[00:25.720 --> 00:32.810]  I'll stand here, and I'll just... Hello!
[00:35.990 --> 00:37.450]  I can't see a thing.
[00:39.710 --> 00:46.310]  Hi, I'm LexIcon, and the title of this talk is Macro Social Engineering.
[00:47.530 --> 01:12.730]  This came to me in a vision one night, late night at Notacon, and I was thinking about macrosocial economics, and for some reason the terms just clicked together, and I thought, what if you were talking about social engineering on a larger scale, which is what I'm really interested in.
[01:13.310 --> 01:16.150]  So, what is macrosocial engineering?
[01:18.850 --> 01:24.070]  Well, if you talk about social engineering, you're usually trying to convince one person to do something.
[01:24.310 --> 01:29.050]  And if you... it's sort of the flaw in your security is the guy behind the keyboard.
[01:29.910 --> 01:41.810]  So, social engineering is normally regarded as getting past a barrier by interfacing with a person and having them change the system for you or letting you go past a checkpoint.
[01:43.130 --> 01:56.970]  Macro, being a word meaning large, and so putting macro with social engineering, talking about social engineering engineering beyond just an individual, and beyond the individual is the community.
[01:58.410 --> 02:02.170]  So, I want to talk about social engineering, entire communities.
[02:03.230 --> 02:09.870]  There are many challenges which cannot be overcome in a short amount of time by simple social engineering.
[02:09.970 --> 02:20.510]  If you want to strengthen your community, if you want to have a more ambitious career, you have to interface with people in your field, just on a large scale.
[02:20.910 --> 02:28.350]  And if you want to get somebody elected president of the United States, you have to have a kind of group presence to do that.
[02:28.490 --> 02:35.030]  You have to... you can't just have an operator make a free call for you and get somebody elected president of the United States.
[02:35.170 --> 02:39.890]  Well, maybe someone could, but it depends on who you're calling.
[02:40.610 --> 02:43.310]  But that's kind of hard.
[02:43.550 --> 02:48.110]  So, mass mobilization is required, and you need different tactics.
[02:49.230 --> 03:00.350]  Many times I've heard that members of the CCC influence German politics and technology matters, and I don't know if this is true, but I find the idea somewhat inspiring.
[03:01.790 --> 03:07.870]  Imagine 2600 meetings being asked to send representatives to Washington to talk about telecom regulations.
[03:09.270 --> 03:12.510]  Hackers have a hard time being hurt at all by the U.S. government.
[03:13.110 --> 03:20.990]  We have this wealth of knowledge and occasional spurts of organization like the Free Kevin movement or conferences.
[03:22.730 --> 03:25.870]  But at the same time, we're still considered a fringe group.
[03:26.150 --> 03:33.770]  And here we are with 3000 hackers in the same building, possibly one of the greatest collections of thinking people on the East Coast at this moment.
[03:35.210 --> 03:39.790]  And are there any U.S. senators in any of these rooms?
[03:39.990 --> 03:41.450]  You know, are they here to listen to us?
[03:41.610 --> 03:42.410]  They're not.
[03:42.690 --> 03:55.970]  You know, we have to... if we want to make changes on a national scale or on a global scale, we have to kind of mobilize as a group and go out and get them to pay attention.
[03:57.450 --> 03:59.710]  We're not well organized as a group.
[03:59.950 --> 04:09.990]  So, I would like to start a dialogue about macro social engineering as a way of hacking groups and communities.
[04:11.390 --> 04:17.750]  There are not a lot of examples I can think of for hackers using macro social engineering as hackers.
[04:19.230 --> 04:23.190]  The organization of conferences is maybe one of the rare examples.
[04:23.930 --> 04:28.350]  And hacker labs like HacDC are kind of a start.
[04:28.790 --> 04:48.350]  But the real key in... if you're really talking about macro social engineering, you're talking about connecting all of those labs together and getting them talking to each other and starting to act in unison so they can affect a larger change to groups that are connected to each of those groups.
[04:49.070 --> 04:51.170]  So, it's kind of like viral marketing.
