Sorting Insiders From Co-Workers: Remote Synchronous Computer-Mediated Triage for Investigating Insider Attacks

Objective Develop and investigate the potential of a remote, computer-mediated and synchronous text-based triage, which we refer to as InSort, for quickly highlighting persons of interest after an insider attack. Background Insiders maliciously exploit legitimate access to impair the confidentiality and integrity of organizations. The globalisation of organisations and advancement of information technology means employees are often dispersed across national and international sites, working around the clock, often remotely. Hence, investigating insider attacks is challenging. However, the cognitive demands associated with masking insider activity offer opportunities. Drawing on cognitive approaches to deception and understanding of deception-conveying features in textual responses, we developed InSort, a remote computer-mediated triage. Method During a 6-hour immersive simulation, participants worked in teams, examining password protected, security sensitive databases and exchanging information during an organized crime investigation. Twenty-five percent were covertly incentivized to act as an ‘insider’ by providing information to a provocateur. Results Responses to InSort questioning revealed insiders took longer to answer investigation relevant questions, provided impoverished responses, and their answers were less consistent with known evidence about their behaviours than co-workers. Conclusion Findings demonstrate InSort has potential to expedite information gathering and investigative processes following an insider attack. Application InSort is appropriate for application by non-specialist investigators and can be quickly altered as a function of both environment and event. InSort offers a clearly defined, well specified, approach for use across insider incidents, and highlights the potential of technology for supporting complex time critical investigations

by

th

Unconscious Awareness of a Branded Life: Consumer Disillusionment and the Cultivated Commercialization of Public Health

By unraveling the intricately powerful influences of pharmaceutical funding, this project examines ways in which product marketing infiltrates and contaminates public awareness efforts in the healthcare industry. Specifically, the following work deconstructs ways in which Merck Pharmaceuticals & Co. crafted a product endorsement through social marketing and nationwide lobbying efforts to most efficiently profit from the company’s Gardasil vaccination. Through means of textual analysis, interviews, focus groups, and eyetracking experimentation, I use Merck’s product endorsement efforts to illuminate the complex dynamics muddling direct-to-consumer marketing and social marketing campaigns. Social cognitive theory (SCT) offers a strong supportive foundation from which to dissect viewer healthcare message processing. In conjunction with the behaviorally-oriented cannons of SCT, social trust theory and contemporary marketing scholarship further highlight the complicated ties uniting public policy, corporatized health-marketing operations, audience cognitions, and consumer behavior. By piecing together the various ways in which Merck Pharmaceuticals puppeteered public understanding of HPV and cervical cancer, this work encourages greater awareness for the corporate influence and political agendas that work hand in hand in delivering meaning to American reality. Results indicate viewer awareness of brand markings in Merck’s HPV social marketing campaign limit message effectiveness and negatively influence consumer trust. As such, my grounded analysis conceptualizes “unconscious awareness” as it relates to branded health communication. Emergent findings showcase broader societal implications by unveiling patterns of conditioned ambivalence toward commercialized messaging. This project speaks to the capitalized communications contaminating consumer trust and public health, and presents an argument for regulation realignment in the healthcare industry. Given the sensitive nature of public health message processing, and in light of the findings collected throughout this work, my multi-layered analysis petitions for regulatory guidelines which separately address and more clearly define executional protocols for social awareness efforts and direct-to-consumer marketing operations

“My Mum was a cop…”: A mixed methods exploration of deceptive performance using the General Expertise Framework.

The General Expertise Framework (GEF) explains the phenomenon that regardless of domain, experts have certain features in common, such as a high volume of accumulated practice, performance consistency across time and situation, accuracy of calibration between perceived and actual performance, and well-developed metaawareness which facilitates adaptability of performance in response to feedback. Interpersonal Deception Theory (IDT) and Activation-Decision-Construction- ActionTheory (ADCAT) present lying as a cognitively challenging act requiring skill to perform well. So, it makes sense that deception should show the same features as other areas of expertise. However, this has never been systematically tested. This programme of research involved four empirical studies, across a range of channels and contexts including interactive in-person interviews and online written deception, which sought to answer an overarching question. Can deceptive performance be conceptualised as a skill, as defined by the GEF? To obtain an objective measure of deceptive performance uncontaminated by possible receiver biases, a Matrix of measures was constructed which included only the most reliable cues. The results suggest that deception is a particular example of expertise, learned in a wicked environment, poorly practiced by most and situationally contingent. Expert liars show an effect of practice, but a high volume of accumulated practice is not sufficient to confer expertise, rather focused, strategic use of lying is required. Expert liars demonstrate superior calibration of perceived and actual performance even though feedback on lying is almost nonexistent in everyday life. This may be why responsiveness to feedback is the most challenging element of expertise in the domain of deception. The unique insights provided by the mixed-methods approach means future research must continue to explore these techniques