if a student is actually locked in participating, as opposed to maybe they just aren't talking. We have some students who they can go the entire call and not say anything, but they are locked in. They're participating for sure.

Speaker 1:

And the students were asking me, as we were challenged with this problem of creating an AI model to determine participation, how in the world can they accurately create something that's going to determine participation? You have to think. I mean, just because a student isn't looking in the camera doesn't mean they're not participating, or just because they aren't responding doesn't mean they're not participating. So, mr King, they asked how in the world can we do this? How can we just assume that a student who's not looking in the camera is not participating? And I said we can think about this in one of two ways. One way we can try to find some elaborate technology, or maybe we can figure out another way to put something in their home where we can determine whether or not they're actually participating if they're not looking at the screen. That's one way. But that feels so complicated. It really feels so complicated.

Speaker 1:

But I asked them. I said well, what if you just said participation is defined as such Logging in, looking directly in the camera for 80, 90% of the meeting, responding at least five times in the meeting on chat and speaking up at least two times in the meeting verbally to share your work, right, so you're looking in the camera 80% of the time, you are responding in the chat at least five or more times. You are sharing or talking at least two, two times or more. That will be defined as great participation. And I told them that if they actually built that and it tracked that, what did they think the students would start doing? What would they start doing when we start coming back to class, saying this is how we are grading participation and John or or Simone or whoever, you are getting 80% participation or 70 or a hundred, based on these metrics that we have defined. And I said what do you think the students will start doing If we implemented that? Every last one of them said well, do you think the students will start doing. If we implemented that, every last one of them said, well, the students would probably start looking in the camera more, they would probably start chatting in the chat more, they would start sharing at least twice, they would start speaking up on on the Zoom calls. I said exactly, exactly, exactly, exactly. You would have, in a way, kind of show them what students into participating like we need them to do. And, honestly, all of that is a small example, but that is exactly how social engineering works.

Speaker 1:

I always saw it as kind of a negative term, mostly because one of the definitions of social engineering is really actually the use of deception or manipulation to individuals and trying to trick them into releasing confidential or personal information that may be used for fraudulent purposes. It is actually a form of a cyber hack and when you think about social engineering in that term, it's definitely definitely bad. But the other term, the other definition for social engineering is the use of centralized planning in an attempt to manage social change and regulate the future development and behavior of a society. I'll say that again social engineering is the use of centralized planning in an attempt to manage social change and regulate the future development and behavior of a society, and so, while we don't normally think of social engineering as a good thing, because it feels like we might've been duped or something like that, but when we're sitting together around the dinner table and we're talking about, you know, kids these days just don't understand this and that, or suggesting that you know, as a community, we should be doing this, we should be voting more, we should be coming together more, we should do do so, on and so forth more. You do realize you are suggesting that social engineering be done, that social engineering must take place. You may not know how to do it or what technology or policy needs to be in place to do it, but you are absolutely recommending, when we are at the dinner table talking about those, those things, that we implement some form of social engineering on these kids, social engineering on these communities, social engineering on some society.

Speaker 1:

And how do I know you're recommending social engineering? Because exactly who are you referring to when you say these kids these days? Who are, who are these kids? What do you mean? When you say black folks or the community? We as a, as a, as a people, who are you talking about? That's you talking about a group of of who you are recommending social engineering, right? You want to collect a body of people to embody a new habit. That's what you're, that's basically what you're suggesting. So the question is, how? How do you get all these kids to do this new thing that you're suggesting, right? How do we get all these parents, these communities, to incorporate these new habits, these parents, these communities, to incorporate these new habits? And listen, I am a fan, I am a true fan of technology and I am a believer in policy, and I think that the two together, technology and policy nothing is more scalable in its impact than those two combined. Matter of fact, here's a, here's a hint. That is why. That is why the power grab right now at a national level involves so many radical policy changes, at the same time as they are intertwined with the Elon Musk's and every other big tech company in the world. That is why those things are moving together Technology and policy. They know, listen, facebook or Instagram plus some new policy, that equals social engineering at its highest form. It really really does. Social engineering is happening at its highest form when you mix technology with policy.

Speaker 1:

Here are some statements that you know would have sounded literally crazy in 2012. Here are some statements that would have sounded crazy in 2012. When I get off the plane, I'm going to open an app and schedule to catch a ride with a stranger who's literally on their like side gig and let them take me to the hotel in their personal car. Right, that's a crazy person statement in 2012. I'm going to get off the plane and I'm going to get in somebody's random stranger's car and they're going to take me to the hotel. That sounds crazy in 2012. Crazy in 2012.

