Route · 12 chapters

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Phishing, voice cloning and the grandparent scam run on two levers: borrowed authority and a closing window. Same two mechanisms, different costumes — then the countermeasures that have been tested at scale.

1 Obedience: The Lab Coat at YaleChapter 6, part 1 — Milgram’s explanation is the agentic state: under legitimate authority the subject re-attributes…

2 Pluralistic Ignorance: The Room That Filled With SmokeChapter 9, part 1 — Two mechanisms combine. Diffusion of responsibility divides the felt duty to act by the number of bystanders,…

3 The Illusory Truth Effect: Repetition as EvidenceChapter 25, part 1 — Truth judgments lean on processing fluency: a repeated statement is retrieved more easily, and that ease is…

4 Law 8 — Impose a Deadline and Deliberation DiesChapter 278, part 10 — Time pressure suppresses the systematic processing route in Petty and Cacioppo’s elaboration likelihood…

5 The Uniform Is Not the Man: Resisting Authority-Based ComplianceChapter 305, part 11 — Authority cues act as compliance heuristics: uniforms, titles and lab coats trigger automatic deference that…

6 The Urgent Email From Your CEO: Detecting Phishing and Business Email CompromiseChapter 319, part 11 — BEC pairs authority impersonation with manufactured urgency and secrecy, exploiting the compliance heuristics…

7 The Voice That Isn’t Theirs: Defending Against Cloned-Voice EmergenciesChapter 320, part 11 — Synthetic-voice ‘family emergency’ calls exploit the amygdala-driven threat response: hearing a loved one in…

8 The Call About Your Grandson: Countering Scams Engineered for EldersChapter 321, part 11 — Grandparent and impostor scams weaponize attachment and urgency: the target is told a family member is in…

9 The Long Con on Your Phone: Detecting Pig-Butchering Investment Romance FraudChapter 324, part 11 — Pig butchering fuses romance-scam attachment building with a fake investment platform: weeks of daily contact…

10 Name the Device: Propaganda Literacy From the 1937 PlaybookChapter 326, part 11 — The IPA’s contribution was to make manipulation nameable: once a rhetorical device is labelled, it is…

11 Leave the Page: Lateral Reading Against DisinformationChapter 327, part 11 — Novices evaluate credibility vertically — staying on the page and judging design, references and tone — which…

12 Vaccinating the Mind: Prebunking and Inoculation Against ManipulationChapter 328, part 11 — Inoculation theory, formulated by William McGuire in the 1960s, holds that pre-exposure to a weakened form of…

Start at chapter 6