Social Engineers Research Articles

A Study of Social Engineering in Online Frauds

Social engineering is a psychological exploitation which scammers use to skillfully manipulate human weaknesses and carry out emotional attacks on innocent people. This study examined the contents of 100 phishing e-mails and 100 advance-fee-scam e-mails, and evaluated the persuasion techniques exploited by social engineers for their illegal gains. The analyses showed that alert and account verification were the two primary triggers used to raise the attention of phishing e-mail recipients. These phishing e-mails were typically followed by a threatening tone via urgency. In advance-fee e-mails, timing is a lesser concern; potential monetary gain is the main trigger. Business proposals and large unclaimed funds were the two most common incentives used to lure victims. The study revealed that social engineers use statements in positive and negative manners in combination with authoritative and urgent persuasions to influence innocent people on their decisions to respond. Since it is highly unlikely that online fraud will ever be completely eliminated, the most important strategy that can be directed to combat social engineering attacks is to educate the public on potential threats from perpetrators.

Social Engineers – Providers – Bioethicists

Social Engineers – Providers – Bioethicists

Advertising regulation and market drivers

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the regulation of advertising by considering market‐driven firms (those seeking to keep within the boundaries set by social and industry norms) and market drivers (those seeking to stretch boundaries to gain a competitive advantage). Thought is also given to the costs of regulation and tolerance to the social purse, and the benefits gained by compliance and violation.Design/methodology/approachThe authors develop a conceptual argument for boundary stretching where market drivers are present in a marketplace dominated by market‐driven firms. The authors then apply a game theory model to examine the conditions, the firm responses, and Government responses. In doing so the authors investigate incentives for non‐compliant behavior in a self‐regulated market and show that a firm can achieve a market advantage by stretching advertising boundaries.FindingsResults suggest that when government takes a “wait‐and‐see” approach of partial tolerance, then the market driver can become the focal point for the market‐driven, and a shift will take place in the regulatory boundary. If the government is the boundary shifter then social engineers are taking advantage of artificial boundaries they know will not be enforced, with implications for campaigns such as drink‐driving, smoking, and domestic violence. Also, the market driver will gain a competitive advantage by entering a market‐driven marketplace through boundary shifts, even after incurring an initial penalty.Research limitations/implicationsThe research demonstrates a need for research into marketing regulation to consider firm types, violation types, and tolerance levels. The study contributes to our understanding of marketer activity with two implications; first the firm is shifting the boundaries and redefining the market focal point as themselves, rather than violating the boundaries and setting themselves outside the rules. Second, depending on the level of tolerance that government has with the regulation of advertising, there is a cost to both the social purse and to market‐driven firms associated with boundary shifters.Practical implicationsA market driver, looking for growth opportunities, should try to enter markets dominated by market‐driven firms, and which have self‐regulation, while market driven firms should either look for regulatory protection or act collectively to wield power over third parties – for example forcing media outlets not to carry market driver advertising.Originality/valueBy introducing the concept of boundary stretching and allowing for market drivers and market driven firms, the authors show the effects of regulation (or tolerance) in a realistic setting and allow for the real‐world dynamics of a marketplace where new ideas create new focal points for social acceptance. This study also provides a clear illustration of the usefulness of game theory in marketing studies.

Introduction to adapting water management to climate change: putting our science into practice

There is growing international recognition of the need for practical guidance on evaluating risks and adapting freshwaters to climate change, drawing on both field and model evidence. This special section of Area demonstrates the varied ways in which geographers, environmental and social scientists, engineers and resource managers are beginning to address these urgent needs. This editorial considers the long history of field experimentation and measurement that has informed professional practice in catchment and water quality management. We assert that comparable levels of investment and commitment are now needed to guide adaptations to climate change. The research within the special section reflects two contrasting perspectives: (i) top‐down, macro‐scale, climatic and non‐climatic risk assessments for freshwaters and (ii) bottom‐up, micro‐scale experimentation, involving adaptation measures at the river reach and habitat level. We emphasise that greater efforts are required to integrate the results of research at these contrasting scales to deliver benefits that are robust to the large uncertainty associated with climate projections.

