ICS0018 CotW seminars

The idea

The Crook of the Week seminars are meant for student presentations/talks about famous social engineers of the past. Each seminar will host two (EDIT: up to three now) 20-minute presentations by different students, plus discussion. The main points of the presentation are

• to introduce the person (biography)
• to explain the motivation behind his/her actions
• to study the modus operandi (ways) of social engineering by this person
• to outline the main human weaknesses the person exploited (cognitive biases, automatic thinking etc)
• to summarize the main lesson the person teaches us

A successful presentation will result in passing the course if the attendance criteria (6 out of 8 lectures and seminars) is met. To register a presentation, please send an e-mail to Kaido, stating the chosen time and person to cover. There are only 8 presentations in total (EDIT: due to many requests, we decided to go with up to three per seminar, so now it's 12) - first come, first served! Others would have to resort to other tasks to pass the course!

The Crooks

• Carlo Ponzi
• Victor Lustig
• Frank Abagnale Jr
• Mark Abene (Phiber Optik)
• Kevin Mitnick
• Susan Headley (Suzy Thunder)
• Kevin Poulsen (Dark Dante)
• Bernie Madoff
• Elizabeth Holmes
• Sam Bankman-Fried
• Mythical and literary characters: Jacob, Odysseus, Iago, Grima Wormtongue...
• BYOC (Bring Your Own Crook): introduce a well-known crook from your home country (as we are a very international bunch)!

The Seminars

ATTENTION: As the original two slots per seminar seemed to fill up quickly, we will add another layer (3rd presentation).

1. March 2:
   • Artur Lykov - Victor Lustig
   • Luca Maddaleno - Wanna Marchi and Stefania Nobile (Italy)
   • Adeyimika Adetunji - Grima Wormtongue
2. March 9:
   • Elza Anna Budreika - Elizabeth Holmes
   • Oskar Pikkov - Frank Abagnale Jr
   • Jason Fong - Susan Headley
3. March 16:
   • Margus Valdre - Carlo Ponzi
   • Orkhan Hasanzade - Kevin Mitnick
4. March 23:
   • Marion Martin - Sam Bankman-Fried
   • Merili Osula - Simon Leviev
   • Farkas Pongrácz - Mária Pólus (Hungary)

Back to the course page