Game of the SE: Improv Comedy as a Tool in Social Engineering

all right welcome everybody good afternoon hope you guys are having a good time and I want to introduce Danny Akatsuki he's got an interesting talk on improv and social engineering without further ado please go warm round of applause for Danny Koski don't clap yeah you haven't actually heard the talk you can save the boots for later so uh yeah welcome first of all who's having an amazing time of the second besides Billy I was so happy this is my second time presenting I got to present last year too and just so happy that Philly finally has this conference for themselves so happy to see all you guys out here so yeah my name is Danny

Akatsuki and I wrote a talk about how you can use improv comedy to be a better social engineer whether you're new to social engineering or you know a seasoned vet by a show of hands how many people have some aspect of SC in their jobs cool and for those of you haven't raised their hands you guys are all social engineers because you do this stuff every day right when we wake up in the morning nobody gives us a script right nobody tells us how to interact with people or how to figure stuff out and this is kind of a thought process I went through when somebody else wasn't my original idea somebody else gave me the idea to try

improv comedy just to be better at SC so that's me that's all my multiple Twitter's that I barely ever visit except for my own I actually run a Twitter and a contest for the happened this first past year at Def Con what we did is we took we made about 50 different slide decks all random and had people come up and present having never seen them before who slides anyway it was amazing actually our winner of the DEF CON who's slicing a contest is sitting right in the front row be us stand up please she earned everybody she was so good man and I think you do her father Heath hacker for letting us curse like drunken sailors for two hours

in front of her I assume we didn't damage or any more than he already has so I also actually this life's live without a date I run a local security meetup up in the Lehigh Valley in Easton anybody at Lehigh Valley yes one dude come up and hang out with us tonight yeah but we are actually now an official Def Con group DEFCON six one oh so we've been there for about a year and we've got some really cool stuff coming up really proud of that also a run a Twitter in for sanity org right this one is pretty important to me it's I started this this website called called info sanity org and it deals with those of us

in the hacker community that may have been having a bit of a difficult time mental health issues stress anxiety depression so we have a slot channel and we have a Twitter and we have a website so look that up if you need it if you know somebody else that needs it it's very important to us my buddy heave up here also helps me admin that so yeah that's enough about what I do on the side this gets down to business why right why this talk I'm sure you're all sitting here because it looks semi-of fascinating to you this is because deviant olam told me to I was at Derby con two years ago not this past one one

before and in the se village they were having this panel every night and they had guys like deviant and grifter and obviously like Chris and uncle Michelle was there but they had these really great panels talking about if you're a social engineer can you turn it on or turn it off and then naturally one of the questions from the back of the room was well how do we get better at this right because we can't like I see people in real life like that kind of thing like you can't go around getting people social security numbers that's bad don't do that so but how do you practice right like how do you get better at this and it

turns out like I said in the very beginning we're all improvisers we do this every day right so this this goes like improv goes back a really really long way like back to like the fifteen hundreds of troops of comedians would just travel around and just give these improvised shows and those scripts no nothing so this is a very old art form as old as social engineering from the dawn of time like one caveman was trying to trick another one into getting us fish right like that's just how we evolved like we're all social engineers and during this panel at DEFCON or at their beacon I'm sorry deviance said well I've heard some of the better social engineers study

improv comedy and I was like wow that's that's interesting because you have to really think on your feet right and it's nothing scripted like this that's like the entices of what improv is about so when you're on an MC engagement you don't ever know how your targets gonna respond to you whether you're doing you know a physical penetration test whether you're fishing right whether you're fishing you have to know what triggers people you have to figure out like what these people care about right and it's it's tricky and those are the unknown variables I mean you can know all the principles of influence you could reach you know Robert aldini and and studying micro-expressions all day long but

there's still that human element that's always gonna be improvised on the spot so I figured you know hey why the hell not so up in Lehigh Valley so I'm in Easton as the Allentown Bethlehem Easton brought up the extension in Bethlehem at the SteelStacks they have ArtsQuest is this big building that they that they build around like the whole arts and community concerts and all kinds of things well it turns out right in my backyard in Bethlehem they have a big improv scene they have one main troupe who does shows every Friday night man dude bro then they're amazing like they'd be worse the two hour traffic jam was Google just to get there to go see

