So, any of you that know, of course, what we do with social engineering, it seems like a logical progression that we would get together with someone like Apollo, someone who is a master at getting close to people without them feeling uncomfortable, and then being able to do all sorts of fun stuff.
And we know for the entertainment value, like take things off of you, but there's so much more value to it psychologically from a social engineering perspective, from a security perspective.
Getting close to people and having them not feel uncomfortable is something that really can work for us.
So, Apollo was part of a crew that made a short film, right?
Yeah.
That was never released.
For the general public.
For the general public.
So, he's got a clip of that.
As soon as we get this projector and it's running, we're going to open up this session with a little piece of that video so you get a sense of what we're going to be talking about here today.
And then we're going to do some Q&A and some other things.
About the title of the talk is 60 Minutes in the Mind of a Grifter.
And we'll talk about what that is, how that applies to us.
I think it's 52 minutes.
52 minutes?
So, it is now 51 and a half minutes in the mind of a grifter.
We'll see how that works.
It looks like our projector is now living.
Awesome.
A couple things.
That's natural.
It looks like that's what the mirroring would work by.
Yes.
Everyone get a mirror.
And turn around and watch the screen.
On this side, pull out your mirrors and watch.
I want to be out here so I can chat with you a little bit closer.
Suckers.
This is kind of a test also because if I speak here later on, I want to see.
Half of my body is cut off.
So, for the guys in the back, it might be hard for them to see.
Anybody that can't see me very well, can you raise your hand just so I know who you are and I'll play to you.
So, we have a couple.
Two, three.
Okay.
Then I don't care about you guys.
We can just deal with these guys.
The nature of a con, most of you are probably familiar with.
When you hear the term con artist, con stands for confidence.
But the idea of the confidence is how do you get the confidence of your mark?
How do you get them to be convicted about what they're doing?
The difference between belief and knowing something.
You can believe something.
I think it might be this.
But if you can get somebody to be absolutely sure that they'll doubt their assumptions,
they don't have any doubt, they'll move forward.
That's really what a con is.
It's how to get them so concrete about what you're presenting to them that they have no doubt.
And what's great about that for the social engineering is there's a lot of overlap.
The social engineering is trying to take that into a science versus something that's been based on intuition in the past.
I don't even know if I can add anything to that.
That might make me cry.
That's exactly.
You guys know.
How many people here.
You know, I always hate when I ask this question because then I get like one hand and I feel stupid.
How many people here listen to the podcast?
Oh, good.
More than one.
There's like five of you.
Okay.
So you know what we do on the show, right?
Every month we're trying to analyze psychologically the principles behind how bad guys get to do the things that they do.
And that's why this is such an important talk because it's not just intuition.
It's not just sleight of hand.
It's not a magic trick.
It's actually understanding what happens up here when you do the things that Apollo does and why it works.
If we can understand that, then we can duplicate it.
And we can also defend against it since we are supposed to.
We're supposed to be the good guys.
So this is really a valuable lesson for all of us here, especially those of us that do this for a living and have to defend networks.
If you don't, you still got to defend your family.
And the last 18 months, guys, what's been going on?
It's like nonstop, right?
Every day is another day.
I think it's set up for reverse projection right now.
How many goons does it take to .
I'm going to say three.
So it's just the reverse projecting set up right now.
Can I make a suggestion?
Do you mind if I borrow this mic?
I do not mind.
And this was actually supposed to be a Q&A.
So the big part of that is you guys.
So is there anybody here who has any questions for me that might be familiar?
And as you notice, we're kind of skipping past any kind of background on what I do.
You've heard that apparently I steal things or I run cons.
But we can ask some questions now and kind of do that while we give some time for those guys to actively use.
Hey, Apollo.
I wonder how you break people's psychological space without them getting super suspicious.
Or is it just all a matter of redirecting that suspicion elsewhere once you're in there?
Because you're right.
You're touching people.
You're right up against people you don't even know and that don't know you.
And that changes based on context.
So when I perform and I'm doing a show, I oftentimes, when you've seen videos of me, I use something like a bit of magic or I might use something else that allows me to get inside that space.
