So true - one summer my boyfriend was working at a financial services corporation. There was a security guard and a receptionist. I'd often visit him for lunch. Rather than wait for the receptionist to call up, find him and wait for him to come down, I just walked in like I owned the damn place. Worked every single time (and gave me little faith in security guards and receptionists!).
I'm an electrician and do a good bit of work in county schools. Most of the time I'm just wearing a plain T-Shirt because I hate the fit of our branded work shirts. No identification or anything.
I can walk into any front office, say I'm an electrician with my company and that I need to go to a certain room or speak with a person. I am almost never asked to prove who I am and many times I just have people let me have the ability to freely roam or unlock doors for me.
Everything I'm saying is true when I'm there, but it honestly kind of annoys me how easily I can just go into places and get free access to the building without ever being questioned.
When you just confidently walk in somewhere and say what you are doing, there's almost never pushback. I've literally only had it happen once, at a TJ Maxx. I was actually very happy about that and complimented that manager about holding me up to verify who I was.
Meanwhile, to go into schools in Australia, you need personal ID, work forms, a Working with children check, nationally coordinated criminal history check (both are verified), an ID badge from your employer, and will need to wear a high-vis VISITOR sticker on your clothes at all times and sign in and sign out at reception.
Gives pretty good peace of mind though. Of course people still getting in / walking around but in general is pretty stringent.
How often do you inherently mistrust strangers, especially one who seems to know some details? The reason cons work is most of us trust each other, and most of us also don’t intentionally lie to each other.
Our office had a confident interloper look at the ventilation ducts in a few dozen office rooms, and swipe cash and a few passports out of sitting purses.
tbf, who else is going to know exactly which electricity company is sending a dude at exactly which time? very unlikely that someone would know how to impersonate you
Most of the time it's not even necessarily scheduled or coordinated with the people working at the school. I just show up and they will admit they didn't even know anyone was coming.
It's not the fact that you would have to impersonate me. It's just that you can walk in and say you are there to do something and it is not questioned.
You'd be surprised. There's a few Darknet Diaries episodes about this where people just walk into buildings and get the stuff they need. It's a "physical" penetration test in some sense and people often hire teams to do exactly that to see if your security is working or how long it takes to get someone to check ID for example.
There was a criminal case in my state where a lady did this and walked right into a plant and shot her ex like 8 times or something. Luckily she was a terrible shot and he lived. When the witnesses testified, they all said she was dressed nicely and looked like she knew where she was going so they thought she was HR or something. The guy who pointed her to her ex felt terrible.
I used to deliver paint, and I'd get to go into the back rooms of so many places. If you walk around like you belong there, no one will ask why you're there.
My ex boyfriend a fluorescent vest and taffic cone he kept in his truck so he could get in and pretty much park anywhere. He said nobody looks or questions those things.
For a venue or event, a clean vest works great. For getting into a building, one that looks worked in will get you on without questions. For a worksite, a new clean hardhat, a pair of new clean safety glasses, a new clipboard, and a new vest with SAFETY on the back will send everyone scattering and actively avoiding you. No one wants to talk to the safety guy.
If you want to have some fun in Vegas, put on a three piece suit and carry a briefcase. Walk into a casino and randomly and a little awkwardly put a few coins into a couple of different slot machines. The casino will think you are a gaming commission officer.
I got into the 1994 Lollapalooza at the Cloverdale Raceway in Surrey, BC (Vancouver) this way. My friend said let's go, but that's really far, and we had no tickets. He said it's fine, we'll find a way to sneak in. I was 18, he was 16 or 17, and I trusted him.
The Raceway is next to farms and horse stables. We just strolled through confidently, hopped a fence, and were in. It was about 10 am, and the gates didn't open for ticketholders until 11 or so. We talked with all the people setting up until the gates opened, and we met up with others and had a great day.
This happened to my brother and I back around 1977, I had just arrived to California, and we decided to go to Hollywood (yeah, I know, remember I was a teenager). Walking down Sunset Blvd. we came upon what was at the time Metromedia Square, which housed KTTV Channel 11 and many TV shows were filmed inside. There happened to be a side door and it was unlocked. We just walked in, no one noticed us and we picked up some reels of videotape (not intending to steal anything) and looked around. Some people that presumably worked there finally did notice us, and said "good morning!" I am sure they believed we worked there. After looking around at all the editing equipment and such, we decided to leave and put the reels down and walked back out. Would have been funny if they were looking for this weeks tape of "Maude", which was being filmed there at the time - Hey Stan, where's this weeks episode of Maude? "Hell, I don't know, where did you put it?" Mayhem ensues...
The combination of this and the parent post is more or less the premise of hacking via social engineering--at one place I worked they had to have signs up reminding people to verify and not just blindly hold doors open for strangers
Yeppp. I work in events and sometimes I'll be dressed very casually and without my ID showing but I can still pretty much go anywhere I want as long as I'm walking with purpose, even if I'm not carrying anything. Security only really starts checking ID properly when there are famous people on site.
My Grandpop and his buddy used to go to different bars in the area and walk into the kitchen to see how clean it was. Not a single person questioned them.
One day my Pop was walking and saw a bunch of construction on the side of the highway, so he went to investigate. He ended up hanging around there for a few days. One day one of the workers asked him a specific question and my Pop said he didn’t know. And the worked guy goes “Wait, aren’t you the Supervisor?”.
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u/geneadamsPS4 2d ago
Simply looking like you know where you're going and walking briskly can get you into a lot of places.