them so I figured okay I want to go see your show participated even a little bit when you first come up they they ask for somebody to come up on stage right because they need fodder for their improv show how many people have been to an improv show cool so a lot is this new to you that's awesome so there's a lot of different ways to approach opening that improv show they'll have somebody come up and like just talk right though and this was my first kind of lesson in how improv parallels se because you're basically you're you're you're you are active listening and you were getting information from these people to form the basis for your next hour or two hour

show it was awesome and my first name problems oh I was that guy nobody wanted to go out so I was like yeah I'll be the dummy that raises my hand I'll go up and then I'm talking to them for a good 45 minutes and what I was amazed by was how their initial question was to who had a good day today could a good day today by the way anybody raise your hand awesome I was hoping everybody was silly but that's fine and the guy who didn't I'm gonna come find you about beers later have a good day so but they immediately pivoted from that and got me talking about my relationships my financials

yeah nothing I'll be obviously keeping some kind of OPSEC but I was shocked it like buying the conversation they knew like all this stuff about me like what the worst fight ever how it my significant other was where I shopped and the whole time my inner SC is going oh [ __ ] I hope nobody it's right in this [ __ ] down you know I'm in big trouble so I was a lot of fun and then they did a whole like improv show based on that and the information they able to get and the attention to detail that they had listening to me just resounded with me and like I want to be that good even if I never did I

see again ever in my life or if I never was like a professional improviser whatever I want those skills that was impressive and it all spawned from just that panel talk at Derby and so I started taking improv classes they have you know improv 101 201 301 I mean we all take classes we all learn it's the same with them and you build on these skills and I did it specifically actually started it was like a year ago of a year ago in January and just wanting to be better at SC because I you know I eventually want to get into you know full-time IC and that kind of thing yeah and I also helped your interactions

with people right there's so many parallels between what we do in our industry and improv so and I was just shocked like right away from the first class in one-on-one you know it was is it's all these parallels up here building rapport active listening empathy right nonverbal communication and improv is just huge when you're when you're up on a stage and you have no script and you're just making your adults playing make-believe which is amazing how to frame yourself on stage how to be present in that scene and and playing to the top of your intelligence right these are word for word which you can get at it improv that's going to help you along in in your essay

endeavors so you know just like just like I see improv does have rules it's not completely like really newly I'm sorry go on stage and act like a dick it's just gonna it there are rules of you know two of the biggest ones that kind of overlap between you know there's those six principles of influence and an improv is commitment and reciprocity right and what I talk about with reciprocity is an improv the the core value is yes and right you're onstage with your scene partner whatever they say agree and then add something to it that's what helps the scene move along right that's how you get anywhere with anybody how many of you have ever tried

to argue with somebody who was on the opposite side of your argument and you were just saying why they were wrong and why they're stupid that doesn't get you anywhere right what's better is when you talk to them and saying yes I understand you and here it's how I think we can make this better right and then understanding what they're valuing if you can get and that's empathy is just the hugest thing what do people value what can you take from what they want to get what you want and it's just it's insane the the amount of overlap that's here so building rapport right just as in social engineering building rapport with your scene partner is clutch nobody wants to

be up on stage with somebody who's just not giving them anything and they're not playing and they're not saying but not yes ending one of the first exercises that we do and improv is okay yes and is a staple for us try to do it with no butt or no end or yes but it doesn't go anywhere you can try this with your friends at home I promise it won't feel that silly it's gonna feel not silly but if you just say no but and all these kind of thing it doesn't go anywhere so to build that rapport you have to play with each other right and some of the principles of this in improv is those

nonverbals from the second you go onstage not only are you playing to your audience but you're you're playing to what's called your back line right if you have I know an improv troupe full of like eight people nine people like they're listening to you and they're following your scenes and then you're doing the same with them so that's a rapport building right there giving those nonverbal clues in that they can follow later on eat your suspension we have a big problem with this I don't know though I don't like making grant statements like that maybe I don't even retract that but some of us have been known to have problems with suspending our own egos because we're proud of what

