Wire report
Reclaiming Social Engineering for Good
“Social engineering” sounds like something out of a conspiracy thriller, charged with totalitarian control and fringe paranoia. More mundanely, it’s come to be associated with phishing and other scams, in which fraudsters manipulate people into disclosing personal information. Yet the concept is older and more benign: it is the deliberate shaping of human behavior, often at scale. It predates silicon—and became pervasive, and ungoverned, especially once its practitioners learned to hide it. Authoritarian regimes and more recently scammers and big companies have profited from it. To defend ourselves from bad actors, and to benefit from social engineering’s good side, we need to reclaim the name, and govern it prudently . The roots of engineering In 1894, Dutch entrepreneur Jacques van Marken urged companies to hire “social engineers” to manage human systems such as insurance, education, a
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“Social engineering” sounds like something out of a conspiracy thriller, charged with totalitarian control and fringe paranoia. More mundanely, it’s come to be associated with phishing and other scams, in which fraudsters manipulate people into disclosing personal information. Yet the concept is older and more benign: it is the deliberate shaping of human behavior, often at scale. It predates silicon—and became pervasive, and ungoverned, especially once its practitioners learned to hide it. Authoritarian regimes and more recently scammers and big companies have profited from it. To defend ourselves from bad actors, and to benefit from social engineering’s good side, we need to reclaim the name, and govern it prudently . The roots of engineering In 1894, Dutch entrepreneur Jacques van Marken urged companies to hire “social engineers” to manage human systems such as insurance, education, a
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What happened
According to IEEE Spectrum’s linked item, Reclaiming Social Engineering for Good, “Social engineering” sounds like something out of a conspiracy thriller, charged with totalitarian control and fringe paranoia. More mundanely, it’s come to be associated with phishing and other scams, in which fraudsters manipulate people into disclosing personal information. Yet the concept is older and more benign: it is the deliberate shaping of human behavior, often at scale. It predates silicon—and became pervasive, and ungoverned, especially once its practitioners learned to hide it. Authoritarian regimes and more recently scammers and big companies have profited from it. To defend ourselves from bad actors, and to benefit from social engineering’s good side, we need to reclaim the name, and govern it prudently . The roots of engineering In 1894, Dutch entrepreneur Jacques van Marken urged companies to hire “social engineers” to manage human systems such as insurance, education, a
Context
The development sits in VINI’s Technology coverage for readers following technology, science, product policy, markets, infrastructure, and the public consequences of innovation. The original report is linked so readers can check the source account, follow later updates, and compare new coverage against the first published record. The linked item is dated 2026-05-25T13:00:01+00:00.
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Source
Primary source: Reclaiming Social Engineering for Good via IEEE Spectrum. VINI cites and links the source; it does not reproduce the publisher’s full article text without rights clearance.
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Source links
- Reclaiming Social Engineering for GoodIEEE Spectrum - 2026-05-25T13:00:01+00:00
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