Flying under the radar: social engineering

PurposeOne of the key components to fraud prevention is strong internal controls. However, the greatest threat to an organization's information security is the manipulation of employees who are too often the victims of ploys and techniques used by slick con men known as social engineers. The purpose of this paper is to help prevent future incidents by increasing the awareness of social engineering attacks.Design/methodology/approachA review of the more common social engineering techniques is provided. Emphasis is placed on the fact that it is very easy for someone to become a victim of a social engineer.FindingsWhile many organizations recognize the importance and value of having strong internal controls, many fail to recognize the dangers associated with social engineering attacks.Practical implicationsIndividuals and organizations remain vulnerable to social engineering attacks. The focus on internal controls is simply not enough and is not likely to prevent these attacks. Raising awareness is a good first step to addressing this significant and potentially dangerous problem.Originality/valueThis paper provides a concise summary of the most common social engineering techniques. It provides additional evidence that individuals need to better understand their susceptibility to becoming a victim of a social engineer as victims may expose their organizations to very significant harm.

Multi-level perspectives with technology readiness measures for aviation innovation

Sustainability science requires the development of a theoretical framework to understand, analyze, and design innovation to solve social, economic, and environmental issues. This paper extends the framework of multi-level perspectives (MLP) by introducing a technology readiness level (TRL), and analyzes the innovation of the advanced turboprop (ATP) engine in the aviation industry, also known as a propfan or an open rotor engine, which is one of the most promising engine innovations expected to mitigate climate change. The concept of TRL was introduced to explain the mechanisms of ATP failure in the late 1980s as well as the transition of the geared turbofan (GTF). In this paper, we discuss why ATP and GTF faced different fates although both were developed under the same landscape in the aviation industry. We also discuss the different roles of the socio-technical regime, such as uneven and dynamic opportunity windows, technological readiness, niche stock, institutional support of export products, and the risk of a ‘launch’ customer, at different TRLs. As illustrated in this paper, MLP with TRL is expected to facilitate future interdisciplinary collaboration between social scientists and engineers, and also transdisciplinary expertise between academia and practitioners by supporting analysis and design of the industry’s transition toward a more environmentally friendly regime as well as its effective management.

Designing and Evaluating Quality of Life Technologies: An Interdisciplinary Approach

Developing quality of life technologies (QoLT) poses unique challenges to engineers and computer scientists. This paper provides a roadmap for design, development, and evaluation. We begin with a definition of quality of life and identify key attributes of QoLT. This is followed by a discussion of methods for identifying target populations and needs. Next, we describe the process of user-centered iterative design and development and conclude with evaluation strategies to assess the impact of QoLT. A central theme of the paper is that successful technology development in this arena is highly dependent on collaborative interdisciplinary teams involving social scientists, clinicians, engineers, and computer scientists.

The Power of Ideas. The Teaching of Economics and its Image of Man

Economics as a science not only investigates what is (as a positive science) and what should be (as a normative science), but influences, through its fundamental ideas, what facts and norms are recognized as such in society. This holds especially true for economic education. My article explains this thesis and elaborates, in particular, how this form of education stipulates a particular vision of human beings worldwide. First, I show how economics actively seeks to influence the inscription of the commonplace image of the human through economics education. Second, I discuss economics as a textbook science in Thomas Kuhn’s sense: as a science incapable of giving the students any plural or critical understanding of their self and the world. In the third step, I identify the essential features of the human image lying at the base of the economic curriculum; an image (so I argue), which splits society into mere cogs in the machine of the economy on the one side and omnipotent social engineers on the other side.

On-site ethics

As ethical considerations become an established part of engineering, one of the practical dilemmas is that people working in fields and industries that rarely overlap under normal circumstances have to collaborate with one another. How easy is it for engineers to work alongside social scientists, ethicists and philosophers? And what do these partnerships look like in practice? This paper focuses on improving working relationship between social scientists and engineers.

Social Cooperation within Virtual Worlds: Old Social Phenomena Emerging in New Environments

The world we live in is expanding its borders by letting the “virtual” become part of our lives. Digitisation equally pervades the public and the private sectors and transforms interactions between individuals, and between individuals and the state. For instance, the UK government is now in the process of digitising a whole range of processes and interactions with its citizens, through the Governmental Digital Service (GDS).In this article we aim to prove that virtual worlds provide a playground for social engineers, legal researchers and philosophers, for two reasons. Firstly, virtual worlds offer confirmations of social theories of cooperation – they illustrate that cooperation among individuals emerges spontanuously where there are no established forms of governance and decision. Secondly, virtual worlds offer sandboxes where the peculiarities of online interaction can be observed.

