7 ms·

I think "power distance" (a cultural thing - both national culture and corporate culture) might play a role here. In some cultures, you do whatever the big boss

I think "power distance" (a cultural thing - both national culture and corporate culture) might play a role here. In some cultures, you do whatever the big boss asks you to do, regardless of procedure. (Media reporting suggests this can also be true at some US hardware tech companies).

ladyanita22 3y ago
Having worked with Chinese people, let me tell you this is 100% accurate. It may (and probably will) happen in western countries as well, but the culture makes China, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan extremely vulnerable to this. No one I worked with was willing to refute, question or even raise any doubts if someone they perceive not at their level or, even better, below, was in the call.
- usrusr 3y ago
  Other countries are known for a culture of nothing ever happening without a piece of paper carrying an official-looking stamp. Those are laughably insecure, but the culture could easily be ported to public key signature. "Boss voice is only boss voice when it comes with a digitally signed transcript" shouldn't be too hard to introduce in "don't ever question your boss" cultures I think? Bosses might even enjoy the grandeur of showing off their status with an insignia-device. "Orders without proof of identity are irresponsibly bad form" could be surprisingly easy to establish.
  - dotancohen 3y ago
    I think that you are unfamiliar with these cultures. In Japan, you would never ask the voice that sounds like the boss to prove his identity with a digitally signed transcript - even if that's a fireable offense. It is so culturally alien to them that it would never get through.
    - Izkata 3y ago
      I think their idea is that the boss would be the one to introduce it ("Bosses might even enjoy the grandeur of showing off their status with an insignia-device.") and because of the culture it wouldn't be difficult for employees to adapt and go along with those new rules.
      - DSMan195276 3y ago
        I think the point is that this works until the "boss" says they need X right now and can't provide digital proof because it's not working for Y reason. Do the employees say no? That's the real test.
      - gutnor 3y ago
        The problem is that inevitably the boss will forget his signature one day. Who is going to challenge him? And if he his challenged, how will he take it? Even in the West, nobody of low seniority challenges the C-level executive when they tailgate or walk around without their badge. And if you are new, if there is an important looking individual you don't recognise, you leave him alone, totally validating the "act as you belong adage".
        nmfisher 3y ago
        I was quite annoyed - disappointed too - during security induction (Australian NSA). They explicitly said we should challenge anyone not wearing a badge, but then joked that we should learn the department heads first so we don’t accidentally confront the “wrong” person. Exactly the wrong message to send, particularly for an agency that’s supposedly an expert on security.
        usrusr 3y ago
        A good example of the challenges of real-life hardening. Anecdotes like this are a valuable addition to any discussion of security I think. I perfectly understand what's wrong about the attitude transferred in the joke, yet I can easily see myself being the person sending that wrong message. Very educational!
  - ctrw 3y ago
    Yeah with the advent of good deep fakes were at the point where everyone having their own private key is a must for all communication that's not face to face.
    - usrusr 3y ago
      And the only way to get meaningfully reliable at performing those checks would be to make them a habit in face to face as well.
      - ctrw 3y ago
        I mean there is no reason to not do a digital handshake when doing a physical handshake. Just need a fairly non invasive implant.
  - daymanstep 3y ago
    Which cultures are like that?
    - ladyanita22 3y ago
      Confucian cultures
  - cryptonector 3y ago
    Fake boss: I can't get to my keys. Just wire the money.
    - aussieguy1234 3y ago
      Calls real boss. Was that you? Nope, I guess not.
      - beagle3 3y ago
        That would work in Australia. In most places in the US and Britain as well. I can imagine Israelis calling the real boss and tell them “I don’t believe it’s really you” and refuse to do it. But that’s not how it works in authoritative cultures.
        mcv 3y ago
        Maybe it will teach authoritative cultures to be less authoritative, and to allow people to question authority. Because it's going to cost you money if they don't.