we do right we're like I've been doing this for years and like this guy sucks or this is why you're wrong but an ego suspension you both have to be equal there is no such thing as a shitty scene it's just a scene that's establishing the world right you can't go into an improv thing thinking you're better than somebody or this person sucks because that's going to manifest itself later on and you never be a cohesive unit when you're doing a scene validating others again that's the whole your idea was awesome or maybe it doesn't work that well but I'm still gonna build on this because let's ride this freight train till it goes off the rails right like it's

either gonna be magnificent or the grace should show you've ever seen even way that's a good improv show asking how when and why building that world around you right because literally like there's more stuff up here than would be on any improv stage I've ever been on it would be nothing and you a lot of the building of the improv scenes come from the back line comes out and they say there's a desk right here and there's a picture right here and there's a fireplace and there's a three-legged dog over here like they're building that world and they live in that for an hour right so how when why gift-giving if I come out to establish the scene you

automatically wanna know who are these people to each other what do they want from each other and how is this going to move the scene forward all of these things are part of building rapport and it's the same with social engineering gift-giving like all these are word for word some of the principles of social engineering right suspending your ego one of my stories for this is I recently competed at DEFCON and the SD village SD CTF right how many people been DEFCON cool have you put into the SD village in DEFCON awesome so for the SE CTF about two weeks before they give you your company mine was Nintendo so I actually had like my Nintendo set up as like you know

motivation ended up just playing Donkey Kong for three hours like that kind of went the wrong way so you get your company you do all your oh [ __ ] and then you get up on stage and you get your little soundproof booth and then you start making your phone calls trying to get those flags right to give you a list of flags to get now I've been doing security for seven years now I did IT for another twelve it's a pretty decent you know chunk of career time I think I know a couple of things how is my call gonna go over if I'm if I'm fishing a tech support guy trying to think all your dumb or if I have this

mindset like you suck it's not I whatever they say goes and I'm gonna get my flags that way when I finally got somebody answer 20 minutes later you only have 25 minutes so I was kind of screwed at this point the guy that answered was in there it was in there game support and I said hey I'm so-and-so from corporate security we rolled out some you know some some some new antivirus and we just want to check to make sure that went okay we've had some problems I was like can you check in your system tray no I didn't know that what AV that I had keep checking your system try and and and see if a little M

is there he was like oh no but I see Intel I see VPN and I see this he read me off his entire system tray and it was amazing like just just from going with that and then he asked me my email just to kind of verify I was who I was and I was like oh michael dot smith at nintendo.com he goes oh do you mean Noa done nintendo.com I was like of course I mean that so me right that's that's me suspending my ego of thinking that I knew that and just trusting what he said was correct and then that he didn't even think two things about it so building rapport is is really that's why I put

this slide first is like of the utmost importance when you're doing improv and I see I used to think that I was a really great listener my friends would come to me I'll be a great listener he's always there for my problems and like he'll sit and listen and that's cool is very but I realized I've been a shitty listener for like 36 years because and we all do this that's not because we're bad people most of us it's that when we're engaged in a conversation we always try to think about what's next in that conversation right like what's coming that's what can I respond with what gem of a wisdom can I give them but if

you're not actively listening then you're not really getting everything and then improv that's huge right there's there's short-form and long-form improv short form is kind of like he's equipped to three men seems long form can go on in a single environment up on stage for like an hour or two that [ __ ] takes time and you have to do callbacks right you're like oh this scene we did this so now let's do another scene based off of this and if you are not actively listening you're gonna get lost real quick and I still have issues there's so much going on and you're trying to be funny like no matter anybody says you're trying to be funny like it's there's a

lot of schools of thought saying oh just go and be natural no because if you're boring like I'm gonna lose interest like there's there's that part of it so and I and I got I got to this realization when I took se training last year in February from sa org as Chris and Michelle and their whole crew and they would go out so they were dead person teams and they told to go out in Orlando right and you're in teams and here are your flags and each night that got progressively progressively harder I'm not going to tell you the hardest ones because I don't spoil anybody that might take it but they're horrifying but the first

simple one bless you the first simple one was dissin base first and last name that seems okay like I'm conversational I can get people's names last names are incredibly intimate if you think about it if you just meet somebody on the street how often do you give them the earlier last name if they just asked for it like that's an immediate [ __ ] red flag right so I found it to be really difficult and I found when I would approach these people like I'm obviously not a small guy approaching like this little lady with like bear speed I was like hi how are you I go what the hell what are you doing you know and I'm

