November 14th, 2012Top Story How to Choose (and Maintain) a Cover Identity By Alan Henry In the movies, right after a spy loads up on gadgets, they get their "cover identity," or the person they should pretend to be to get behind enemy lines or into the villain's lair. You can use cover identities too, whether you want to blend in with the locals while traveling, negotiate on your boss's behalf, impress a colleague with your knowledge, or just fool someone into thinking you're someone else for fun. Here's how. In spy movies, when someone assumes a cover, they don't really do much to make it their own, but in the real world cover identities can require years of training and logistical support, especially Non-official covers, which require the operative to completely conceal their true identity. Whether it's a short assignment or multiple years, keeping up a disguise is an extremely difficult thing to do. Still, many intelligence professionals do, and never even get the chance to complain about it. Why You Might Want to Assume a Cover Maintaining a cover isn't just for disguise, although spies use it to convince others they're trustworthy and avoid suspicion. Assuming another identity gives you the opportunity to think like someone else and put yourself in their shoes. You can more easily analyze someone else's behavior, or understand their culture and environment. Additionally, trying on an identity for size, even in your head, can help you get through difficult situations, like navigating a foreign city without a map. Photo by tankist276 (Shutterstock). For example, putting yourself in the mindset of a travel expert encourages you to think of ways to get around an airport without getting stuck at security or being late to board your plane. Trying to put yourself in the shoes of a vendor you're negotiating with can help you understand how to beat them at their own game. When I traveled to Las Vegas a few years ago, I had a really difficult time getting the hotel concierge to work with me when I called, so I waited a while and called back under the guise of "Alan Henry's executive assistant," who wouldn't take no for an answer and expressed how "Alan is very busy in client meetings," and didn't have time to deal with the trivialities of booking travel. It sounds silly, but the result? Instant respect. Assuming a cover can be more valuable than personal gain, too. The book Black Like Me detailed how one man—namely a white American—assumed the cover of a black man in America for six weeks to better understand what it was like. His experiences, detailed in the book, are an incredible read. Timothy Kurek, a conservative Christian, recently spent a year maintaining the cover of a gay man for similar reasons. He wanted to understand the experiences of people who lived a life apart from his, and he wanted to see if and how it would change him, and the results of his experiment are amazing. Assuming a cover can be a powerful way to be a more well-rounded and flexible person, not to mention jump start your creative skills if you're a blogger or journalist. Here's how to do it. Choose a Cover That Matters to You Not too long ago, I visited the International Spy Museum in Washington DC, and one of the first rooms you enter asks you to assume your identity for the duration of your visit. You can choose from placards on the wall what your name is, your date of birth, your origin country, reason for traveling—all the details you might be asked at a border checkpoint. This is your first test: you should choose a cover that you can actually maintain. How risky you're willing to be depends on whether you plan to disguise yourself, or just walk a mile in someone else's shoes. Here's what we mean: If you're putting on a disguise because you want to avoid detection, you should choose a cover you can easily maintain through questioning. Assuming no one's actively looking for you, you should be able to respond and converse as your cover with no difficulty. That means: Basic details about your cover should come easily and without hesitation. Your birthdate, profession, place of residence and address, details of your home, favorite drink, dish, or place to eat back home, and so on. Photo by Robert Anthony Provost. You should be able to flawlessly discuss your cover's profession. If you're a project manager, you should be able to speak the language of Gantt charts, milestones, and critical path. If you're an investment banker, you should be able to discuss hedge funds, IRAs, and the economic impact of dividend taxes, at least in general. If your cover is a nationality not your own, you should be familiar with basic politics and news in your home country, and the specific geography of the places your cover is from. You don't want to get caught because someone asks what school you went to in your cover's home town and you can't name it or its mascot, or because you're visiting Japan as a South Korean and have nothing of note to say about the controversy over the Dokdo/Takeshima islands, or refer to them incorrectly for your nationality. If your cover speaks with a different accent than you do, you should be able to emulate it without going overboard and arousing suspicion. Learn how locals pronounce their city names, especially if you're using a regional or local accent (e.g. it's not "Baltimore" if you're from the area—locals often pronounce it more like "Ballimer.") Learn how they sound when they speak your language, if they speak a different language than you do. If they do, you should be able to converse in it. Photo by Dmitriy Shironosov (Shutterstock). Don't be afraid to draw on your own experience, as long as it works with your cover. The most convincing stories are the truthful ones, so if you get into a conversation about your family or an experience that the conversation reminds you of, tell it. Telling the truth whenever you actually can goes a long way towards making your cover more believable, and in turn makes you more vested in