The Right to a Nice Home: housing inspection in 1930s Stockholm

This article deals with how the authorities taught the Swedes to live and how Swedish citizens came to accept such an intimate encroachment in their private lives. Why did people accept these social experts of everyday life? The answer tells us something about modern society and modernity itself. Around the turn of the 20th century, Stockholm had one of Europe's worst housing conditions, according to Swedish experts of the time. One-room apartments were the norm, even for large families. Not all buildings had running water and often several families shared one outhouse. At the same time, the idea that the home was the place in which the conscientious citizens of the future would be raised was introduced – in Sweden as elsewhere. Dwellings became part of the social question. Many people believed that a well-functioning home would improve other aspects of life as well: men would stay at home in the evening instead of going to pubs; women would do a better job of raising the children; and public health would improve. A neglected home was seen as a sign of the exact opposite; the right to a nice home turned into a duty to live well. As an extension of this idea, housing inspections became important processes in the effort to improve the lives of citizens. The inspections were carried out by municipal employees, who were expected to monitor people's everyday lives. They functioned as housing experts, but what did these social engineers actually do? How did they become housing experts? And was their encroachment into people's daily lives accepted by ordinary citizens?

“ENDEA”: a case study of multidisciplinary practice in the development of assisted technologies for older adults in Ireland

Purpose – This paper seeks to discuss the authors' experiences of multidisciplinary practice in relation to developing home‐based assisted living technologies.Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on almost three years' experience of working within an ongoing, large, multi‐sited and multidisciplinary Irish national research programme: the Technology for Independent Living Centre. This involved industry and academic partners. Teams of clinicians, physical and social scientists, technologists, engineers, designers and ethnographers worked with older adults to design, test and deliver, home‐based technologies that focus on mitigating falls, keeping socially connected and maintaining or improving cognitive function. The authors' experiences and challenges are organised and presented through their retrospective team building model: ENDEA and through comparison with team building literature.Findings – Learning outcomes and implications for technology focused multidisciplinary practice are offered. The p...

Book Reviews

Sharon Oster of Yale School of Management reviews “The Economist's Oath: On the Need for and Content of Professional Economic Ethics” by George F. DeMartino. The EconLit Abstract of the reviewed work begins “Presents a case for professional economic ethics and why it is necessary. Discusses the need for professional economic ethics; economic practice--what economists do; ethical challenges confronting the applied economist; historical perspective--don't predict the interest rate; interpreting the silence--the economics case against professional economic ethics; breaking the silence--a rebuttal of the economic case against professional economic ethics; the positive case for professional economic ethics; learning from others--ethical thought across the professions; economists as social engineers--ethical evaluation of market liberalization in the South and transition economies; the global economic crisis and the crisis in economics; on sleeping too well--in search of professional economic ethics; training the “ethical economist”; and the economist's oath. DeMartino is Professor of Economics in the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. Index.”

Toward Smarter Health and Well-Being: An Implicit Role for Networking and Information Technology

The number of people afflicted with chronic illnesses such as obesity, cancer, and diabetes has soared in recent years, generating new kinds of disparate medical challenges. In turn, these challenges have resulted in skyrocketing costs, preventable deaths, and medical malpractice claims. For example, studies have found nearly half of all US patients receive inadequate care each year, over 2 million are harmed by hospital-acquired infections, and over 1 million suffer disabling complications during surgery – even though half of these are thought to be avoidable. These challenges have catalyzed the beginning of a transformation in care delivery, from a health-care system that focuses on disease to one that must look after patients – including individuals and communities. To provide proper treatment to those who are chronically ill, the health-care system has to support improved individuals’ health-related practices prior to the manifestation of disease; ensure that a range of practitioners can deliver quality clinical care during the onset of an illness; and facilitate patient-provider-family partnerships during post-disease wellness care. As we describe in this review, key advances in networking and information technologies – spanning patient monitoring, data visualization and decision making, robotics and computer vision for diagnosis and surgery, social networking for fostering community-based support systems, and so on – stand to drive forward these changes. Together with social scientists, systems engineers, medical practitioners, and computer scientists, information systems scholars can help alter the nature of care delivery well into the twenty-first century, ultimately contributing to a system that is much more safe, effective, reliable, and timely than it is today.

