Top products from r/SocialEngineering

As you realize becoming great at social skills is just like training any other skill. Realizing you can train it will allow you to build the skill stronger than others who stumble into it. So many will say you can't get better or amazing by reading in a chair. They're right. Read a little, apply a lot, take notes, then review what you did right and what you did wrong, repeat. Get a mentor or training buddy if you can, it accelerates learning, because we can't see ourselves the same as those outside us can. Make a regimen to go out, greet and meet people every day. Or at least three times a week minimum, make it a habit.

I can tell you that I've been in customer service and sales jobs, they taught me nothing because my skills were garbage and sub-par. So I didn't have a paddle for my raft in the world of social interaction. All I got was "people get irritated if I cold approach or try to sell them. Or worse I have to dump mountains of information to make them feel safe." So after studying for the better part of a decade, here's some points that got me to the basics and more advanced subjects. With the basics under your belt, then a job or daily practice will get you understanding and results.

First, learn how to steady yourself mentally, breathing exercise here. Breathing is important as we seem to be learning your heart rate and beat pattern determine more about our emotions than we'd like to admit.

Second, Accept and love yourself, (both those terms may be undefined or wishy-washy to you at the moment, defining them is part of the journey.) Because you can only accept and love others the way you apply it to yourself first.

Third, pick up and read the charisma myth. It has habits/meditations that will be a practice you use every day. I'd say a basic understanding will happen after applying them over three months. Never stop practicing these basics, they are your fundamentals. They determine your body language. The difference between a romantic gaze and a creepy stare is context of the meeting and body language, especially in the eyes.

Sales or cold approach networking will do the same for practice. If you do sales or meeting new people, it is a negotiation. You're trying to trade "value" (safety + an emotion). So if you figure out how to make yourself feel emotion, then inspire emotion in others, mutual agreements happen. Start with Why is a good reference. Here is a summary video. Chris Voss will help you find out that you don't tap into people rationally, you tap people emotionally, big think summary video. Or the full book treatment, Never Split the Difference. The supporting book for Chris Voss' position can be helped by reading Start With No

For training habits and understanding how we execute behaviors, Thinking, Fast and Slow

For dealing with hard arguments and heavy topics both Nonviolent Communication and Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

Learning what listening is, instead of "hearing" people. Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone is a good book for that. This is touched on in Never Split the Difference and in the Charisma Myth because true listening, making the person you are speaking with feel "listened to and understood" is most of what makes a charismatic person work.

A couple that might be useful for you are:

• It's not all about me
  
  
• The Charisma Myth
  
  To reframe your self-accessed predicament, being shy is on your side here. Learning to shut up and listen to the other person talk is one of the best things you can do. When people talk about themselves and someone is listening (I mean really listening, not pretending to), they get a good feeling. That feeling they get becomes attached to being with you. That is, they think you're great and sociable when in fact you haven't even said anything!
  
  People love to talk about themselves - we are always seeking to be accepted among our fellow human beings - we are a society after all. We need to feel loved, wanted, respected etc, and the best way you can give this to another person is to just let them talk about themselves and be genuinely interested. Faking interest will not go un-noticed and it will work against, rather than for you. Ask questions about why they do the things they do and make them feel as if you want to know the answers. In this context they are the interesting people, not you. Then sit back and see how this moulds their perception of you - they will love you.
  
  Splash some knowledge of body language into the mix and you will understand more about how you are being perceived and also be able to control your own non-verbals to give messages to others.
  
  The key you seek is in understanding how other people work, not yourself!

My introduction to Social Engineering was in "The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security" by the famous hacker Kevin Mitnick.

From the wiki:
All, or nearly all, of the examples are fictional, but quite plausible. They expose the ease with which a skilled social engineer can subvert many rules most people take for granted. A few examples:

• A person gets out of a speeding ticket by fooling the police into revealing a time when the arresting officer will be out of town, and then requesting a court date coinciding with that time.
  
  
• A person gains access to a company's internal computer system, guarded by a password that changes daily, by waiting for a snowstorm and then calling the network center posing as a snowed-in employee who wants to work from home, tricking the operator into revealing today's password and access through duplicity
  
  
• A person gains lots of proprietary information about a start-up company by waiting until the CEO is out of town, and then showing up at the company headquarters pretending to be a close friend and business associate of the CEO.
  
  
• A person gains access to a restricted area by approaching the door carrying a large box of books, and relying on people's propensity to hold the door open for others in that situation.
  
  Honestly, it was a better introduction to and explaination of social engineering than pretty much anything I've caught on this subreddit. Most things on here are more "pick-up artist" tricks than what I would personally consider true social engineering.

