I compromised the Social Security Administration, for example, through an elaborate social-engineering attack. It began with my usual research—the various departments of the agency, where they were located, who the supervisors and managers were for each, standard internal lingo, and so on. Claims were processed by special groups called "Mods," which I think stood for "modules," each one perhaps covering a series of Social Security numbers. I social-engineered the phone number for a Mod and eventually reached a staff member who told me her name was Ann. I told her I was Tom Harmon, in the agency’s Office of the Inspector General.