[04:51.410 --> 04:59.070]  You know, you get, you know, a group in each city and they're saying the same thing and suddenly that's a buzz that's all over the country.
[04:59.070 --> 05:00.790]  It's not just coming from one point.
[05:01.010 --> 05:08.890]  And so, kind of the overlapping signals will start to generate acceptance of ideas.
[05:10.970 --> 05:15.750]  So, macro social engineering is about mobilizing a community to make something real happen.
[05:16.810 --> 05:20.430]  Part of macro social engineering is leadership.
[05:20.830 --> 05:26.430]  And you might think it's entirely about leadership, but it's really more about mobilizing equals.
[05:27.330 --> 05:33.270]  Leadership is to this as starting a conversation is to normal social engineering.
[05:34.190 --> 05:40.330]  I think you have to go beyond simple leadership to be doing a macro social engineering hack.
[05:42.590 --> 05:46.130]  So, what other groups are doing this already?
[05:47.010 --> 05:49.510]  Who's good at macro social engineering?
[05:50.150 --> 05:56.450]  Well, lobbyists influencing politicians are fairly good at it.
[05:56.850 --> 06:01.490]  And their example shows the scale factor pretty clearly.
[06:02.050 --> 06:07.750]  You don't just need to get past one politician to have a political effect.
[06:07.750 --> 06:12.850]  You have to get, you know, a majority of the group that's making the decisions.
[06:12.910 --> 06:22.010]  You have to get the entire, you don't have to get the entire city council, but you have to have the majority vote and you have to have the quorum in the room to have laws passed and that sort of thing.
[06:23.350 --> 06:28.250]  So, lobbyists are a good example of, you know, somebody who's already doing this.
[06:28.610 --> 06:32.510]  Another group that's good at macro social engineering is artists.
[06:33.190 --> 06:53.050]  I'm a fashion photographer myself and when I talk to other photographers and other artists, we're often talking about the editorial voice, which is when we put images in a publication, for instance, the images are conveying an idea.
[06:53.330 --> 06:56.450]  And they're reaching a very large audience usually.
[06:56.710 --> 06:58.890]  At least, if you're lucky, I'm working on that.
[07:00.530 --> 07:04.390]  But the artists get to choose the medium and the message.
[07:05.210 --> 07:07.150]  And that's fairly important.
[07:07.590 --> 07:17.450]  And they can speak to many people about an idea without directly referencing the idea, which, you know, with hackers, we're always dealing with scary concepts.
[07:18.250 --> 07:27.130]  But if you can talk around the scary part and still have influence, that's something to strive for, I think.
[07:30.290 --> 07:34.870]  PR firms, I think they're kind of the black hats of macro social engineering.
[07:36.290 --> 07:44.030]  They're getting, you know, corporate messages out there and advertising and changing people's minds about their car insurance and stuff.
[07:44.310 --> 07:49.650]  When, you know, really, if we get together and talk about it, why do we need car insurance?
[07:51.610 --> 07:55.050]  You know, there's no real reason, but because it's part of the system.
[07:55.250 --> 08:02.830]  So if you want to affect systematic change, you have to have a lot of arms in different places.
[08:02.990 --> 08:05.450]  And I don't think you can do this with just one person.
[08:05.930 --> 08:12.210]  You have to start with one person, it becomes a tree and just kind of goes out and then it becomes a web.
[08:12.630 --> 08:18.070]  And then after a while, you're connected in enough places where all these people speak at once.
[08:18.630 --> 08:27.890]  And, you know, it's like one person in a group of 50 says something and it's a weird thing and nobody really pays attention.
[08:27.890 --> 08:36.390]  But if you have one person in a group of 50 and then he's got two co-conspirators and he says, oh, well, we should all go jump off a cliff.
[08:36.570 --> 08:41.330]  And then another one says, oh, well, I went bungee jumping last week.
[08:41.330 --> 08:42.190]  It was really fun.
[08:42.330 --> 08:47.770]  And then suddenly, you know, everybody's thinking jumping off a cliff isn't such a bad thing.
[08:48.530 --> 08:52.790]  So that's kind of the direction you can take it.