your cover and what you can learn. For example, my cover was a technology professional traveling to an east asian country for an IT conference. I had been a sysadmin but recently promoted to management, and I wasn't well traveled, so I had an excuse for wide eyes, obvious questions, and glaring cultural mistakes. It worked easily for me since much of my background is in technology, and I've attended such conferences in the past. If my real purpose were to exchange documents with a friendly operative in the same city, or get acquainted with a foreign contact we wanted to observe under the guise of attending the conference, it would be a perfect assignment. If you're walking a mile in someone else's shoes you can take a few more risks, obviously. If your goal is to expand your horizons and try something new, leave your comfort zone a little bit and experiment. For example: Before you leave for the airport, think about how a businessperson who flies every week would deal with boarding and de-boarding a plane, or security screenings. For example, they're likely the type who packs light and starts opening up their bags and taking off their belt and shoes before they hold up the line. Look around at other travelers for that type of person, and observe their behaviors. They probably know what they're doing, and just watching can teach you a lot. Photo by Stefano Costantini. If you're trying to blend in with locals, learn where they hang out before you go. Try to pick up enough of the language that you can converse with anyone you meet on the basics, and default to "I'm sorry, do you speak English?" when the need arises. Review a few maps and try to get around without needing one when you get there. These cases are specific, but the goal is to think about how an expert would handle the situation you're about to walk into, and then do the legwork required to put yourself in that expert's shoes. The knowledge will come in handy, whether you assume the cover of a professional negotiator by reading a few helpful tips before you meet with your boss to ask for a raise or you become an amateur chef by training yourself to identify spices and flavors before talking to the owner of a gourmet market. In the former case, the goal is to avoid suspicion and to breeze through wherever you are. In the latter case, the goal is to learn something valuable about how to handle your situation, or even about the place you're in or the people you're working with. Whether you're pretending to be a local because you need to fit in or because you want to leave the tourist-ridden paths of the country you're visiting, putting on a mental disguise can help. Just make sure you choose one you're comfortable with. Learn As Much As Possible Before You Need It We mentioned that the key to maintaining a cover is being able to avoid suspicion while emulating the appropriate behavior of your cover. If your goal is to convince a fellow traveler that you're traveling for business, they may ask you about your field, or how long the conference you're in town for lasts. They may ask you where you're staying in town, and whether you plan to do any sightseeing while you're there. Be ready for those types of questions and prepare for them. The same applies if you're doing this for fun. Continuing with our traveler analogy, read up on some of the highly rated restaurants and off-the-beaten-path destinations in a city before you leave. Find out where the locals go to eat versus where the tourists frequent. Learn about local customs before you visit so you can maintain your "I'm a local!" cover more easily and fit in seamlessly. Even a little research goes a long way towards better understanding, whether you're traveling, or just going to meet with some out of town colleagues and want to make them feel comfortable while they're here. Try On Multiple Identities for Size We're not talking about wholesale identity theft here (although intelligence professionals and people under witness protection do have to have identities manufactured for them), but we are suggesting you put yourself in the mindset of multiple people as their experiences suit you. To be fair, few of us will ever truly have to convince another person we're someone we're not, but pretending we are can offer an ego boost and help us deal with difficult situations. Photo by Elnur (Shutterstock). Pretending you're a jet-setting traveler in your head can help you relax on that 8-hour flight. While you sip a drink and pop on your noise cancelling headphones, look around and know that you've got this handled and you're not as stressed as other travelers around you. Putting yourself in the mindset of a commuter will help you understand the urgency everyone else has when walking through airports, subways, and train stations so you don't get in everyone's way. You know to move to the side before looking at your tickets or to check your departure time. You know not to take up the whole escalator with your baggage, because you know it sucks to get stuck behind the tourist who does. It may sound silly, but a little confidence goes a long way, and a great way to get that confidence is to pretend—at least in some ways—that you're someone who knows what they're doing. Stand Up to Questioning, but Don't Be a Know It All Even if you're trying to avoid suspicion, you don't want to pretend to know everything. Think about how you converse with people about things you're knowledgeable about. Sometimes you're willing to correct them, other times you'll just let someone who doesn't know what they're talking about ramble on. Remember, the goal of putting yourself in someone else's shoes isn't to prove to everyone that you know everything about them. Instead, your goal is to avoid the kind of suspicion or note that a know-it-all arouses, or to learn something about the person, place, or situation so you're better prepared to handle it. For example, when you're traveling, don't argue with a local about what you should see. If you're