But when you interact with someone, there are different zones.
Edward T. Hall wrote a great book on this called Hidden Dementia.
It was the idea, he coined the term proxemics.
Now, parapersonal space is often what's referred to.
Would you mind standing for me for a second?
Read over this way.
I need to sell the big flinch.
Here.
Go ahead and turn straight toward me so we can just see you face to face.
So as I walk closer to him, you have your social space that's in a larger area.
You have your personal space, which is a little bit.
Then you have an intimate space.
And the difference between intimate and the personal is you can almost see.
I mean, here.
I'm actually kind of exaggerating it with straightening right up and then going back to shifting a center of body weight.
But if I want to get into those, if you think of it like paying a toll, like you're on a bridge, I'm paying a toll to bypass this one, to bypass this one, to get inside that space.
And the way I pay that toll is making a logical excuse that's natural to the environment.
So a lot of times when I'm performing, I have that through my performing persona to get in and speak to him.
But on the street, they have to come in with other reasons.
So it may be assisting you with asking a map.
Or it might be something as simple as asking you for the time.
But you notice here by turning, I'm relaxing him a lot more.
Now, the space that he has is shaped like an egg.
It's larger.
Not just yours personally.
Everybody's is.
It wasn't a personal dig, man.
So it comes out like an oval here in the space.
It's smaller on the sides and then in the back.
And to get into that, that means I can get inside.
It's much more comfortable for him, which is you can see kind of where we're defaulting to.
But go ahead and face straight up to me again.
Now, watch.
As I walk towards the space, I'm at it.
Now, I can make him much more comfortable simply by breaking eye contact and stepping inside of his space.
Onto the side.
But if I keep eye contact as I walk into his space, it's a lot more tense for him.
I wish you guys could see what I see.
It's a little bit more bright.
All right.
But same thing.
If I don't want him to focus on something I'm doing here, I can bring my face up and I'll pull his attention up like I just did there.
Just because I'm in that zone.
Now, imagine one of the current problems you would have is if you wanted to try some new RFID reader because you're inside of his space.
And you wanted to have a rational way to how do I get close to his badge?
In this case, what would be an excuse for why you can come inside and get close to his badge with an RFID reader?
Well, to have a closer look, see what it says, ask what.
Mm-hmm.
Definitely remember you, though, if you have a closer look.
And on the street, they call that kissing the dog.
So kissing the dog means I spent a lot of time with him and he remembers my face.
Oh, you mean the guy that was looking at my badge just kind of came up to me in the coffee shop.
So context means a lot.
So here, it would make sense that you could look at the badge.
So you might say that's interesting.
But if I wanted to be under the radar and have him not remember that, I might use something else.
If I'm serving hors d'oeuvres, if I'm holding something nearby.
Or if I'm going to a restaurant.
Or I might ask somebody else a question.
Have my backpack behind me.
And now this makes it a lot lower.
Or if I'm holding something else that's a tray, I ask him if he wants something.
Have it underneath the tray.
Or have it underneath in a stack of books.
You could even ask, sorry, could you hold this for me?
Give him something to hold onto.
He's holding it right in front of his badge while I'm doing something over here.
And then I just say thank you very much.
But I don't ask his permission, you notice this.
I might just say hold onto this for me.
Or just here and do this.
And then afterwards, I apologize for why I was doing that.
So those are some different ways to bypass to get inside of space.
Obviously depends on a kind of a recipe of context mixed with plausibility.
We're still, that one shot the dust on the projector.
Did we do a call of death tone on the projector?
So, one other question?
No, we can do questions or we can also play on the side.
But I'm feeling like for, thank you, man.
By the way, just a round of applause.
Thank you, man.
You're a good sport.
Appreciate that.
Out of the folks that we have here, quite a few of you can't see this screen at all,
can we?
You can't see this screen?
You can't see it?
You know, just for the first few rows that can't, there's a bunch of seats over here
if you want to move over.
And then for the rows that can see it, you can stay.
But there's a bunch of seats and we can actually start if you want to come over to the front
row.