[08:52.850 --> 08:54.530]  I wouldn't get people to jump off cliffs.
[08:54.890 --> 09:06.590]  But so I want people to be thinking about what they want to happen in their community, be it the hacker community, state or national government or anywhere else.
[09:06.930 --> 09:22.130]  I think we need to start cataloging techniques and commonalities that span politics and sociology and media production and distribution and other fields I haven't thought about at all.
[09:22.310 --> 09:29.970]  I mean, I'm looking for people to contribute to this because nobody's really talked about macro social engineering before as a hacker thing to do.
[09:31.510 --> 09:32.550]  Not that I know of.
[09:32.570 --> 09:35.730]  If anybody knows, let me know because I'd like to talk to them.
[09:36.850 --> 09:42.450]  I have one central thought about macro social engineering, about what makes it work.
[09:43.510 --> 09:52.430]  And I'm going to tell you that after I read a story that I think is deeply related to this idea.
[09:52.690 --> 09:55.510]  And it's Stone Soup by Marsha Brown.
[09:56.030 --> 10:02.650]  It's a... I can't pronounce the name of the award it's got, but it's silver.
[10:10.760 --> 10:12.460]  It's from 1947.
[10:15.260 --> 10:18.260]  Three soldiers trudged down a road in a strange country.
[10:18.520 --> 10:20.500]  They were on their way home from the wars.
[10:20.500 --> 10:22.420]  Besides being tired, they were hungry.
[10:22.660 --> 10:24.820]  In fact, they had eaten nothing for two days.
[10:26.360 --> 10:28.940]  How I'd like a good dinner tonight, said the first.
[10:29.180 --> 10:30.980]  And a bed to sleep in, said the second.
[10:31.260 --> 10:33.180]  But all that is impossible, said the third.
[10:33.380 --> 10:34.440]  We must march on.
[10:34.800 --> 10:35.740]  On they march.
[10:36.500 --> 10:39.060]  Suddenly ahead of them they saw the lights of a village.
[10:39.320 --> 10:41.600]  Maybe we'll find a bite to eat there, said the first.
[10:41.780 --> 10:43.440]  And a loft to sleep in, said the second.
[10:44.060 --> 10:45.880]  No harm in asking, said the third.
[10:46.460 --> 10:49.040]  Now the peasants of that place feared strangers.
[10:49.040 --> 10:53.720]  When they heard the three soldiers were coming down the road, they talked amongst themselves.
[10:54.260 --> 10:55.700]  Here come three soldiers.
[10:55.940 --> 10:57.240]  Soldiers are always hungry.
[10:57.440 --> 10:59.440]  But we have little enough for ourselves.
[10:59.740 --> 11:01.420]  And they hurried to hide their food.
[11:02.040 --> 11:04.920]  They pushed sacks of barley under the hay in the lofts.
[11:04.980 --> 11:07.100]  They lowered buckets of milk down the wells.
[11:07.420 --> 11:09.980]  They spread old quilts over carrot bins.
[11:10.220 --> 11:13.200]  They hid their cabbages and potatoes under their beds.
[11:13.720 --> 11:15.800]  They hung their meat in the cellars.
[11:16.360 --> 11:18.080]  They hid all they had to eat.
[11:18.760 --> 11:19.660]  Then they waited.
[11:20.840 --> 11:23.840]  The soldiers stopped first at the house of Paul and Francois.
[11:24.160 --> 11:25.700]  Good evening to you, they said.
[11:25.880 --> 11:28.300]  Could you spare a bit of food for three hungry soldiers?
[11:29.140 --> 11:32.100]  We've had no food for ourselves for three days, said Paul.
[11:32.740 --> 11:34.180]  Francois made a sad face.
[11:34.360 --> 11:35.620]  It's been a poor harvest.
[11:36.500 --> 11:39.240]  The three soldiers went on to the house of Albert and Louise.
[11:39.820 --> 11:41.440]  Could you spare a bit of food?
[11:41.440 --> 11:44.760]  And have you some corner where we could sleep for the night?
[11:45.020 --> 11:46.080]  Oh no, said Albert.