A book that was given to me, and read by some of the smartest people around, that isn't too difficult to find, but you'll miss out on the science of persuasion if you don't read it, is Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by the renowned Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Robert Cialdini. This book, written when big hair and leg warmers were in, Influence contains the timeless secrets of getting people to say yes with just a few simple methods. You too can learn to defend yourself from the Influence of others and at the same time, get others to say yes. You won't want to miss this once in a lifetime opportunity to learn something new and wonderful.

Mitnick's books are indeed mostly anecdotal, but The Art of Deception spends quite some time to explain WHY the attack worked and how it could have been mitigated. If you are to read one of Mitnick's books, this is definitely the one closer to what you want to do

As /u/demonbrew suggested, Cialdini's Influence is an iconic book on how you can use psychology to manipulate others. There are other schools, and you can read more about it in this thesis (as you can see Social Engineering was really popular at my university). My focus was Cialdini's work, my colleagues focused on comparing different psychological frameworks used in Social Engineering.

Carnegie's book is indeed focused in socializing, but the TL;DR of the book is: "How do i make people like me?". If you combine this, with one of the Cialdini principles - "Liking" - you can see how it can help you improve your Social Engineering skills

I would suggest a few great books that have helped me along in this fun little journey of mine. I dont believe these where mentioned in the links, if they were my apologies.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061438294/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i01

Along the same lines as the first but a more fun read if you enjoy poker.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061198595/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00

Also this one is Fantastic!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0151012792/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00

Dood, my best advice is to keep quiet and LISTEN. Most of the time "difficult" people just want to bitch, just let them rant and quietly agree by nodding your head and reply with "..I totally understand where you're coming from". "I will do my best to resolve it and i apologize for any inconvienence". You know just because you say you are sorry, doens't mean you are WRONG or that will you go beyond the call of duty to FIX it. I like this book. Good luck and you have to master the art of giving something to your client without giving them anything. For example, "You know what I'm going to wave the set up fee this time okay?" (Client happy!), then you bill an extra hour somewhere else to get that money back. Sometimes you have to play car sales man, I'll fuck you in the trade-in, or the interest or the sticker price, you bitch at me at which one you want to be the lowest and I'll off set it by jacking up the other two to compensate. Also, if you can master the art of making your worst customer like you, trust you, respect you and do business with you, then the sky is the limit. =)

Newp. Amazon referral links always have "-20" somewhere in the link. The entire string will be something like "tag=repulsor-20" but scanning for the "-20" is easy.

Here's an Amazon tip for linkers, too. Everything after the long strong of numbers is fluff. So the OP's link, which starts as:

http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Science-Practice-5th-Edition/dp/0205609996/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377360710&sr=8-1&keywords=influence+science+and+practice

Also works as:

http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Science-Practice-5th-Edition/dp/0205609996

or even:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0205609996

But you don't really have to go that far.

This may also help avoid confusion regarding referrals.

Link to the other book suggested in the comments, Non-violent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg. It's good stuff, the narration style leaves things to ask for an engineer like myself but the contents is excellent. Read it! Oh, and it's available on Spotify, at least in Sweden. No more excuses not to read it! ;)

This series which is the basis for an upcoming talk of mine at BSides Philly in December.

Fallacies and biases.

How to Win Friends/Influence people (TL:DR)

Blair's One sentence persuasion.

48 Laws of Power

Cialdini's Influence (haven't read new pre-suasion yet)

How to google effectively using search operators (adv - "dorking)".

Ex:

books site:reddit.com/r/socialengineering

Should get you going.

Here's a link to the The 48 laws of Power book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Laws-Power-Robert-Greene/dp/0140280197/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

Hope that helps

If you would like to present a professional written voice, you should check out Strunk and White's excellent Elements of Style.

You're correct. And they do a great podcast, as well as Chris' book: http://www.amazon.com/Social-Engineering-The-Human-Hacking/dp/0470639539

chris hadnagy has a good book http://www.amazon.com/Social-Engineering-The-Human-Hacking/dp/0470639539/

kevin mitnick also has one "the art of deception"

hopefully my book will come out soon too :-)

i would be very surprised if that worked. people all have a sense of someones status in their heads. if someone tries to cheat and change their statuts without approval of the group they will penalize that. They will bully, gossip, hate, and that's not what you want either.

Here is a good (awesome!) social psychology lecture that explains how group status works: link.

The high status people in your group want to keep their high status. If you want to change your status you have to do it very slowly and carefully.
For example:

• behave like a cool person
  
• use reciprocity and ben frenklin effect to increase the groups liking for you (reciprocity increases liking if you don't claim your trade-off favor). cialdini
  
• slowly show more of a leader personality

> CISSP

This one maybe? http://www.amazon.com/CISSP-All---One-Guide-Edition/dp/0071781749/

Also, Blizzard states having CISSP is a plus - so thank you very much for this suggestion!

