herent security vulnerabilities of the
human element in any complex system. The security engineer must understand them thoroughly and consider their implications toward computer
and system security.
Distraction Principle
While we are distracted by what grabs
our interest, hustlers can do anything to
us and we won’t notice.
The young lady who falls prey to
the recruitment scam is so engrossed
in her job-finding task that she totally
fails to even suspect that the whole
agency might be a fraud.
PhotograPh by CollIn Parker
Distraction is at the heart of innu-
merable fraud scenarios. It is also a
fundamental ingredient of most magic
performances, 5 which is not surpris-
ing if we see such performances as a
“benign fraud” for entertainment pur-
poses. Distraction is used in all cases
involving sleight of hand, including
pickpocketing and the special “throw”
found in the Monte.