A few years back, whenever I'm visiting companies that had businesses in IT, I've always used my technical expertise to my advantage.

A typical conversation between me and the (mostly) IT person I'm visiting goes like this, after all the pleasantries are out of the way.

  • Me: So, you're running xxxx mail server, revision yyyy.
  • Visited person: How did you know? Did you have a friend working here?
  • Me: No, I don't have a friend working here. I have ways of finding out. BTW, is person AAAA and BBBB still working here?
  • Visited person: Yes they are (in the case of one company). No they're not (in the case of another). How did you know they're working here? Are they your friend?

These days, I befuddle the layer further by telling people what kind of vulnerabilities they have on their machine, without me touching the machine in the first place, or what their actual names are, if they're using a pseudonym. And given their home telephone number, I am able to tell exactly the location of where they're staying.

... Magic!