Come on, Christina, Michael.
Come on.
It's okay.
Because I would love for you guys to ‑‑ I have visuals to show you on this.
But obviously speaking about it, I'm worried that some of you guys can't see for the context
of what we're saying.
Other questions?
Yeah.
Anybody with a hand right here?
No question.
That's right.
So, assuming we'd like to learn more about the techniques and what you're doing, nothing
malicious, of course.
No?
What resources do you have or can we find online?
What resources do I have?
The only thing that's coming up right now, I did a TED talk about a month and a half
ago at TED Global.
It's coming up in about a week and a half, two weeks.
Some of what I was going to show there I was going to show here as well on visuals.
But as far as materials, I can point you to things if you'd like to.
That book I mentioned, Hidden Dimension, is a great resource.
If you're interested in, a lot of the work that I do is taking advantage of false assumptions,
fallacies, cognitive biases, and heuristics in general, mental shortcuts.
If you are interested in reading about some of that, besides any book on critical thinking
that jumps into fallacies, there's a great book by Daniel Kahneman called Thinking,
Fast and Slow.
And it talks about the idea of two systems, of how our minds work.
And most of us, especially in this group, a lot of us would probably pride ourselves
on being critical thinkers, wouldn't you say?
That we don't get affected, that we try to keep our head inside of logic versus stepping
out and being ruled by emotion.
His book talks a lot about how we automate certain tasks because otherwise we would go
insane.
And we react faster through instincts.
How we can quickly respond to something because we've automated that skill set.
And the fault with that is when you've automated that skill set, you're subject to biases and
responses and shortcuts.
That you might not have been aware of.
Which is great for what we're trying to do here.
Because if I can identify what you've automated, I know that somewhere along those lines you've
made assumptions.
And those assumptions are my building block for designing a deception.
Any other questions?
Going to run.
Keep your hand up.
Where were you?
There you are.
Hello.
Hi.
Does humor can somehow help you getting closer to people while keeping them comfortable?
Yeah.
Humor is amazing because it's so hard to fake.
I used to use that for drawing crowds in a trade show environment.
Because I wasn't ‑‑ applause you can kind of get.
But humor, people wonder would I laugh at that.
And so it's something that you think is an authentic response.
So if you can artificially laugh and it seems very genuine inside of a situation, it's very
engaging as far as that context.
I'll give you an example.
A friend of mine used to run a con called The Drawer.
And he would use this for selling either guns or a drug paraphernalia.
And it would be set up in an old motel.
He'd be working with a partner.
Sorry, is my mic too quiet for you guys?
Can you see?
You okay?
Sure.
And in this context, his partner would be dressed in a robe, was a very gregarious guy.
And his main ability was making people laugh.
And he seemed very likable.
Like some of my friends here.
And when they would come to do a purchase at the motel, they would arrive apparently
early.
They'd knock on the door.
He answers.
He's in his robe.
All of his bath materials were laid out on the bed.
And he'd say, I'm sorry, my partners aren't here right now.
You guys are a little bit early.
But he lets the guys who are purchasing the guns or the drugs to come in the door.
When they come in the door, he has a conversation with them.
Do you have the cash, everything?
You hear this, I don't want to count.
We'll count it later.
Just stick it in the drawer.
They stick it in the drawer of the dresser.
He chats with them for a bit.
He says, listen, I like you guys.
How about, I'll just go and get the stuff and I'll bring it in.
Are we cool?
They say yes.
He steps out of the room.
Leaves them in there with their money, with all this stuff, his luggage, everything.
Goes to get the stuff from another room, from his partner's room.
And he never comes back.
At some point, they wonder why he's coming back.
So finally they decide, you know, let's just take our stuff and go.
They open the drawer.
It's empty.
They open the drawer.
It's empty.
What his, my friend had done was he was in the room next door.
They had opened up, cut a hole in the wall, cut a hole in the back of the dresser and
pulled everything from inside the drawer and taken it out.
They said the ability of that guy with his humor was his main thing that made them feel
at ease.
And feeling like he's in his robe, all this, oh, his luggage is here.