already asking my questions like my you know my building rapport questions first ever like engagement and I'm just barreling through thinking ahead remember can think ahead can't plan failed miserably because I wasn't listening to what she was telling me so that was this thing I would have figured out that she was horrified by me and was slowly turning this way right so that was my big lesson in holy [ __ ] I don't know how to listen as a big difference as a big gap between being a good listener and a skilled listener and I mean that's I mean that's what happens we have we all have things to do we're busy we have cell phones we have this

that anything we're trying to get a hold of us but if you're on an SC engagement the thing you might need the most whether it's like I said fishing or fishing if you're on that phone and you're trying to build that conversation with them and they mentioned something offhand like oh my daughter and you just skate right by it that could be a whole nother fishing lure for them later right but you missed it because you're so busy thinking about what's ahead and obviously that can't work in improv because there is no plan right there is no plot to improv so one of them I talked about being funny a little bit earlier on and this is where improv gets

interesting right it's finding the game of the scene and it's the title of a thin game of the SC what's the game it's the funny thing right it's you come out you start establishing these worlds and for first time people going to improv they might think oh this is Susan for the first 10 minutes or like holy [ __ ] they're just talking about horses and and a barn or whatever like this what we're building we're trying to find that funny thing and all of a sudden you discover oh the farmer likes to dress up in Barbie clothes oh okay well there's the game right you found that funny thing and then from there you raise those stakes

right you explore that world walk on John gasps cutscenes all of this so a walk on a scene is when if two people are in a scene third fourth guy comes out and they start adding to that world right so that's once you find that game and then you just keep hitting on that over and over again and then finding a little different sub games right so one of the best illustrations of this is The Herald this goes into finding the game and active listening now it has to follow this through T because this is really convolution right agent thing okay cool so the Herald is basically like comedy inception think of it like that

going three levels down with like six levels sideways right so you start off with the opening where people come out and they ask the audience for for a suggestion like oh I suggest latter and the people come out and tell what the word latter means to them right and then once those monologues are done' people come out sort of building that world so building the world is that first beat and this is mostly just explaining improv to you guys and this is just one of the forms of it and that's that first beat is just coming out and doing scenes about whatever somebody brought up about ladders or working on their house or whatever but the whole time you're back

here actively listening as a member of that troupe if you're not out there and paying attention to those details because you're gonna call them again in that second beat and then those are gonna be four or five three-minute scenes right and then you have to keep all of that together and when I talked about heightening and finding that game coming down to that third beat and just really going apeshit like oh now this guy has a fetish with ladders or he use a lyre to kill his neighbor and all of a sudden like that escalated quickly notice right here it says plot with a big line through it I'm gonna hammer that no plot there's no plot and improv

there is just inspiration for new things and then of course you have some group games and stuff that in the middle of all of this that you're trying to fall in you're back here and thinking oh my god there's my fly open the whole time and all of a sudden your mind is wandering and all this other kind of stuff you're still paying attention to all this enough to do a big group game it has nothing to do with any of those beats so this is what I'm talking about when I when I talk about active listening right these connections and these callbacks because what I see engagement ends after one day none of them right there at least

they're longer than that and there's multiple aspects right your your physical game can then tie back to your fishing campaigns and and all kinds of things so those connections those callbacks whatever OSINT that you had during se and like oh I know that these people do their trash right and I know that these people do their laundry well that's cool because now I can send a phishing email from their vendors and all that kind of stuff it's these connections these callbacks this attention to detail that is why improvident iron my entire viewing of what it takes to be a social engineer even Hitler had a dog when I talk about empathy right when you're up on stage

and improv it's the underlying skill of being changeable in a scene is empathy the ability to see where somebody else is coming from to be fluid to most importantly adopt points of view that you not only were not expecting but you vehemently and wholeheartedly disagree with but if I'm out on stage and somebody gives me that gift of labeling me I would say it out loud but like oh I'm suddenly Hitler or Mussolini or whatever I can't all of a sudden be apologetic Hitler how is that funny you know and that's and this is what the spirit of improv is it's not being there's pleasantly correct like oh no you could never call me Hitler like