    - usrusr 3y ago
      Diligent boss: I can't get to my keys. Just wire the money (to a honeypot account operated by the security department)
- John23832 3y ago
  Having dated an abnormal amount of mainlanders, One thing that I always found weird was the amount of "rule following". Top down directives that you must do. I can only imagine this being leveraged nefariously.
- robjan 3y ago
  I don't know, most professionals in HK I have met are pretty open to challenging people but maybe that's just the people I choose to work with. In any case what I find strange is that usually HK finance companies (like much of the rest of the world) will have some kind of maker-checker system which prevents individual mistakes like this.
  - ladyanita22 3y ago
    I met 3 top managers from China (talking about very high-level managers) to whom I had to talk to and were kinda more challenging and open than the other Chinese I had to work with, but nowhere near the Germans, Americans or Italians.
robocat 3y ago
From the article this was an employee in Hong Kong on a video call with people supposedly in the UK. Power distance might matter, depending on nationality of participants. Also if English is a second language, then perhaps the sound quality of the synthetic voices wouldn't need to be as good - we are surely better at recognising voices in our mother tongue.
- ctrw 3y ago
  Current deep fakes are good enough to fool your mother. I've done it with friends to show what's possible.
  - withinboredom 3y ago
    I find it interesting that exactly no voice-cloning software has been able to clone my speech patterns yet.
  - staunton 3y ago
    Scammers have fooled countless mothers into believing their voice belongs to one of their children before text-to-speach was a thing. (Just to say it's not incredibly hard. I'm not suggesting that being able to automate it wouldn't have a huge impact.)
ultrasaurus 3y ago
Back in my days building custom software (in the US/Canada) a lot of the PM work was figuring out how the process overrides worked. Every organization has a set of formal rules... and the way things actually work (and 50% of my job was making sure our CRUD apps that were more than just spreadsheets with changelogs). But having lived & worked in a few countries now, the way other cultures do their overrides is always more visible (e.g. Country A you might pay bribes to get out of tickets, country B might just not pull people over in nice cars)
slickrick216 3y ago
In some ways the west is still remarkably feudal but to the direct chain of managers not just directly to your “liege lord”. I regularly see people say no to big bosses who are outside the direct management even if they have high ranks.
franze 3y ago
In Austria one CFO wired a few millions (7 I think) after a couple of fake emails from her boss - with a note to not mention it to anyone even him.
- staunton 3y ago
  I guess that says something about how that company was usually run...
__loam 3y ago
This is why a Korean Air flight crashed at some point. The copilot knew something was wrong but the pilot was a lot more senior than him and in Korean culture it's normal to defer to your elders (according to the checklist manifesto). The cockpit recording showed what happened and it directly contributed to efforts to standardize crew resource management training. Other incidents like a flight out of Morocco where an older male pilot disregarded the concerns of his female copilot and crashed the plane have reinforced the need for CRM, especially for pilots from cultures where people may be ignored for social reasons.
throw3827484 3y ago
It's funny how when something happens in Asia some commenters always say it's because of the culture. Sure there might be cultural differences, but maybe this guy is just careless. There was a case in the US where someone pretended to be a cop, called a fast food restaurant, and actually convinced the manager to strip search an employee. I guess this is also a case of cultural power distance.
- 3abiton 3y ago
  Prison exleriment in business.
brianmcc 3y ago
Also applies in medicine/healthcare: "Silence, power and communication in the operating room" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3001035/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3001035/
- alexpotato 3y ago
  This is one reason checklists are so effective in surgeries. Prior to checklists, nurses would feel hesitant to point out errors by surgeons. Post checklists, people felt more empowered to say "Doctor, I believe you missed step 5". (Didn't completely remove the hesitancy but this point was identified explicitly in Atul Gawande's book The Checklist Manifesto)