[11:46.320 --> 11:49.040]  We gave all we could spare to the soldiers who came before you.
[11:49.460 --> 11:50.980]  Our beds are full, said Louise.
[11:52.140 --> 11:54.620]  At Vincent and Marie's, the answer was the same.
[11:54.840 --> 11:58.140]  It had been a poor harvest and all the grain must be kept for seed.
[11:58.660 --> 12:00.420]  So it went all through the village.
[12:00.540 --> 12:02.480]  Not a peasant had any food to give away.
[12:02.480 --> 12:04.520]  They all had good reasons.
[12:04.940 --> 12:07.040]  One family had used the grain for feed.
[12:07.160 --> 12:11.940]  Another had an old sick father to care for and had too many mouths to fill.
[12:12.500 --> 12:15.060]  The villagers stood in the street and sighed.
[12:15.200 --> 12:16.840]  They looked as hungry as they could.
[12:17.240 --> 12:18.900]  The three soldiers talked together.
[12:20.680 --> 12:22.520]  Then the first soldier called out.
[12:22.700 --> 12:23.380]  Good people!
[12:23.840 --> 12:25.180]  The peasants drew near.
[12:25.880 --> 12:28.580]  We are three hungry soldiers in a strange land.
[12:28.960 --> 12:31.360]  We've asked you for food and you have no food.
[12:31.540 --> 12:33.660]  Well then, we have to make stone soup.
[12:34.560 --> 12:35.860]  The peasants stared.
[12:36.220 --> 12:37.080]  Stone soup?
[12:37.240 --> 12:38.680]  That would be something to know about.
[12:39.720 --> 12:42.380]  First, we'll need a large iron pot, the soldier said.
[12:42.740 --> 12:45.340]  The peasants brought the largest pot they could find.
[12:45.360 --> 12:47.360]  How else are we going to cook enough?
[12:48.120 --> 12:50.220]  That's none too large, but it will do.
[12:50.400 --> 12:52.880]  And now, water to fill it and a fire to heat it.
[12:54.220 --> 12:56.680]  It took many buckets of water to fill the pot.
[12:56.860 --> 13:00.540]  A fire was built on the village square, and the pot was set to boil.
[13:02.000 --> 13:05.280]  And now, if you please, three round, smooth stones.
[13:06.340 --> 13:07.900]  These were easy enough to find.
[13:08.080 --> 13:12.040]  The peasants' eyes grew round as they watched the soldiers drop the stones into the pot.
[13:13.040 --> 13:16.420]  Any soup needs salt and pepper, said the soldiers as they began to stir.
[13:16.880 --> 13:18.600]  Children ran to fetch salt and pepper.
[13:19.400 --> 13:24.080]  Stones like these make generally good soup.
[13:24.520 --> 13:26.920]  But oh, if there were carrots, it would be much better.
[13:27.880 --> 13:31.220]  Why, I think we have a carrot or two, said Francois, and off she ran.
[13:31.360 --> 13:34.840]  She came back with her apron full of carrots from the bin beneath the red quilt.
[13:35.740 --> 13:41.860]  A good stone soup should have cabbage, said the soldiers as they sliced the carrots into the pot.
[13:42.560 --> 13:45.040]  But no use asking for what you don't have.
[13:45.800 --> 13:49.460]  I think I could find a cabbage somewhere, said Marie, and she hurried home.
[13:49.720 --> 13:52.520]  Back she came with three cabbages from the cupboard under the bed.
[13:53.620 --> 13:58.600]  If we only had a bit of beef and a few potatoes, this soup would be good enough for a rich man's table.
[13:59.100 --> 14:00.540]  The peasants thought that over.
[14:00.740 --> 14:03.980]  They remembered their potatoes and the sides of beef hanging in their cellars.
[14:04.120 --> 14:05.280]  They ran to fetch them.
[14:05.460 --> 14:08.020]  A rich man's soup, all from a few stones.
[14:08.020 --> 14:09.200]  It seemed like magic.
[14:11.180 --> 14:14.500]  Ah, sighed the soldiers as they stirred the beef and potatoes.
