I get hired to hack into computers now and sometimes it's actually easier than it was years ago.

A company can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on firewalls, intrusion detection systems and encryption and other security technologies, but if an attacker can call one trusted person within the company, and that person complies, and if the attacker gets in, then all that money spent on technology is essentially wasted.

Some people think technology has the answers.

Social engineering is using manipulation, influence and deception to get a person, a trusted insider within an organization, to comply with a request, and the request is usually to release information or to perform some sort of action item that benefits that attacker.

It was used for decades to describe talented computer enthusiasts, people whose skill at using computers to solve technical problems and puzzles was - and is - respected and admired by others possessing similar technical skills.

Back in my day, I would probe by hand. Now you can get commercial software that does the job for you.

My primary goal of hacking was the intellectual curiosity, the seduction of adventure.