The New Social Engineers in the Age of Obama: Black Corporate Lawyers and the Making of the First Black President

In this article, I document the connection between the election of the nation’s first black president and the fledgling, but nevertheless important, creation of a new black bar. Specifically, I argue that the new generation of black lawyers who moved into important positions of power and responsibility in corporate America since the mid-1960s played a critical role in opening the door for an Obama presidency – and that understanding the experiences and attitudes of these new is critical to understanding the President's approach to integrating his obligations as leader of all of the people and his expressed commitment to improving the lives of black people in the first decades of the twentieth century. My argument proceeds in four parts. Part I documents the important role that Houston’s and Marshall’s original social engineers played in paving the way for Obama. As the President frequently acknowledges, he stands on the shoulders of these giants who quite literally laid the groundwork for his success. Indeed, before running for the Illinois State Senate in 1996 Obama’s career was eerily reminiscent of the great social engineer Wiley Branton for whom the Symposium at Howard Law School where this article appears is named. But for all of his connections to the original social engineers, it was a new generation of black lawyers who actually propelled Obama’s meteoric rise from the Illinois State Senate to the U.S. Senate, and eventually to the presidency. Part II charts the rise of this new generation and explains both their connections to, and differences from, the prior generation of social engineers. Although much has rightly been made of the theme of generational change in Obama’s ascendance, many have mischaracterized both the formative experiences and the commitments of what I will refer to as the Brown generation of black lawyers who came of age in the years following that historic decision. Using original interview data and other sources, I document these experiences and commitments and demonstrate how this generation’s unique status as black professionals with role-related obligations that are separate from, and potentially in opposition to, their continuing commitment to use their positions in corporate America to advance the cause of racial both drew this new black legal elite to Obama, and in turn, shaped the way in which the President has responded to similar tensions between his role as president and his desire to use the powers of his office to improve the plight of black Americans. Part III explores these tensions by examining how Obama has attempted to use the office of the presidency to advance the cause of racial justice. In each of the three major avenues through which he has pursued this goal – using the bully pulpit to assist traditional civil rights organizations and to inspire individual responsibility and high aspirations among blacks generally, placing talented black professionals in important positions in his administration, and, most importantly, promising to improve the lives of black Americans through a combination of vigorous enforcement of anti-discrimination laws and a series of new race-neutral social programs targeting areas of particular concern to blacks – the President has employed strategies also employed by the Brown generation. Not surprisingly, many of the same problems that the nation’s first black corporate lawyers encountered when they attempted to negotiate the complex and sometimes conflicting demands of the equal opportunity and justice legacies of the Brown decision have also come to haunt the nation’s first black President as he has engaged in an even more public balancing act between his obligation (and right) to be the president of all the people and his commitment to use his office to improve the lives of black people in this country. Part IV closes by briefly examining how the election of the first black president presents unique opportunities – but also poses unique challenges – for this country’s still fragile black bar.

The Future of Research Methods in Africana Studies Graduate Curriculum

This study examines the state of research methods in Africana studies. In addition, the role that courses on research methods play in Africana Studies departments is also explored. Content analysis of departmental course offerings and descriptions reveal that half of graduate level degrees granting Africana Studies programs offer departmental courses on research methods. Moreover, the majority of the programs that offer courses on research methods focus primarily on qualitative methods of research. Correcting the quantitatively skewed content and general underrepresentation of research methods will help Africana Studies to produce more effective and well-prepared social engineers and scholar activists of the African experience.

The Political Economy of the Creeping Militarization of U.S. Foreign Policy

This paper analyzes the political economy of the creeping militarization of U.S. foreign policy. The core argument is that in integrating the “3D” approach—defense, development, and diplomacy—policymakers have assigned responsibilities to military personnel which go beyond their comparative advantage, requiring them to become social engineers tasked with constructing entire societies. Evidence from The U.S. Army Stability Operations Field Manual is presented to illustrate the wide scope of responsibilities assigned to the U.S. military. The tools of political economy are used to analyze some of the implications.

Delusions of Grandeur: On the Creeping Militarization of U.S. Foreign Policy

This paper analyzes the political economy of the creeping militarization of U.S. foreign policy. The core argument is that in integrating the 3D approach -- defense, development, and diplomacy -- policymakers have assigned responsibilities to military personnel which go beyond their comparative advantage, requiring them to become social engineers tasked with constructing entire societies. Evidence from The U.S. Army Stability Operations Field Manual is presented to illustrate the wide scope of responsibilities assigned to the U.S. military. The tools of political economy are used to analyze some of the implications.

