Chapter 8 People Watching

How to “People Watch”

People watching is a real skill. There’s so much to it, that I can’t possibly cover all the angles in one short chapter. But it’s an important topic, because a decent no-tech hacker can get a good read on a person by just paying attention. In this chapter, we’ll take a look at a few simple examples of effective people watching.

Let’s start with the gentleman in the next photo—the guy in the foreground with the baseball cap. What can you tell me about him?

Let’s start with the boots. Although I’m not well-versed enough to know an Adidas GSG9 from a High Tech Magnum Stealth, I can say without a doubt that those are tactical boots. The jeans are pretty non-descript, except for the fact that his wallet’s sticking out of them (no, I’m not tempted to snag it to get a better profile on the guy), and his black T-shirt tells me that he’s a tough-guy type (or a severe wanna-be). His gaze is locked on a female flight attendant, which seconds the tough-guy image and lets us in on his sexual preference. His haircut is short, although it’s too soon to tell if he’d describe it as “high and tight”—a military term for hair that’s cut high … and tight. His glasses are Oakleys, and I’ve heard people call them shooters, because they’re often found at gun ranges, worn by people who shoot. You know, guns. Topping all this off is the baseball hat. There’s a logo on the back that’s hard to read, but here’s a close-up.

The logo reads BenelliUSA.com. Here’s a screen shot of a Benelli USA web page.

Saying Benelli makes guns is like saying NASA makes bottle rockets. Benelli makes serious camouflaged armor-piercing shotguns with, like, built-in missile launchers and flamethrowers. OK, so they don’t make missile launchers and flamethrowers, but they make serious weapons for hunters and Marines and cops. Take a guess which of the three this guy is. Think you’ve got it nailed? I’d say this guy is either law enforcement or military—most likely Special Forces of some kind. Now, let’s say, hypothetically, that he pre-boarded the plane, in front of a little old lady in a wheelchair? Would that change your perception of this guy? It would change mine.

Let’s take a look at another example. Check out the next photo.

This one’s pretty easy. Let’s take a quick inventory. Hair: high and tight. Arms: muscular and tan (below the elbows). Accessories: one wedding band and an Iron Man watch. The first impression is simple—married, and military.

A quick shoulder surf confirms this. His current email subject is “United States Military Casualty Statistics,” and his inbox shows emails from Lieutenant Colonels (LTC) and Majors (MAJ). I don’t really care what this guy’s up to because I’m not one of the bad guys. However, if I were a bad guy, I’d have access to a lot of information about this guy in a very short period of time.

Let’s do one more. Check out the next photo.

Using the rotating lens on my camera, I stood with my back to this guy and took the shot backwards. In the process, I caught a bit of my shirt in the shot, which blurred the edges of the photo. But taking a look at our target, we see pressed slacks, black socks and wing tips. His shirt is decidedly business casual, although it’s a strange kind of pinkish orange. He’s wearing a nice watch and he’s sporting a big class ring. The magazine is some sort of financial/news rag.

So far, he seems to fit the mold of a managerial type, but there’s more to the story. Moving in closer, I stood next to him and took a photo of his bag, shown in the next picture.

The guy didn’t seem to notice that I stood right next to him and took pictures of his stuff. The bag sported the logo of a very specific U.S. Government agency which had recently been highlighted in the international news scene. Because of the agency’s very specific mission and recent public interest, I knew somewhere in the world someone would be very interested to know where this guy was headed and where he was from. I walked back to my original position some distance ahead of him, and lined up my next backwards shot.

I didn’t know it at the time, but he looked right into my lens as I took the photo and gave me this look. I really wish I could show you the look on his face, but I won’t jeopardize his privacy. Just believe me when I say he gave me this dead serious why are you taking my picture, you stalking terrorist scumbag kind of look. Had I known he was looking right at my camera when I took the photo, I definitely wouldn’t have hung around long enough to get this next photo that captures his name and frequent flier number.

The thing that surprises me the most about this example is that I know this guy saw me take his picture. There’s a good chance he saw me take quite a few pictures, and he may have even watched me as I moved around him getting (what I thought were) relatively discrete photos of him and his gear. Knowing that he worked for an interesting government agency, I’m not sure why he didn’t do something about me. I don’t have any ill intent, but there’s no way he could have know that. For all he knew, I could have been some kind of creepy stalker taking photos of him at the airport, or worse. I could have been sponsored by a foreign government, who tasked me with the job of tracking his agency’s activities. There’s really no telling who I was, but this guy chose to do what most people do—absolutely nothing. Therein lies the problem. At some point creepy stalker people should be reported to someone. I can only hope that the worst thing that happens to this guy is he gets his blurred, unrecognizable photo published in this humble book.