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.