ladyanita22 3y ago

Having worked with Chinese people, let me tell you this is 100% accurate. It may (and probably will) happen in western countries as well, but the culture makes China, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan extremely vulnerable to this. No one I worked with was willing to refute, question or even raise any doubts if someone they perceive not at their level or, even better, below, was in the call.

usrusr 3y ago
Other countries are known for a culture of nothing ever happening without a piece of paper carrying an official-looking stamp. Those are laughably insecure, but the culture could easily be ported to public key signature. "Boss voice is only boss voice when it comes with a digitally signed transcript" shouldn't be too hard to introduce in "don't ever question your boss" cultures I think? Bosses might even enjoy the grandeur of showing off their status with an insignia-device. "Orders without proof of identity are irresponsibly bad form" could be surprisingly easy to establish.
- dotancohen 3y ago
  I think that you are unfamiliar with these cultures. In Japan, you would never ask the voice that sounds like the boss to prove his identity with a digitally signed transcript - even if that's a fireable offense. It is so culturally alien to them that it would never get through.
  - Izkata 3y ago
    I think their idea is that the boss would be the one to introduce it ("Bosses might even enjoy the grandeur of showing off their status with an insignia-device.") and because of the culture it wouldn't be difficult for employees to adapt and go along with those new rules.
    - DSMan195276 3y ago
      I think the point is that this works until the "boss" says they need X right now and can't provide digital proof because it's not working for Y reason. Do the employees say no? That's the real test.
    - gutnor 3y ago
      The problem is that inevitably the boss will forget his signature one day. Who is going to challenge him? And if he his challenged, how will he take it? Even in the West, nobody of low seniority challenges the C-level executive when they tailgate or walk around without their badge. And if you are new, if there is an important looking individual you don't recognise, you leave him alone, totally validating the "act as you belong adage".
      - nmfisher 3y ago
        I was quite annoyed - disappointed too - during security induction (Australian NSA). They explicitly said we should challenge anyone not wearing a badge, but then joked that we should learn the department heads first so we don’t accidentally confront the “wrong” person. Exactly the wrong message to send, particularly for an agency that’s supposedly an expert on security.
        usrusr 3y ago
        A good example of the challenges of real-life hardening. Anecdotes like this are a valuable addition to any discussion of security I think. I perfectly understand what's wrong about the attitude transferred in the joke, yet I can easily see myself being the person sending that wrong message. Very educational!
- ctrw 3y ago
  Yeah with the advent of good deep fakes were at the point where everyone having their own private key is a must for all communication that's not face to face.
  - usrusr 3y ago
    And the only way to get meaningfully reliable at performing those checks would be to make them a habit in face to face as well.
    - ctrw 3y ago
      I mean there is no reason to not do a digital handshake when doing a physical handshake. Just need a fairly non invasive implant.
- daymanstep 3y ago
  Which cultures are like that?
  - ladyanita22 3y ago
    Confucian cultures
- cryptonector 3y ago
  Fake boss: I can't get to my keys. Just wire the money.
  - aussieguy1234 3y ago
    Calls real boss. Was that you? Nope, I guess not.
    - beagle3 3y ago
      That would work in Australia. In most places in the US and Britain as well. I can imagine Israelis calling the real boss and tell them “I don’t believe it’s really you” and refuse to do it. But that’s not how it works in authoritative cultures.
      - mcv 3y ago
        Maybe it will teach authoritative cultures to be less authoritative, and to allow people to question authority. Because it's going to cost you money if they don't.
  - usrusr 3y ago
    Diligent boss: I can't get to my keys. Just wire the money (to a honeypot account operated by the security department)
John23832 3y ago
Having dated an abnormal amount of mainlanders, One thing that I always found weird was the amount of "rule following". Top down directives that you must do. I can only imagine this being leveraged nefariously.
robjan 3y ago
I don't know, most professionals in HK I have met are pretty open to challenging people but maybe that's just the people I choose to work with. In any case what I find strange is that usually HK finance companies (like much of the rest of the world) will have some kind of maker-checker system which prevents individual mistakes like this.
- ladyanita22 3y ago
  I met 3 top managers from China (talking about very high-level managers) to whom I had to talk to and were kinda more challenging and open than the other Chinese I had to work with, but nowhere near the Germans, Americans or Italians.

robocat 3y ago

From the article this was an employee in Hong Kong on a video call with people supposedly in the UK. Power distance might matter, depending on nationality of participants. Also if English is a second language, then perhaps the sound quality of the synthetic voices wouldn't need to be as good - we are surely better at recognising voices in our mother tongue.

ctrw 3y ago
Current deep fakes are good enough to fool your mother. I've done it with friends to show what's possible.
- withinboredom 3y ago
  I find it interesting that exactly no voice-cloning software has been able to clone my speech patterns yet.
- staunton 3y ago
  Scammers have fooled countless mothers into believing their voice belongs to one of their children before text-to-speach was a thing. (Just to say it's not incredibly hard. I'm not suggesting that being able to automate it wouldn't have a huge impact.)

ultrasaurus 3y ago

Back in my days building custom software (in the US/Canada) a lot of the PM work was figuring out how the process overrides worked. Every organization has a set of formal rules... and the way things actually work (and 50% of my job was making sure our CRUD apps that were more than just spreadsheets with changelogs). But having lived & worked in a few countries now, the way other cultures do their overrides is always more visible (e.g. Country A you might pay bribes to get out of tickets, country B might just not pull people over in nice cars)

slickrick216 3y ago

In some ways the west is still remarkably feudal but to the direct chain of managers not just directly to your “liege lord”. I regularly see people say no to big bosses who are outside the direct management even if they have high ranks.

franze 3y ago

In Austria one CFO wired a few millions (7 I think) after a couple of fake emails from her boss - with a note to not mention it to anyone even him.

staunton 3y ago
I guess that says something about how that company was usually run...

__loam 3y ago

This is why a Korean Air flight crashed at some point. The copilot knew something was wrong but the pilot was a lot more senior than him and in Korean culture it's normal to defer to your elders (according to the checklist manifesto). The cockpit recording showed what happened and it directly contributed to efforts to standardize crew resource management training. Other incidents like a flight out of Morocco where an older male pilot disregarded the concerns of his female copilot and crashed the plane have reinforced the need for CRM, especially for pilots from cultures where people may be ignored for social reasons.

throw3827484 3y ago

It's funny how when something happens in Asia some commenters always say it's because of the culture. Sure there might be cultural differences, but maybe this guy is just careless. There was a case in the US where someone pretended to be a cop, called a fast food restaurant, and actually convinced the manager to strip search an employee. I guess this is also a case of cultural power distance.

3abiton 3y ago
Prison exleriment in business.

brianmcc 3y ago

Also applies in medicine/healthcare: "Silence, power and communication in the operating room" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3001035/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3001035/

alexpotato 3y ago
This is one reason checklists are so effective in surgeries. Prior to checklists, nurses would feel hesitant to point out errors by surgeons. Post checklists, people felt more empowered to say "Doctor, I believe you missed step 5". (Didn't completely remove the hesitancy but this point was identified explicitly in Atul Gawande's book The Checklist Manifesto)