social engineering question

[ben-et]

Hey, would this be considered social engineering?, i saw this 2-3 weeks before the movie.
http://www.reuters.com/video/2011/07/29/scientists-warn-of-planet-of-the-apes-sc?videoId=217664256
(saw this article in more places but only english one i could find fast=)

insted of wasting alot of money on advertisment for the movie you pay of some ppl who seem to know a thing or two to say something that will put fear in ppl to get intressed in the movie later on(that's one example also saw this when 2012 was comming out). They even used parts of the movie wich should prove my point even more.

This might be some inverted SE, instead of getting information you use information to put fear into ppl.

But yah my question is still is this social engineering?
sry for bad grammar.

[mShred]

I wouldn't say social engineering. More of just classical advertising..

[tremor77]

I wouldn't say social engineering. More of just classical advertising..

As someone who works in the advertising industry I would venture to say that Advertising IS Social Engineering on a grandoise scale. It is my job to make people want to buy something or do something that without my prompting they might not otherwise consider. Or at the very least, steer them in the direction of my client over the competitor that they might have already been considering. What's great about the internet now is that you can really make advertising & social engineering blend by advertising under the guise or scientific research and studies, or through blog posts, or viral marketing. Advertising something without people even really knowing that what they are seeing/reading is part of a propaganda campaign. The best s.e.'s are marketers IMHO.

[mShred]

As someone who works in the advertising industry I would venture to say that Advertising IS Social Engineering on a grandoise scale. It is my job to make people want to buy something or do something that without my prompting they might not otherwise consider. Or at the very least, steer them in the direction of my client over the competitor that they might have already been considering. What's great about the internet now is that you can really make advertising & social engineering blend by advertising under the guise or scientific research and studies, or through blog posts, or viral marketing. Advertising something without people even really knowing that what they are seeing/reading is part of a propaganda campaign. The best s.e.'s are marketers IMHO.

Okay, yeah. I could see how you would put those two together. But i wouldn't get too technical. If you tried hard enough, you could probably associate social engineering with wiping your ass.
But in relations to the OP, it still seems like it's more of just a review/add typakinda thing. But I don't deal with the advertising industry, as tremor does, so I'll just say it's my opinion. And I could very well be far off.

[ben-et]

Yah i understood it was advertisment just wanted to know if it was some kind of SE to see where to draw the line.
Thanks for the response.

[tremor77]

Yah i understood it was advertisment just wanted to know if it was some kind of SE to see where to draw the line.
Thanks for the response.

There is no line to be drawn. Social Engineering is construct.. much like the field of Sociology itself, wherein it's parameters are defined by basically any and all social interaction where an individual has a potential gain to forcing their will in some way. Here are some scenarios to consider, you wouldn't call them Social Engineering outright but, that is indeed what is going on.

- A game of No-Limit Texas Hold 'Em (High Stakes Poker) - there is the game itself and then the game within the game of bluffing, reading your opponent, forcing your will upon the others in order to achieve the most desired outcome. The problem is your opponents are experts at this too.

- An antique dealer at a yard/garage sale (I'm thinking of my Mom in this scenario) who works up a rapport with the seller while browsing the items for sale, and gets invited to take a look inside the house for things that were not for sale originally who then uses their rapport to make purchases on expensive items for pennies on the dollar. They have another word for these people.. con-artists. (High opinion of my mother).

- Popular girls in high school. They in fact set about as a group to intentionally plan and engage their social engineering strategies in order to control who can be popular and who gets shit on.

You can look at and analyze almost any single social interaction and whether it is a conscious effort or not by the participants, you will see that some form of SE is taking place at all times.

[Endg4m3]

tremor77 wrote:
You can look at and analyze almost any single social interaction and whether it is a conscious effort or not by the participants, you will see that some form of SE is taking place at all times.

I agree with tremor. Any time you do something in order to get someone else to do something its technically social engineering. Most people have a more complicated view, but it is what it is.

[ben-et]

ah k cool, thanks for the examples. Got a good understadning of SE in general now.

[tremor77]

Oddly enough driving home yesterday I was listening to NPR (I'm not a liberal but I do listen to NPR anyway) where a reporter was visiting DEFCON... the central story of the bit was not about DEFCON or hacking, but rather Social Engineering. I thought the timing interestingly coincidental to followup and find the link.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/08/16/139680012/hackers-low-tech-tool-a-phone-call

On a side note I wish I could scrape up money to go to Las Vegas sometime.. not even for DEFCON I just want to troll for some cheap hookers.... nah actually I'd love to go to DEFCON - can we start an HTS charity fund called 'get tremor a plane ticket'?

[VPR3]

On a side note I wish I could scrape up money to go to Las Vegas sometime.. not even for DEFCON I just want to troll for some cheap hookers.... nah actually I'd love to go to DEFCON - can we start an HTS charity fund called 'get tremor a plane ticket'?

You should carry friends, you get group discount rates on prostitution in Vegas.....