But when they open the luggage, it's empty.
When they look at this stuff, it's just throwaway dollar stuff they could have bought and under
his robe were his clothes when he left.
So that was one of the cons he used to run.
Any other questions?
This might be an oddball question, but what do you think about shows like The Mentalist
and the character Patrick Jane?
The Mentalist is a very cool area of study.
For myself, my wife is a mentalist.
If any of you have seen this movie recently, Now You See Me, they have kind of the archetype
in magic, illusionist, sleight of hand artist, mentalist.
It is a different category.
It's psychological manipulations.
And there's this interesting thing, a mentalist and a psychic.
Awesome.
You guys are great.
Thank you so much for doing that.
Mentalist and psychic are a flip of a switch.
It's basically psychic is someone who says that they can tell you, or especially a medium,
someone who talks to the dead, someone who says they have these abilities, but that they
came from some supernatural world.
A mentalist is someone who ethically says, I can do these things, but it's a skill that
I've learned.
And they are using some kind of trickery to create the perception that they're doing that.
In that character on The Mentalist there, he has the ability of cold reading, hot reading,
profiling, and those tools that he's using to help the police.
And those things are very real, and that's very personal to my life with some of the
things I work on.
We ready to begin?
We are ready to begin.
Okay.
We can hold some questions after, maybe?
Yes.
Let's get started with the real show.
Okay.
So just a little set up on this.
This is a short film I worked on for a company in Montreal.
And it's about ten minutes long.
But it lets you see a little con and a little bit of stealing all happen that I worked with
them on to try to make it a con that would happen in ten minutes.
So make your assumptions about where it's going to go, and let's see how well it works.
Let's make sure that this plays up on both screens for you as well.
Okay.
So you can see .
It's waiting for the DVD to load.
And that's all on me.
That's not you guys.
It's one of those things that happens when you really look for something.
Okay. And we need to pull that over to the other screen for you. There you go. That's
a fun game. And play.
No, no, no. That's the one I wanted. The DVI situation. With the automatic zoom.
I, unfortunately, they're all gone. What do you mean all gone? Gone. Gone. Bye bye. No
more. It's the magazine. Everything must go. Oh. What is it saying? It's saying,
stay here. Saturday, February 19. Exactly. That's today. Yeah, today. It's 9.02 AM. The
sale started two minutes ago and the DVX is already gone? Yes. Bet that you noticed what's
written here. Where? There. While in stock? At only $4,089. That's crazy. That's crazy.
And I'll tell you, people didn't wait for the sale. However, I will tell you a secret.
You sir, deserve much better than the DVX. The SCX. This baby does it all. And to top
it off, it has the same zoom as the DVX. The SCX. The SCX. The SCX. The SCX. The SCX.
The SCX. And that's what you want. Come on, feel how heavy it is.
Oh, man. I hate you. I know.
Oh, what is this coming?
Oh my god, for you.
Oh my god.
It doesn't deserve this!
Can I help you?
Yes!
My son is a thief.
Ow!
He stole my friend's credit card and then he came here and bought a 5,000 buck camera.
The SC...
The SCX?
Ouch!
How could you sell a 12-year-old kid a 5,000 dollar camera with a credit card?
Nah, nah, nah.
That's impossible.
It's, uh...
Well, then what is this?
So, what do you want me to...
I'd like you to give me back my money.
Yeah, unfortunately all sales here are final.
What do you mean, final?
What you've done is illegal.
Lady...
Illegal!
Well, if you're so unhappy, I can always call the police.
I'm sure they'll make it legal for you.
Do you see the mess you have gotten me into?
I'm so sorry!
Here, here.
Come on.
Yeah.
You good?
Yeah.
Are you okay?
Yeah, I'm okay.
I'm okay.
Do you see what happened?
God, what if we didn't deserve this?
That's enough, lady.
Enough with the screaming and hitting.
What do you care, little miss?
I can't live without my phone.
You have no right to hit your child like that.
No wonder he's dealing with a mother like you.
No.
Do you want to fight?
Is that it?
Huh?
Do you want to fight?
