Chocolate No Longer As Effective In Separating Men From Their Passwords?
from the fun-with-statistics,-headlines-and-chocolate dept
There are a bunch of headlines today about the fact that people will give up their passwords in exchange for some chocolate, but most of the reports seem to be missing the point. Similar studies have been conducted for years. Four years ago, we saw an almost identical study. Other studies have shown that people will give up their passwords for a ballpoint pen or chance to win theater tickets. None of this really proves very much. The "chocolate" hook is really just for generating headlines. After all, a similar study showed that people would give up private data if you just ask nicely. Chocolate may have nothing to do with it.In reality, though, the interesting part of this chocolate story is the fact that the number of people who give up their password for chocolate is way down this year compared to the same study last year. Last year 64% gave up their password, whereas this year only 21% did. That's a huge difference, and should make you question the methodology. It certainly sounds like the results could depend very much on how persuasive the questioner is. Hire someone who's a good social engineer, and the numbers go up. For the same reason, I wouldn't give very much credence to the other headline coming out of this study that women are more likely than men to hand over their passwords. Again, without testing it under identical circumstances, it's tough to determine that for sure. A good social engineer will be able to get passwords out of plenty of people, whether using chocolate, a ballpoint pen or just plain sweet talk.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: chocolate, passwords, security, social engineering
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
I'll bet sex still works
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: I'll bet sex still works
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: I'll bet sex still works
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: I'll bet sex still works
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: I'll bet sex still works
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
you're right
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
ok
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Are you cute?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
While i do not deny there are huge questions about the methodology i would be susprised if there was not some kind of large drop. People are slowly but surely becomeing more IT security aware, be it passwords, identity theft or big companys/government losing your data, bearly a day pass's by where their is not something related to these in the news/press.
People are stupid, but if you repeat something enough times they do eventually learn something and stop falling for the most obvious scams
But that said a good social engineer will always have a good success rate because they are not so obvious as "hey i will give you some chocolate if you give me your password"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Social Engineering... Just being good at fibbing
Hack the Planet... or at least it's people
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ha
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I've always been curious
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
My password
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
totally rigorous research
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Not enough info
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Stop I'm About To Pee My Pants
[ link to this | view in chronology ]