[14:15.240 --> 14:17.480]  As they stirred in the beef and potatoes.
[14:17.740 --> 14:22.420]  If we only had a little barley and a cup of milk, this soup would be fit for the king himself.
[14:22.620 --> 14:26.140]  Indeed, he asked for just such a soup when he last dined with us.
[14:27.000 --> 14:28.620]  The peasants looked at each other.
[14:28.860 --> 14:30.560]  The soldiers had entertained the king.
[14:30.720 --> 14:34.980]  Well, but no use in asking for what you don't have, the soldiers sighed.
[14:35.180 --> 14:37.620]  The peasants brought the barley from the lofts.
[14:37.720 --> 14:39.380]  They brought their milk from the wells.
[14:39.700 --> 14:44.120]  The soldiers stirred the barley and milk into the steaming broth while the peasants stared.
[14:44.800 --> 14:46.480]  At last the soup was ready.
[14:47.400 --> 14:51.500]  All of you shall taste, the soldiers said, but first a table must be set.
[14:52.080 --> 14:56.180]  Great tables were placed in the square and all around were lighted torches.
[14:56.880 --> 14:59.940]  Such a soup, how good it smelled, truly fit for a king.
[14:59.940 --> 15:06.000]  But then the peasants asked themselves, would not such a soup require bread and roast and cider?
[15:06.280 --> 15:09.580]  Soon a banquet was spread and everyone sat down to eat.
[15:09.900 --> 15:11.700]  Never had there been such a feast.
[15:11.840 --> 15:15.980]  Never had the peasants tasted such soup and fancy made from stones.
[15:17.140 --> 15:20.360]  They ate and drank and ate and drank and after that they danced.
[15:20.620 --> 15:22.500]  They danced and sang far into the night.
[15:23.040 --> 15:24.600]  At last they were tired.
[15:24.880 --> 15:28.140]  Then the three soldiers asked, is there not a loft where we could sleep?
[15:29.520 --> 15:33.200]  Let three such wise and splendid gentlemen sleep in the loft indeed.
[15:33.480 --> 15:35.440]  They must have the finest beds in the village.
[15:36.120 --> 15:43.260]  So the first soldier slept in the priest's house, the second soldier slept in the baker's house, and the third soldier slept in the mayor's house.
[15:45.740 --> 15:49.900]  In the morning the whole village gathered in the square to give them a send-off.
[15:50.220 --> 15:53.800]  Many thanks for what you have taught us, said the peasants to the soldiers.
[15:54.120 --> 15:57.820]  We shall never go hungry now that we know how to make soup from stones.
[16:01.930 --> 16:05.810]  Oh, it's all in the knowing, said the soldiers, and off they went down the road.
[16:08.170 --> 16:11.470]  So the story is about getting people to trust you.
[16:12.430 --> 16:15.230]  And it's about making something happen.
[16:17.630 --> 16:23.090]  And at the core it's about giving others an inspiration to act in a way favorable to your cause.
[16:23.710 --> 16:30.950]  So what is the central concept of macrosocial engineering as a hacking concept?
[16:31.290 --> 16:39.870]  I think it's when you say to a group of people, give me a little bit and we'll make it go a long way together, and they agree.
[16:40.030 --> 16:42.170]  That's a macrosocial engineering hack.
[16:42.610 --> 16:43.270]  Thank you.
[16:49.320 --> 16:50.440]  Any questions?
[16:51.800 --> 16:52.520]  Yes?
[16:52.520 --> 16:59.920]  Do you have a website or some place where you would like to go to learn more and as you find out more?
[17:00.420 --> 17:11.960]  I think there's a wiki for hope, a wiki.hope.net that we can put a link up for macrosocial engineering and start a page if people want to contribute to that, I think.
[17:13.560 --> 17:14.360]  Anybody else?
[17:17.060 --> 17:17.620]  Okay.
[17:18.040 --> 17:18.480]  Thank you.
[17:18.960 --> 17:20.180]  Oh, question in the back.
[17:21.400 --> 17:30.900]  Hey, uh, the question was, um, you know, you use the term massive social engineering and social engineering in general is just this.