Speaker 1:

I don't have cable TV, but I do pay for multiple streaming apps like Hulu, netflix, apple TV, max and YouTube. I pay monthly to watch all my shows. I do not have cable TV All my shows. I do not have cable TV 2012,. You're crazy. You're crazy, right, but what has changed? Policy and technology? Social engineer. We have been socially engineered, of course. Now, what am I going to do now? I can't think of another way to get to the hotel from the airport other than Uber. How else do I do that? Of course I don't have TV. Why in the world would I have cable TV? Why would you have cable TV in 2025? No, no, no, no. Technology and policy has socially engineered us. We are now changed.

Speaker 1:

Matter of fact, today, here are some statements that, if you said this today, if you said these things today, that makes you sound crazy today. My son's teacher had to whoop him with a belt a few times last week. He was acting up, so he needs to get his act together. I just found out that my son's teacher spanked him, spanked his behind, in school last week. Right, you're not allowed to say that. That's not even allowed to happen 2025, you're crazy, right? Or maybe I'm headed to the store to pick up the new Drake album that just came out yesterday. What store Pick up what music? No, policy and technology have not only changed our behaviors. It changed it in such a way where, like you, even saying some of the things that people could have said 10, 20 years ago makes you sound ridiculous. Right, social engineering, social engineering is happening all of the time.

Speaker 1:

So the question is, how do you execute social engineering? How do you execute social engineering on a society, on a people? And I believe that you do it in two ways. I believe you do it in two ways. Number one you flood the market or the community. Whatever the society is, you flood it with a new, shiny option, ie put a lot of Uber cars out there in the street, right. Make it seem more seamless, more secure than their other option. Make it seem more seamless, more secure than their other option.

Speaker 1:

So, step number one, or the avenue that you can use to social engineer society, is to flood the community with a lot of shiny new toys, right, a lot of new Uber cars. Or to To remove all of the normal options that people are used, to Just remove it off the table. So, like the tech class participation, I'm not even going to give you an option to debate with me what participation is. I'm going to tell you what it is and then that's what it is. Right, that is Trump in the White House right now taking away literally everything that has, for the most part, become standard in a lot of people's lives. We're just going to remove that and force you into new habits. We're going to force you into be, you know, to be socially engineered into a new way.

Speaker 1:

So, number one you either flood the market, you flood the community with a new shiny option, or, two or two, you remove all of the normal options off the table. That is social engineering 101. That's what you do. That's what you do, and so social engineering is happening all around us, all of the time, all the time, and in some ways we can't even help to be a participant in it. I mean you, almost. I mean, what are you going to do? Of course you're going to ride an Uber. Of course you're going to download your songs, your new songs, on Spotify, apple Music. I mean that's what we do now, but it doesn't mean we have to be mindlessly participating, right, so it's happening, but we don't have to just do it blindly.

Speaker 1:

But, more importantly, we actually have opportunities ourselves to be social engineers. We can be social engineers ourselves, and we should be, we should be thinking about social engineering. We absolutely should be doing that. Right, and, and I know some folks will say well, I mean I can't impact policy, right, only thing I can do is vote. Or maybe you got ideas, but you know you don't know how to build technology, you can't. You know you can't build the Uber app, you can't change policy. But but you absolutely, you absolutely know communities, no communities.

Speaker 1:

And so the question becomes what normal behaviors, what normal behaviors should we remove in our society, in our communities? What new, shiny things could we flood the community with? And if you can even articulate it, forget whether or not you can implement it, but think to yourself what policy would you implement? What policy would you implement?

Speaker 1:

Too often we are sending our politicians to office with no clear directions. We're not even giving them the actual blueprint to execute for us, right? We're just saying, hey, go up there, just do good on our behalf, please. We're going to vote for you. Please do good on our behalf.

Speaker 1:

But we should be actually thinking about the policy, the social engineering policy, that will make the changes that we talk about and complain about at the dinner table all the time. Oh, these kids, these kids, these days, they don't do this, they do too much of that. Well then, what policy, what policy could you recommend that a politician actually implement that will social engineer these kids or this community? It costs you nothing to think through that, it literally costs you nothing to think through that, and so we can absolutely think through that, that policy or that app, that tech, that equipment, that thing that can absolutely change our society, social engineer our community, and in a way that would benefit everybody, in a way that would benefit everybody. So again, even if we don't feel like we have the power to directly remove a normal behavior from our community, or we don't have the resources to directly remove a normal behavior from our community, or we don't have the resources to implement a bunch of shiny new options and objects to change behavior. We absolutely, absolutely can think of the idea.

Speaker 1:

We are in the idea creation business. We can think of the policy. We can think of the tech. If we want to stop some of these conversations that we're having around the dinner table, this is the Scratchwork Podcast, where we don't fear the future. We create it. One thought, one idea, one dream at a time. Thank you,