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Old 12-15-2016, 08:21 AM   #7
Mailanka
 
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Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Eindhoven, the Netherlands
Default Re: [Social Engineering] "I could bring down your Government with six words."

I think this specific example is a use of the History skill by a time traveler.

There are lots of points in history where a small, precise change would seem to make a huge difference. For example, it should be pretty easy to save the Archduke Ferdinand and thus, presumably, stop WW1. And if you've seen multiple possible timelines, then you have a pretty clear view of what could be your root cause of an event. So, he might know what brought down the Harriet Jones government and what didn't, what particularly moment was especially critical, and he could precipitate it at that moment.

In a sense, this is like classic social engineering, in that he's finding the one point in a system where he can break it and applying the exact words necessary to do it, but like real social engineering (the hacking kind) it requires extensive technical knowledge that lies outside of the purview of social skills to turn a seemingly innocuous statement into something powerful.
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