that's just mean no okay well that's cool well then he had a dog maybe my scene is him playing with a dog or he has a soft spot for kittens or whatever my point with it is that adopting that viewpoint of somebody that he didn't he's a monster let me qualify that because it's being recorded hello hi but I use that to illustrate the fact of when you are forming your pretext for your social engineer engagements when you are creating those fishing lines I mean even if you're not like an active se going you know dressing up in a hard hat and a ladder or whatever and you're just in charge of your company's fishing program right how

about we right some lures that will actually get some people like unruly vol seen the fishing programs right like oh good everything's misspelled and this thing has like a Lincoln Comic Sans this is legit let me just report that and I did my job for the day know you if you want to write really good fishing lures adopt the point of view of the attacker trying to get in what would they have done to get that what-o scent would they have done to get that and what dastardly thing would you write in there to get them to click on something stepping is a cool side point of why I really liked my training and all of my time with NC

village with what with se org and with Chris had Maggie and Michelle Fincher is that they they really value empathy their thing and I will believe this until the day I die is leaving them better for having met you right there is influence and there is manipulation Chris will admit as he has like he's had to use manipulation like sometimes that's how you get the job done but if we can even approach an improv scene or an engagement or life of with just a little more empathy and with the thought in the back of your head for leaving them better for having met you you still get what you want and don't have to stay

up at night thinking God that I [ __ ] up that guy's week I've heard stories from Chris and Michelle about times that they've had to be manipulative and there's our couple of stories that if you ever had a chance to corner them they might tell you that will keep them up at night sometimes like it's just they've had to do it that's why it's better believe them better how to met you that the empathy goes a very very long way nonverbals right nonverbals one of my favorite quotes by one of the godfathers of improv del clothes an improv there are pretty much two major areas right Chicago in New York and Dell started in

Chicago and then brought that that was the improv troupe there was a second city and then brought to New York to the troupe known as The Upright Citizens Brigade has anybody ever heard of them cool UCB is awesome if you ever get a chance you can write this down later but go on YouTube look up look up upright citizens brigade ask cat it's like a bunch of a ease with an SS and a cat it's a funny [ __ ] you're ever gonna see but nonverbal is how do you use nonverbals in our everyday life right and how can we use that to our advantage in an engagement so story time again to really illustrate this when I was doing

my training down in Orlando the second night we went out we were pretty successful the first night like solos and that kind of thing I got all my flags it was awesome feeling really good about myself right second night was harder you had to get a little more detailed things like you had to get how it was it's like family members names right some family history stuff so what do I do as I am naturally prone to do I start making stories I start building these personas like this is going to be awesome and I had this I had this thing of like I was out running despite my doughy exterior I do enjoy running and I

ran in Orlando they have helicopter tours and I was like that's gonna be my story I'm gonna say that I was here for a bachelor party and I freaked out and I lied to my friends that like I was too scared of the helicopter and I had a heart attack in blah blah I had this whole [ __ ] concocted in my head guess how far that got me when I had to get my flags literally the first thing out of this woman's mouth was oh my god it's a hidden camera show that's how you know you dun goofed we went to downtown Orlando I led with the punchline cuz those funny or that way improv I went to

downtown Orlando and we were doing kind of singles or whatever and the best place to get people to talk his smoking pits alright like smokers lounge is whatever bars like and that's not the obvious go-to for anybody who hasn't done this before I don't even smoke and I smoked like a pack that week it's that was my crutch like that's how I get over my thing of asking all these awkward questions in fact we're not awkward is my head telling so I naturally like I had done really well at some of the bars the night before so I find a little smokers lounge that's not a bar it's like a family you know thing downtown Orlando if anybody's

ever been and of course since I'm getting in the headspace to be this character that freaked out for a hug helicopter ride I just [ __ ] come charging in and she's obviously like all of a sudden like what like I'm acting all nervous and [ __ ] like that like all of a sudden all of my non verba for I really said anything I could see it in her face all of my non verbals dislike you know jerky smoking motion like just looking around like I was really doing it I'm gonna hope there's no like surveillance video of this because it was just god-awful did that's what keeps me up at night is that that attempt and then yeah that was