[17:31.500 --> 17:38.940]  What makes it any different from a typical con game or confidence game, any sort of, you know, straw man would do?
[17:39.120 --> 17:41.500]  I mean, it really is just...
[17:41.500 --> 17:50.880]  Well, the difference is that if you talk about getting one person convinced of something, I'm considering that micro social engineering.
[17:51.240 --> 18:01.960]  And if you're talking about more than one person and it's a community and you have to get two people or more to agree that something is a good idea Yeah.
[18:02.440 --> 18:06.120]  And to go with something, that becomes the macro element.
[18:06.380 --> 18:08.340]  Well, it's not comparing the macro versus the micro.
[18:08.500 --> 18:08.680]  Yeah.
[18:08.740 --> 18:13.040]  It's saying, what makes it any different than being a con artist?
[18:13.680 --> 18:14.300]  I mean, with the suit?
[18:14.380 --> 18:17.940]  Oh, it's, it's always in what you do with it.
[18:18.840 --> 18:24.240]  I mean, there's, there's a lot of politicians who do good things and do bad things.
[18:24.360 --> 18:26.940]  They're, I think most politicians are con artists.
[18:26.940 --> 18:31.220]  So it's basically a more complex name for a more general topic?
[18:31.360 --> 18:31.660]  Yeah.
[18:31.900 --> 18:35.940]  A complex name for, a specific name for a general topic.
[18:36.140 --> 18:36.340]  Okay.
[18:36.760 --> 18:40.420]  A way to communicate about it because once we give it a name, we can talk about it.
[18:42.660 --> 18:45.520]  So how does that differ from things like the Phinean Research Lab?
[18:46.340 --> 18:47.740]  Are there anywhere?
[18:47.900 --> 18:50.940]  I, I think that is macro social engineering.
[18:51.140 --> 19:00.280]  I mean, that, that's what I was talking about with artists, is that artists have that editorial voice, where they're deciding the medium and the message, and they're getting it out there to a lot of people.
[19:00.920 --> 19:05.940]  And pretty more, what type of topics would you like the community to address, or would you like to see addressed?
[19:06.720 --> 19:23.900]  Um, I think certainly putting more, uh, responsibility about technology into, uh, public policy is, uh, a good, uh, kind of pie in the sky reach for that at some point thing that we need to get started on.
[19:24.540 --> 19:34.120]  Um, but at the moment, I don't have specific ideas about this, except, I mean, I'm an artist, and I'm working on trying to get my work out there.
[19:34.500 --> 19:36.360]  So that, that's kind of how I'm working on it.
[19:36.460 --> 19:40.140]  But, um, also I, I helped, um, start CarolinaCon.
[19:40.600 --> 19:49.080]  Um, we had, um, I was living in North Carolina, uh, when I was in college, and there were no 2600 meetings going on.
[19:49.540 --> 20:02.040]  And so I put up nc2600.org, and got a bunch of, um, people just sort of pinging in, like coming into the IRC channel, and, and eventually we were able to get a Raleigh meeting started.
[20:02.440 --> 20:16.300]  Um, and I didn't live in Raleigh, but I was helping facilitate it, and we just had that, that central idea of having a website for it, even though there were no meetings yet, and saying, if you're interested, let us know, you know, and we just started piling more and more people in.
[20:16.420 --> 20:21.800]  And now we're doing a conference with it, because we've got meetings in different cities within the state, and we wanted to have a super meeting.
[20:22.020 --> 20:24.320]  So, it just kind of adds up.
[20:24.880 --> 20:30.500]  And I, I love doing the conference stuff, because you get to get so many minds together.
[20:30.640 --> 20:30.880]  It's fun.
[20:31.860 --> 20:32.560]  Anything else?
[20:34.940 --> 20:35.700]  That's all I got.
[20:35.960 --> 20:36.260]  Thank you.
[20:46.130 --> 20:49.530]  So why not a section on my presence?
[20:49.870 --> 20:50.970]  Why not a place to start?
[20:50.970 --> 20:51.010]  Thank you.