Anyone who follows my musings will have seen me write about trust and trusting people; about Insider Risk and the impact of Vetting/Clearance processes upon this.
One of the problems with trying to understand or characterise Bad Actors – even statistically – is that of getting hard data. Those with the hard data are often not willing to admit to this, or to share the data – because that hard data often comes from incidents that are embarrassing to them. In the undergraduate science labs we used to say that “Experience varies directly with equipment ruined”, and there is more than a little truth in this. But…
“Experience shared is experience squared”
— Me, 2024
So how do we get more data? Can we carry out actual experiments? And can we do so within reasonable ethical parameters? It’s a problem that has been on my mind for years.
We could deliberately approach people and try to bribe (“wallet attack”), blackmail, threaten them, or rough them up (“rubber hose attack”), appeal to their patriotism (if they work for a foreign organisation), or try a false flag approach. The problem – well problems, for they are legion – with this is that it falls at the first hurdle of “reasonable ethical parameters”, and causes real harm to real people.
In the absence of such a real system with real people upon whom we can experiment, maybe we could use a slightly more constrained system; a limited number of people, highly incentivised, closely observed – intrusively, even, but in a way that means they don’t really care about the observation. Better still, construct the environment such that it actively encourages good actors becoming bad actors – a bit like heating a chemical reaction to speed things up. Throw in regular one-to-one interviews where the participants openly tell us exactly what they are thinking, and explain their actions – even the devious ones. It wouldn’t be identical to the real world, but it would give us rare insight into how people reconcile principles with incentives & pressure. In other words – close enough to be useful.
Could we do all that? Could we persuade someone to fund it? No need – it’s being done already.
Could it be run multiple times? After all, science is all about repeatable results. Well, yes, there’s a good 5 or 6 fully worked exercises done already.
And finally, would the results be made available? Yes! If you’ve got a TV or Internet access….
There it is. I’m not a fan or watcher of “reality TV” but this isn’t mere TV…. for me, it’s data! 2x UK series, 2x US series, plus Australian and New Zealand versions too. And a Dutch one, if you can speak Dutch. Data galore.
I do hope that the Big Brains in GCHQ are allowed out to watch. Assuming it wasn’t their idea, that is.
There are interesting lessons to learn here.
Next, I wish they would edit each episode into two different versions: the current version where the viewers know who the Traitors are, and a more challenging “expert” version where the viewers do not, which you can choose to watch all the way through first to see if you can figure it out for yourself.
Pass the popcorn please… 😋🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿📒✒️
UPDATE: Second Series of the Australian version: Best. Ending. Ever. Phenomenal.
Gânduri Eclectice - Eclectic Thoughts 