EDIT: do you know anything more specific or any other good cert?

I liked this one on body language and this one on persuasion.

Social-Engineer.org and the book are good starting points.

Chris Hadnagy's Art of Hunam Hacking is a good read. Its on audible too.

Where Ghost in the Wires is more a story book filled with great tales of hacking and phreaking, Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking is more a HowTo book for SE.

It's like on the cover of this book

http://amzn.com/0470639539

This Book is written from the perspective of a psychology professor who keeps getting tricked, and talks about simple mindset changes to help you disarm some of the tactics (mostly sales) people use.

There are a few books on spin selling, but I only know of one that bears the title. I'll search for it on Amazon and post a link.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0070511136/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1369973846&sr=8-1&pi=SL75

Getting To Yes. Others may recommend other resources, but I think this is a great one!.

This book was read by Charles Manson himself so he learnt few things from it and I actually prefer an audiobook and that's what I am listening to sometimes ;) https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0091947464

Yes that book, I have that book, and also grab the art of deception by kevin mitnick here. If you want to learn pickpocketing, or removing wristwatches, etc..here is a book on that.

Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking

Aye. Also:

1.) Influence by Robert Cialdini

2.) Secrets of power negotiating by Roger Dawson

http://www.amazon.com/How-Archer-Ultimate-Espionage-Cocktails/dp/0062066315

Here are some links for the product in the above comment for different countries:

Link: Social Engineering

• UK: amazon.co.uk
  
• Spain: amazon.es
  
• France: amazon.fr
  
• Germany: amazon.de
  
• Japan: amazon.co.jp
  
• Canada: amazon.ca
  
• Italy: amazon.it
  
  
  This bot is currently in testing so let me know what you think by voting (or commenting).

500 for $10.79

https://www.amazon.com/WristCo-Variety-Pack-Tyvek-Wristbands/dp/B01NBOTESM/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1541888721&sr=8-1-spons&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=paper+wristbands+for+events&psc=1

http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/076454280X

Never split the difference
https://www.amazon.com/Never-Split-Difference-Negotiating-Depended/dp/0062407805

Thinking fast and slow
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow

The Art of Deception by Kevin Mitnick is what first got me looking into the subject.

they're referring to the book by Robert Cialdini

Not a pdf but.... http://www.amazon.com/Social-Engineering-The-Human-Hacking/dp/0470639539

https://www.amazon.com/Social-Engineering-Art-Human-Hacking/dp/0470639539

Why not Social Engineering by Chris Hadnagy? This book has a lot of really interesting and dangerous insights into manipulative psychological techniques.

Just read chapters on elicitation, pretexting, psychology and related stuff, side away technical information.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

>Influence, the classic book on persuasion, explains the psychology of why people say "yes"—and how to apply these understandings. Dr. Robert Cialdini is the seminal expert in the rapidly expanding field of influence and persuasion. His thirty-five years of rigorous, evidence-based research along with a three-year program of study on what moves people to change behavior has resulted in this highly acclaimed book.

the art of deception by kevin mitnik
http://www.amazon.ca/The-Art-Deception-Controlling-Security/dp/0471237124

Do you find it a little odd that we illegally bombed ISIS inside of Syria without Assad's approval for months while they slowly grew in size and power. Suddenly Russia shows up and starts dropping bombs and ISIS starts losing ground? Do you find it a little odd that the news as reported in the US often paints the anti-Assad fighters as the good guys while Assad is battling against ISIS. So if we're supporting the fight against Assad's army, but not supporting ISIS, but Assad is fighting with ISIS to keep his country... then who exactly are we supporting? Do you find it at all odd that as Assad started their assault on Alleppo that the news portrayed the killing of fleeing civilians as if it was Assad who was doing the killing, when in reality it was the "freedom fighters" (read ISIS) who was killing them as the fled town.

I am by no means pro-Assad, and if anyone is they should look into the wholesale massacre he participated in during the initial uprisings... I'm not convinced that those uprisings weren't covert operations organized by our Government riding the revolutionary wave of the Arab Spring. Just like we did in Libya.

You show me the line in the sand that differentiates being pro-terror vs simply arming and supporting groups that promote terror.

edit: downvotes, huh? Here, have some links.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/08/politics/amnesty-international-isis-weapons-u-s-/

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/12/russia-turkey-syria-161228050019245.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-wagner/dark-side-free-syrian_b_2380399.html

edit2: here, read a book on how we roll, you might learn something.

https://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Wars-Afghanistan-Invasion-September/dp/0143034669