Participatory Evaluation of a Rice Flour Mill by Poor Rural Women

This research note describes a participatory action research project that aimed to address the needs of poor women in processing rice for income generation in southwestern Bangladesh. A rice flour mill for converting rice grains into dry rice flour was introduced by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and WAVE Foundation.1 This study revealed that this machine is technically efficient, economically viable, and socially acceptable among women operators and sellers of rice products. The portable rice flour mill provided women rice flour operators with an income, developed women’s self-esteem and social status, and empowered them to make their own decisions in spending their earnings. This project, therefore, demonstrates that it is possible to address strategic gender needs through the introduction of a technology focused on practical gender needs. However, factors to consider in addressing the technological needs of poor women are as follows: definition of target groups, appropriateness of technology, provision of “hands-on” training on the operation and simple troubleshooting of the machine, facilitate women to organize themselves, foster close collaboration between social scientists, agricultural engineers, technology developers, and NGOs, use a gender-sensitive participatory approach, target for full capacity utilization of the machine and sustainability, and ensure women’s ownership of the initiative.

Faces, Bodies, Personas: Tracing Cuban Stories (review)

Reviewed by: Faces, Bodies, Personas: Tracing Cuban Stories Scott Larson Faces, Bodies, Personas: Tracing Cuban Stories. Babak Salari, Plovdiv: Janet-45 Print and Publishing, 2008. 120 pp., photos, biographic notes. US$25.00 paper (ISBN 9-5449-1412-9). Living any form of alternative lifestyle in contemporary Cuba is a complicated proposition. Even to be Cuban is to be isolated – and not only from the political and economic rhythms of the rest of the world, but the social and psychological currents as well. So to be gay on the enigmatic island is to enter into the realm of the outsider's outsider, a netherworld of sexual and identity politics where merely waking up can become an existential journey. For sure, the days when homosexuality was considered a crime by the eager social engineers of the revolution are long gone. In 2010 Fidel Castro even went so far in an interview with the Mexican newspaper La Jornada to express his regret over "moments of great injustice" to Cuba's gay community. But still today certain aspects of homosexual behavior – holding hands in public, for instance, and other outward shows of affection – can bring official sanction in the form of arrest, steep fines or the loss of a job, and a long-standing and powerful cultural tradition of machismo only contributes to the forces of marginalization. In Cuba, to live openly as a queer, a lesbian, a transvestite or gay man invites considerable risk. [End Page 215] In Faces, Bodies, Personas: Tracing Cuban Stories, the Canadian-Iranian photographer Babak Salari focuses his camera on life at this margin of Cuban society. The resulting collection of black and white images – first exhibited at the Provincial Centre of Fine Arts and Design in Havana in 2006 – offers a penetrating glimpse into what, in a companion essay, the Cuban poet, playwright and journalist Norge Espinosa Mendoza calls "the secret tradition of Cuban gays" (p. 18). Studying the images more than two years after they were first shown, Espinosa writes: "When I see the portraits now I understand the looks in the eyes – which a fragile time on the wall makes eternal – form a map of what those lives were, a map of desires that can serve as a hidden guide" (p. 7). Salari is hardly the first visual artist to explore the evocative universe of Cuban homosexuality. Indeed, recent representations of gay Cuba have come to occupy a special niche in the cultural imagination of the wider world, and a number of works engaging in the theme have gained critical and popular acclaim. Tomás Gutiérrez Alea's hugely successful 1993 film Fresa y chocolate is just one example. Yet as Espinosa's intimation of secrets and mystery suggests, many of these mainstream projects fail to plumb beyond stereotyped spaces of erotic tension and political intrigue where drag queens stage beauty pageants at fabulous underground fiestas. To Espinosa, who owns a singular perspective as both critical commentator on and subject of Salari's lens, the result is all too often mere artistic voyeurism, a cynical, unwelcome gaze that provides little deeper insight into the lives of the majority of Cuban gays (p. 22). Salari's work rejects this ideal of exotic otherness to focus instead on the more mundane, day-to-day aspects of gay life in the impoverished, improvised space-time of 21st-century Cuba. As in the exhibition, the images in Faces are divided into two thematic sets. The largest of the two, entitled Faces, comes at the end and is comprised of portraits of artists, writers, poets, musicians, academics and filmmakers, many of whom are gay or otherwise work to "fill some vacuums that other cultural discourses have silenced" (p. 114). These are public, if not celebrity figures who have been simultaneously embraced and demonized, revered and ostracized as they judiciously navigate a cultural landscape rotted through by "discrimination and contempt" (p. 20). In his essay, entitled "A Map of Desires," Espinosa writes of these figures – his fellow "creators"– by name, and their portraits appear alongside short biographical sketches, descriptions of their work that serve as testimonials to a certain status and hard-won legitimacy. Few are household names, even inside...