that was her reaction and then of course my two buddies who are on my team they come and try to bail me out and like I don't worry about him you know he's just mentally [ __ ] you're fine he's he's a little slow and then I bailed like no I'm out this was too embarrassing let's just go drink the night away please just booze and sushi was my medicine them all right so and that also goes into mirroring right this is how mirroring is is one of the easiest most complicated things to do when it comes to non verbals right cuz you have to be active about it but not overactive about it the

same goes for improv when when you're in a scene and you're reacting to your partner it's never about the words being spoken it is how the audience is looking at you reacting to your partner is it a real reaction or do I know I'm at an improv show like there's the difference right overacting like being the crazy guy and improv right like that's funny sometimes but you need a straight man so those nonverbals really help level set what your scene is going to be about when it comes to se mirroring right this actually really helps if somebody's kind of belated away from you and they have their arms kind of like this that's a really

defensive posture to be aware of right and but if you know that's how somebody reacts you in real life play that in the improv show like I've had somebody be defensive against me so now I'm in a fight on an improv show that's gonna work so kind of works both ways right so yeah mirroring is huge nonverbal communications make a break a scene and they make or break building and keeping a pretext when you're when you're doing us the engagement speaking of pretext negating your frame if I call you if I call you up on engagement and I'm trying to get information and the first thing I say is oh thanks for that good thing I'm not a

hacker huh you've just negated your frame and that person had her lying on the other end of the phone it's thinking oh [ __ ] what if he is a hacker I better hang up and call security and now you have an incident and now everything goes to hell all right that's negating your frame this goes back to yes and yes and give gifts build the scene commit to the character you are if you are Osama bin Laden on stage commit to that it'll be over in a few minutes it's not going to be that bad I promise you so the worst thing that you can do NSC is isn't the gating your frame they probably never commit to

the cheese means so this is what this is one of my graduation shows from one of my improv classes right and it's going very well kind of proud of myself and this is where yes Ann can really bite you in the ass so I come out and the preet the the pretext the scene was we're in a haunted mall right or an abandoned mall is what it was and so I come out it's abandoned mall I think I'll come out as a mouse and I'm holding cheese and that's what's gonna be my thing now and then my partners come out and they're all ghosts all of a sudden I have to be a ghost but I can't drop that

cheese I have to commit to that cheese for the entire goddamn scene and not only that you have to play it up like hey what are you eating cheese I found it in the back you know and that's how that plays forward because if you drop that cheese this is also a little bit of like the object work that comes into improv if you're opening your wallet right if you horn the fold out wallets if I just go and open a wallet and then all of a sudden go and do something else for the hell of the wallet go like you should go and pick it up like I've actually learned to do that now if I screw up my object work I will

go over and be like ah drop my wallet and fold it and put it back in your pocket if you're paying somebody you pay like you just would and if you're on the phone by the way if anybody's ever think about doing improv it wants to do a scene with a phone not this not this it's your phones like like that's real right that's object work that is committing to your scene and not negating the frame that you have built that whole time goes the same for social engineering being present stop thinking ahead right I've already told you that helicopter story which really got me in in some deep trouble you can't plan that scene because there's no longer improv

then you're doing a sketch show right being present in that moment feeling those emotions that you're supposed to be feeling right another one of my favorite exercises that I would do if I never did improv again is you know you're with your scene partner and you say react as if they ate the last piece of pizza in the fridge right like you were craving that all day like how would you react now do a scene on that and of course like I play an honest I'm really angry and and then you say and then they say play that scene the same way but this person just picked up your phone right taking that same amount of anger

and energy into something that would not have deserved it right that's being present in that feeling being present in that emotion and it's it's all about shrinking your scope down well we all talk about scope a lot when we come to pen testing and that kind of thing but it's but it's it's shrinking shrinking the now down right making them now a little slower little Richard a little more evident in what you're trying to do like just be present in that moment I actually have a thing now I have a two and a half year old son that I my wife takes a lot of pictures and we all we both used to be with the phones like oh

my god he farted again this in awesome right now I actively I almost what the other way I can't take any pictures because I want to be right there when he took his first step when he ate his first bite of solid food when he mimicked the first time I said the c-word I was so proud and I was in that moment I wasn't taking the picture I wasn't recording it yeah Shh don't worry about the C we forgot B is he gentleman so just being present in that moment really really helps you kind of just not an improper se man just in anything else being comfortable with silence right this is everybody wants to