Honey!
All right, lady.
Go ahead.
Slap me.
Leave space!
Go!
No!
But seeing someone, I mean, seeing a child like this, makes me want to kill them!
Listen.
There is no way I can give you back your money.
The best I can do is exchange it for something that you do want.
But come hell or high water, you're going to have to give that man back his $5,000.
Great!
Good choice, sir.
$5,099.99.
At that price, it's a real steal.
Here you go.
Thank you.
David Brown.
Same name as my boss.
Really?
I want that one.
The AG Beta?
Nah, that's way more expensive.
I'll go get you a new one.
I'll get you a bag.
Here's your new camera.
Now just give me yours and it's all settled.
Look, it's completely new.
It hasn't even been unwrapped.
Yeah, yeah, great.
Oh, just one more thing.
Come here.
Please come again.
Oh.
Oh.
Now I want you to apologize to the man for causing him all that trouble.
Look, that really...
I want to teach him a lesson.
Say sorry.
Sorry for the confusion.
You can do better than that.
Oh, no.
It's okay.
I'll buzz you out.
Sorry.
Apologize?
For real?
I'm sorry.
This is the last time I'm going to ask you.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Huh?
I'm sorry.
Yeah, yeah, that's fine.
Just give me the bag.
I'm sorry.
Okay.
I'm sorry.
Okay, that's enough.
Here we go again.
Okay, ladies.
If that's the way you want it.
Stay out of this.
I'll handle it.
Don't worry, kid.
I'll get you out of this.
I'm calling the police.
My phone.
What?
The door.
All right.
Stop.
It's him.
The little crook stole my phone.
Hold on a minute.
What's your phone number?
555.
555.
66.
66.
65.
65.
65.
65.
66.
65.
It's my phone.
You see?
It wasn't him.
What the hell's going on?
I don't know.
Things keep disappearing.
That's my credit card.
My wallet.
My wallet, too.
Oh, it's the boy.
I can't open it.
What's going on here?
I'm sorry.
Saturday, February 19th.
Exactly, that's today.
It's 9.02 a.m.
The sale started two minutes ago and the DVX is already gone.
I bet you noticed what's written here.
Did you see the mess you brought me into?
It's so soft!
Okay, I'm okay.
You want to fight?
Go ahead.
Go ahead.
It's a real steal.
David Brown.
I'm him or my mom.
I'll let you get your back.
Say sorry.
Sorry for the confusion.
Sorry.
Let you out of here.
It's okay.
You can walk this way.
Can't I?
I shouldn't be doing this, but...
You'd better shift if you don't want to die.
Andrea Youssef or Durwell
No?
I know that took a little bit of our time.
We only have a little bit of time left together.
But I wanted to give you kind of a concentrated element so you can see all these dinner-related
cons all kind of used together.
I thought I'd give an opportunity for you to take a lead on this if you have some questions
for me and we can fill that back.
So maybe what you can do first is explain, what is a grifter?
Generally a grifter is a nonviolent criminal.
So that expands beyond just con artists, it expands into thieves, cat burglars, anything
that they're using.
Using an element of wit or technique generally is the world of grift in general.
So we had an interview once with a guy named Dr. Paul Zak.
He studies oxytocin, the release of it in the brain.
And he said that he was conned once.
And after he started doing this research, he realized that con men work because they
make you feel that they trust you, not that you trust them.
How is that done psychologically?
How is it that you make other people feel that you trust them in such a way that they're
now
not looking for the deception like we saw in that video?
I think there's a big misnomer about liking associated with trust.
I think liking is a cherry on top.
If you like me, that's great.
But I don't really care in a con.
What I want you to do is understand me.
I want me to be transparent to you.
So the more that you think you understand my objectives, what I want, what I don't
want, and you can size me up.
The more likely you are to feel that I can trust you, both in the sense of what you're
doing.
But what that does, if you think about an example of a friend that you have, you might
not trust them to do something that's really important just because they're your friend.
Because you also know their mistakes and what they're capable of.
And if they're not capable, even if they're a friend and you like them a lot, you won't
trust them to do the job.
