Social Engineering, 2nd Edition

3Profiling People Through Communication: (or Using Your Words Against You)

To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.

—TONY ROBBINS

When I wrote Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking (Wiley, 2010), I spent some considerable time talking with Chris Nickerson, owner of Lares Consulting, about communication modeling. He is quite skilled and has a deep understanding of the topic.

He really helped me to delve deep into the topic and understand some of the ways communication is used by social engineers. At the end of the day, I can boil down communication modeling to the following key points:

• There is always a source.
• There is a message.
• There is a channel.
• There is a receiver.

If you are missing one of these, you don't have communication. Whether you look at the Shannon-Weaver model or Berlo's Sender-Message-Channel-Receiver (SMCR) model of communications, they have similar principles.

Regardless of which one you are familiar with, one of the things I've learned over the years is that the exact model you use really doesn't matter. I know, I know—some of you are probably ready to start burning this book in the streets, but here is why I say this.

If you apply this book's principles regarding rapport, influence, communication profiling, and so on, and the person you are communicating with is receiving the message, it will work. If you use ...