fill the space with some I've just now gotten better at not just barreling through my talks right you'll hear me do a little pause here and there but it took a long time pregnant pauses are a great means of of elicitation in your improv engagements right talking does not equal confidence we've all been on social media the people who talk the most and are the loudest are probably some of the more insecure people out there or like they're trying to compensate for something or just they need to have something to say they need to have the last word or just big width and breadth of of conversation right it's those silences that people need to

fill them so if you're just quiet and you ask a question and the answer or the other you do you nod and you're having to put and then they'll fill it with something else if you don't immediately say something afterwards and that's where that elicitation takes place in SE and it's the same way in improv right but silence is great there you don't always have to be going back and forth so that's another way that improv taught me to be comfortable in that silence you're not stupid no matter where anybody has ever told you you are not a [ __ ] you're not an idiot and even if you don't know something play that [ __ ]

to the top of your intelligence right don't get yourself down about you not knowing something go with what you do know and build on that there is power and saying I don't know it's how I built my entire career I'm probably gonna say a million more times just on Monday right so playing the top of your intelligence and improv is if somebody asked me a question improv and then it labeled me that's like a doctor or a lawyer whatever I say is the correct thing and I am a hundred percent confident if you have a good scene partner they're not gonna question you if somebody asked me how many miles to the moon sixty-five oh cool I didn't

know it was so close and then even seen along right but I am in that moment as a doctor and unfortunately the top of my intelligence as a doctor is not knowing that the moon is considerably further away than 65 feet this ties nicely to the part of SCE where we come to open source intelligence right gathering all the information that you need you cannot have it successful engagements if you don't have the legwork right if you don't have that background on people you if you're profiling employees the company the infrastructure right that that's that is playing to the top of your intelligence you're only as good as the Intel that you can just make up an

impact right like I can make anything up and as long as you're confident in that but the point here is to is to commit to it if you don't know something say so you can obviously [ __ ] your way through it I've made a career out of it so thus concludes most of my presentation for anybody who is curious about improv first of all I thought if you're in the Philly area or Lehigh Valley area check out me and dude for every Friday night they're amazing like I love those guys so that my wife has even taken an interest in se and improv she have now surpassed me at improv she's taking more classes more workshops

than I have it's it's it's a proud moment for me because for 10 years she's never listened to a word I said and now she's like an improv queen so truth in comedy by by Del Close and Charny helping and the UCB manual sick sick book was totally worth it and my personal personal favorite is how to be the greatest improviser on earth by Will Hines it's incredibly well-written relatable funny even if you never improv just seeing those behind the scenes and how that works might give you some inspiration for other areas of your life other podcasts I don't have it up here but Matt Besser does one called improv for humans so that's a really

great one when it comes to se talk a little bit about I talk a lot a bit about Chris Chris had Angie and Michelle Fincher both from from social engineer org Paul Ekman does a lot of the micro expressions the facial expressions which he does really great trainings to you can get him on his website I bought him myself from my own my own education they're awesome and Joe Navarro for that body language right that nonverbal communication is he's just he's the man he's done so many good things I've fallen when Twitter - he's really entertaining he was especially entertaining during like the presidential debates just seeing all the accommodating like non verbals and how

defensive they were with each other so just some of the resources as always feel free I am on Twitter like crazy as you'll see so that's d aka cki and feel free to reach out ask me if you're interested in any of this I'll talk it up for hours and that is what I got alright anybody have any questions of course it's gonna be beer that has it stop judging me yeesh okay so my question is what if the person you're doing improv with says a word you've never heard before like Claud your ladder raterink and you say that's my favorite pizza topping and then the people in the audience are they because you're not

playing on reality right whatever they said whatever you ascribe that meaning to be that is now that now be careful because if you do a callback you got to remember that the funniest parts are were they make up those kind of words or it's just you flub a normal word and that is now the pronunciation of that word for the rest of the show if you go back to the normal pronunciation the audience will call [ __ ] right so that is that commitment right that is that top of your intelligence that is what that thing is and Ford now forever shall be thank you peace out everybody anybody else have any questions or questions