On the other hand, this guy that you don't like but you know he's very capable, if they
can get the job done, you're going to give it to him.
So same thing with a con in a lot of ways.
It's the ability for me to give an artificial level of transparency that I'm the authority,
I'm the one who can get this job done, and then as part of that transparency, one of
those levels is for me to put you as the lead, and that's where I think you're referring
to.
And the combatives, who I've worked with, I've done some work with special forces, and
they have a phrase that they use, feeder-receiver.
So in any kind of fight or interaction, you have the feeder of the fight, you have the
receiver of the fight.
The strongest position that you could be in is to appear to be the receiver when you're
actually the feeder.
So that's what you're referring to, which is a more advanced technique, that if I can
be steering the situation while you believe that you're the one that's in the lead, that
I trust, I need your help, that's even better because it keeps the suspicion level way below
radar.
Yeah, that's valuable.
So I think for us, because we're all practitioners here, we like to do this either as a hobby
or because we work.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So in our classes, we teach very similar, different names, but very similar concepts,
especially when you were down here talking about body language, making people feel comfortable.
That's really valuable stuff.
But now I get close, what's the next skill I need in order to be able to take something
from you without you feeling it?
Because it's more than just trust at that point.
It is.
It's the reason that you're touching them.
Here, I'm going to show you a couple of visuals on here.
This is the complex way that I think of the mind.
Let's bring this up.
Let me know if this comes up for you guys.
And that should go through.
So you have all your senses coming into one input.
But in my mind, rather than that being a specific part of the brain, that is a little security
guard sitting inside the head.
I like to call him Frank.
Frank has really cool equipment.
He has the eyes, the ears.
And those are a lot like cameras and objects.
But he's taking all of these inputs from your perceptions and he's processing what
to do with them.
What's important to know when you're going to steal something or take something from
somebody or just get inside their space that most people misunderstand is that perception
is not the first step.
Attention is the first step.
Attention is the security fence around that person.
It's the thing that decides what perceptions are going to be dedicated to it.
So if they're not attending to something, they can't perceive it.
But even if the cameras are pointed in the right way, if you're looking at me, it doesn't
mean you're going to see what I do.
You can look at it and not see.
So in this case, the security guard is looking straight at it.
But if I ask him the correct question or something that's more important to him and his priorities,
he'll turn around and look at the file.
He'll rewind the tape.
And there's an illusion that most people have that they can multitask.
They can't.
And while they're rewinding the tape, even though they're looking at something and they're
interacting with you, if they're thinking and having an interior dialogue, they can't
process what's happening right now.
So that allows me to see what's going on.
So they're looking at it in an extreme sense, not just to take a wallet or a watch, but
sometimes to take their glasses and change their vision.
And they don't realize that that's happened.
So ‑‑ Say it again.
Real life example of stealing?
Would you guys like to see that real quick?
I actually found myself checking my glasses in my cell phone as he was saying that.
And I want to say I'm missing my underwear.
No, just kidding.
Have you seen me work before?
Do you have anything in your pockets?
Yes.
Good.
Can you stand up for me real quick?
And you have seen me work before?
No.
Okay.
Cool.
Now, the disadvantage is we don't have any real estate on stage, but if you could stand
over this way for me.
What's your name?
Greg.
Greg.
Can I check a couple things?
So you have a watch, but this is a buckle watch.
So it doesn't come off very easy.
Close your hand kind of tight.
So that wouldn't let it come off this way.
Yet when you walked past me, did you check to see where your wallet was?
Your front pocket.
This side right here.
What was in there?
The watch is gone.
Do you have anything inside your front pocket?
Yeah?
Is it still there?
Can I show you?
Now, this is odd.
A lot of you don't know.
Does this look familiar to you?
What's inside the piece?
Is that yours?
No.
No.
Okay.
Step over this way for me for a second.
You're realizing your cell phone is gone now, yes?
So those are two items.
But you can see this is much more adversarial than you would ever have in a context where
somebody doesn't know who you are.
So here he knows and he's seen videos of me working.
So he knows the nature of them.
I'll hold the things up when I have them.
I'll hold them over to the side.
And then I can steal a watch like this.
Here you go.
Thank you.
Thanks for asking for that because I think it shows how the questions are important.
It's not about the technique that I use.
I mean, that's a portion of it, maybe 20%.
But 80% is the questions I asked.
So I said that as you walk by, that wallet that you had in your pocket.
That's his security guard saying, when I walk ‑‑ oh, jeez, am I already behind the game?
And when he switches in that interior dialogue, that's when I remove the watch.
I've already got the moves.
But if I didn't say those things, if I didn't ask that question, he would just feel me
unbuckling his watch just like you would.
So it's not about a Jedi technique that I can do that I have light fingers.
It's that I'm able to get inside of his head and suppress his perceptions.
So you use psychological misdirection.
Very much so, yes.
So, Paulo, I have a quick question.
I think within the community we pride ourselves in being very vigilant and being very aware of these kinds of things.
And I guess my question is, one, have you ‑‑ do you have any experience with security professionals
and whether or not we are, in fact, better at detecting deception?
And, two, if you have any advice for us, anything that we can learn.
Be careful with your answer.
A while back I performed at Caesar's Palace here in Las Vegas for about five years.
And a detail of Secret Service agents came through.
And I realize some of this audience knows me very well and they've heard these stories multiple times.
So sorry for being redundant.
But the Secret Service are highly trained in different ways for the protocol.
Wheels up, wheels down is often one of the phrases they'll use.
And because of their protocol and the way that they're trained, one of the trainings that they go through is called Kim's Game,
which means keep in mind, but it's a memory system perception there.
But you still have to dedicate your cognitive resources.
To the task that you're doing.
Which means if I'm going to spend my attention dollars on one thing, I'm going to have an atrophy in another area.
So I just have to know where they're spending it and I understand that there's going to be a deficit somewhere else.
So I have to identify that.
In their case, when I would go into their space, they would square up to me and they would keep occupied space and wouldn't let me get close.
So I had to pretend that I wasn't interested in this.
It would be very difficult, but I could do something to you.
And now this person just let me inside their space.
Because I'm doing it to him, supposedly.
So I changed the game to be about him.
And this agent let me inside their space to steal their things.
So if you can understand what their protocols are, you can violate pass those.
It was a treasure chest.
What was that?
I might give you a couple things very quick as far as a visual.
If you look at this, respond to our question.
And could all of you hold your right hand in the air?
Now this is a perception test.
But it's more than you might think.
It's one that we use for the military.
And I'm going to show you two photos.
And there's going to be a change between those two photos.
When you see the change, just put your right hand down and we'll know how fast it takes effect.
So we have a mixture of security professionals here.
And if you haven't seen the video, you'll get to see the realtime results of this.
So this image is going to toggle back and forth between the two.
Don't say anything to your neighbor.
But when you see the difference between the two photos, put your hand down.
That's kind of an answer to your question.
Thank you.
Now if I start giving you hints, and I tell you people have a tendency to get tunnel vision.
They start looking at the windows.
They start counting the shoes.
Then that gives you a hint that maybe it's something less obvious than that or more obvious.
In this case, they won't be going anywhere without this.
And once you see it, you can't help but not see it.
.
For the rest of you, look under the wing of the plane.
And you'll see that the engine is appearing and disappearing.
Now put your right hand up if you feel stupid.
You shouldn't feel stupid.
What you should feel is human.
Because I myself am susceptible to the same things that I do.
But the difference is that I know that I'm susceptible to it.
When you know something, that's when you should be scared.
When you feel like you know your techniques, your protocol, and your absolute,
that's when you should be scared because that means you have no room for doubt.
And doubt is what makes us secure.
There's another example if you don't mind.
I'd like to show just a little model I use with deception.
This is how I think about deception.
Let me grab this here.
It'll be easier.
If you think of everything that's happening right now, this is a micro.
What we're doing right here with me on stage with you guys.
But it's also how you perceive the world.
Tennessee Williams, the playwright, said that most playwrights when they write a play,
they forget one character.