I kind of caught a little I had to run out for a little bit and came back I don't know if you talked about this so in the social engineering aspect of things when you're also using that reality or you're creating your own reality and your Impa Serna when you're trying to extract this information from someone during that engagement what are your strategies for example for how would I like to give them a little piece of information to make them feel more comfortable during the oh absolutely that's action this is a gold mine right especially with Facebook and Twitter and social media I I had somebody do OSINT on me for I I also do a podcast called

rally security it's actually pretty funny taken up so but for one of our episodes it was all about social engineering and I had a buddy of mine who does this professionally for a living for many years Oh sent me holy [ __ ] he found so many different things like he found post I made on websites a decade ago asking about like BNC for my company and like oh here's my sub now how can I get in here it's if you google my name that post comes up it's embarrassing right but if you know ahead of time right if you're doing that active listening and they mention like oh you know oh yeah my son was sick today or whatever even if

this involves a little bit of deception obviously all this does yeah I've got my kid was sick today too even if I didn't have a son I have a nice NF for you to pull off of right so it's it's paying attention to those little things what's their inflection in their voice do they seem stressed they seem happy are they smiling as they talk to you for sipper cake that and maybe start a little small talk everybody's been on a good customer service call right that is actually not like a genuine one were they're trying to help you when they and they're again those filling those silent pauses with chatter and information all right like

oh yeah nice oh yeah I'm in Phoenix Arizona and I live here and you know my two kids or Bubba blah blah and that is building that rapport so absolutely whenever a little bit like I will mimic whatever they tell me to the top of my intelligence do not try to mimic something you know nothing about if you've never had kids ever spent time around kids don't try to mimic that like it's just smell that am i okay like that's gonna fail right again this all ties in with each other as long as it's something you can confidently pull off and naturally and make them feel comfortable with you yeah absolutely build their world into yours and say oh

I've experienced though having to fix a gutter or whatever like they had a hard day and that's that's that report it's just golden man my one thing that I always they started out doing not very well is is ignoring the rapport building because I you know I have friends but mostly I'm not an [ __ ] right that I know of nobody is really called me that in a while but the stranger doesn't know that like to look at me like maybe I look like an [ __ ] I don't know don't answer please I'm having a good day today but when yeah so they don't know me right so I hat you have to build

you have to build that rapport whether it's within a five minute window or a five week long engagement write that report bills and you absolutely cannot rush it like everybody will be skeptical if going too fast or something but yeah absolutely build that world even if you've never actually done it but you're confident and you're intend top of your intelligence to do that all right do we have time for another question yeah all right anybody not a question these all I didn't plant these by the way this is totally not a plant yeah so this isn't really a question mark comment something I do is I practice se all the time if I go to a hotel which I'm stealing this

from from him I'll lose my room key and then I'll see if they'll let me into my room without checking anything or if I my old job I used to go to our satellite sites and I would see how deep into the company I could get without showing or saying anything every time server room 100% that's a great and it's really fun to do he brings that up because over the weekend my wife and I we're in Lancaster overnight when we went an unnamed hotel pretty sure I named it on Twitter so you can go find it I still want a video rhymes with area oh shut up you're off sex sucks and it was

genuinely it was the key I had didn't work but I was 14 floors up no way down my wife's waiting for me and I saw this is how you can se yourself it's really easy I saw a cleaning lady down there and I was excuse me like can you try your key and her key worked I think all she tried mine it didn't and I was like all can you I just go in and she was all know you'll have to go down and get a key as like oh I just have to put something in the room real quick and then I'll go down oh okay so she opens the door so I put my bag in

and she's already busy she's taking off down the hallway so I'm in the room that little changing like in my approach to her again that that that's someone the principles I didn't cover but that that scarcity of time I just need a couple minutes of your time I just I or asking for help all of those things played in right then and then the couple that actually did leave and came back I was like oh I'm gonna fix this room key situation I had a working one it's like I I gave him the blank one I didn't even try this and I was like oh can I just get another copy of a room key for you

no room 1408 and she's like she has to ok 4008 I just cut it and gave it to me no ID nothing I could have picked an arbitrary room number and gotten into it don't do that I see yourselves the other one is getting into your verizon information right like via Verizon 18 cell phone gas bills whatever see how much you can do with your account with giving as little as possible that's one of those ways you can practice above and beyond improv but Jesus I love improv so much and I hope you guys enjoyed the time here