And that's the role of the audience.
Because when the audience views the play, the movie, whatever it may be,
they forget that the audience is the detective.
Whether it's a drama, whether it's a mystery, or whether it's a comedy,
they're trying to solve that.
And we're doing that every day.
We're looking for patterns.
We're trying to identify what is the situation, what's happening to me right now.
So as you watch me walk from the stage and walk close to you,
all of that's being processed.
It's just like a play.
So I'm on stage in front of you.
Right now, this is a very good example of a spotlight.
But your spotlight here, in a very real sense, is controlling most of your focus.
So the dimmer areas, you wouldn't know if I had a team working on you right now
stealing from the back of the room.
Or setting up things I might do later.
In the same way, you have a certain budget of where you're going to spend your attention in everyday life.
When it comes to deception,
there's a separate reality that's happening simultaneously.
That's running on a separate channel.
In this sense, it's backstage.
It's kind of like in The Matrix when you saw the spoon bending
and you realize that there's something that's a bigger reality.
They got a peek behind the curtain.
Now, when you get a peek behind the curtain and you have some kind of suspicion,
this doesn't make sense.
When that moment happens, you start going on the chase for deception.
If I'm on the other side, and I'm the one designing this deception,
what I would teach you to do is to build a secondary...
Well, first, sorry, there's a director.
So obviously, if you know there's a deception, you know somebody's trying to deceive you.
And that's a big thing to identify who is the wolf that's doing that.
This is what I would teach.
To have a secondary curtain. A ploy.
So that if you see behind the curtain,
it's the second thing that gives a plausible reason why that happened.
A great example of that is Victor Lustig.
Does anybody know who that is?
He's the man who sold the Eiffel Tower. Twice.
He sold a building.
Brooklyn Bridge.
He came, he cheated Al Capone.
He talked the Secret Service into letting him go after they had arrested him.
He was very arrogant.
When they first arrested him and they were going to take him to prison,
the press was interviewing him, saying,
how do you feel about going to this maximum security prison in San Francisco?
He said, I'm not going to get a chance to see it.
He said, but you're leaving tomorrow.
He says, I won't be here tomorrow.
And then when they go to his prison cell, he had vanished overnight.
How did he do it?
He had picked up a squeegee that nobody thought,
or was suspicious about.
And he made a cliché rope out of his bedsheets,
climbed out of the window,
and pretended to be cleaning windows as he was going down.
So whenever the security guard saw him,
they thought, oh, that's just the window cleaner.
And he got away.
He was a master student of human nature.
He understood how to hide things by the radar.
And that's really the same thing.
When our mind, when that little security guard, Frank, sees things in reality,
he's seeing, he's categorizing, saying, is this relevant?
Is it important?
If it's not, if it is,
then I'll encode it.
If it's not, it's going to go under the radar,
and I'll forget about it.
And for you guys, if you can decipher what makes things relevant to the person,
you can make things invisible to them.
You can make them not perceive them.
A great example of Victor Lustig using the ploy.
When he was selling the Eiffel Tower,
he was selling it as junk metal during a time
when the Eiffel Tower didn't have the esteem that it did before.
It was after the World's Fair.
The husband of the wife, how are we doing on time?
Finish the story.
I'll wrap that up.
All right.
When he was selling the Eiffel Tower,
the wife of the bidder was suspicious
that Victor Lustig might not be who he said he was
or might not be legit.
He had a variety of scrap metal workers bid on the job.
But this wife smelled a rat.
She smelled something behind the curtain.
The way he dealt with that was he told her and her husband
when he had dinner, he says,
listen, if you want this deal to happen,
you're going to need to give me a kickback.
Now, they think he's a city official.
So she thinks that's the rat she smells.
That was his ploy.
That was his second curtain.
They hate him, but they say, all right.
They give him the kickback, and they go to buy the contract.
And in that exchange, he was able to keep the contract
and make more money than he had planned before
because he was able to identify what she needed.
So that's a little example in the construction of the deception.
Any questions?
Guys, we want to thank Apollo for coming in, right?
Come on.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.