trying to convince someone you're from the same place they are, telling them their old high school doesn't exist isn't a good way to do it. The whole point of trying to engage locals is to get their experience! If you're trying to learn a bit more about someone's culture, there's a fine line between participation and misappropriation, and you don't want to be on the wrong side. If you're negotiating with someone or trying to settle an argument, empathy can help you understand where someone else is coming from, but pretending to know someone else through and through can only make matters worse. Know When To Retire Your Cover You can learn a lot by putting yourself in someone else's shoes, and you can even have a lot of fun by going to a party or an innocent social event and pretending you're someone you're not. You can even learn a lot about your own capacity to lie and to keep up a disguise in the process. Still, there's a point where you need to drop the cover and go back to your own identity. In most cases that would be after that party, when it's time to change personas and be someone else in your head, or when your cover has gotten you into trouble (assuming you don't need to keep it to get back out of trouble.) Photo by Thomas R. Stegelmann. You may also want to retire your cover when you're with someone willing to teach you so you don't have to observe and emulate, like if you're traveling with a pro and they share their tips with you, or you're about to go into a meeting and your boss says "let me do the talking." Remember, the basics of maintaining a cover (for fun) are study, memory, and empathy. Most people who work with or have ever worked with or for the intelligence community are able to say they "worked for the government," but can't elaborate on what they did, or the technology they used. Then there are the ones who can't even say that, and have to maintain cover at all times. It's a tough job, one that requires special people and training, but even trying it on for size for a short period can do wonders for your character and teach you to walk a mile in someone else's shoes. That is, as long as you're free to drop your cover when you need a breather. Title photo made using pjcross (Shutterstock). Click to view

We are Eric Koger and Susan Gregg Koger, Founders of ModCloth, and This Is How We Work How Can I Sync All of My Contacts, Calendars, and Other Data with Someone Else? How to Choose (and Maintain) a Cover Identity How to Become a Great Cook Without Being a Chef Detect if a Person Is a Threat at a Glance How to Plant a Dead Drop (Without Everyone Finding It) The Best Places to Hide Valuables in Your House More Stories on Lifehacker »

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November 13th, 2012Top Story How to Detect When Someone's Lying (and Get Them to Tell the Truth) By Whitson Gordon Lies are inevitable, but getting duped isn't. When you're in the presence of a liar, you can often uncover the truth by paying attention to very specific nonverbal cues. You just need to ask the right questions and observe their body language to catch them in the act. What Nonverbal Cues Really Tell Us You've probably heard things like "if someone smirks when they answer a question, they're lying to you." You've probably even seen shows like Lie to Me, in which characters are able to detect lies through simple body language. However, nonverbal cues are more complicated than popular culture makes them out to be. When someone's lying, they will probably give off a few nonverbal cues that suggest something is "off," but they don't prove that someone's lying to you. Joe Navarro, former FBI agent and author of What Every BODY Is Saying, says it best (emphasis mine): The truth is that there is not one single behavior indicative of deception. [Instead], there are behaviors that are indicative of when a person is having distress, or anxiety, or psychological discomfort. Lying can cause this type of distress, but so could many other things. For example, Navarro interviewed one woman who showed all of the nonverbal cues one might associate with deception, but in reality she was nervous because her parking meter had run out and was merely afraid of getting a ticket. Even lie detectors are susceptible to this weakness, so you need more evidence to truly detect a lie. Use Nonverbal Cues to Investigate Possible Lies While nonverbal cues won't prove that someone's lying, they can direct your investigation by highlighting the important clues. Pamela Meyer, author of the book Liespotting and CEO of deception training company Calibrate, says you should start off an interivew by asking your suspect easy, stress-free questions. From there, you can get a "baseline" of their body language when they aren't under any pressure. Then, when you start asking more pointed questions about the lie you're investigating, you can pick out which words make them more anxious or distressed. Navarro gives a great example in this blog post regarding a murder. The medical examiner in this murder determined that the victim was stabbed with an ice pick—a detail not yet known to the public. The investigator used this detail to see if his suspect was as innocent as he claimed: Rather than ask the subject questions that had previously been covered, such as if he had committed the crime or his whereabouts at the time in question, the investigator asked the following series of questions with a time delay in between: "If you had killed him would you have used a gun?," "If you had killed him would you have used a knife?," "If you had killed him would you have used an ice pick?," and "If you had killed him would you have used a machete?". To all of these questions, the subject answered, "No," however, the nonverbal responses to each question were clearly not all the same. When the ice pick was mentioned, the subject lowered his eyelids and left them low for several seconds before rubbing them with his fingers and answering, "No." This eye-blocking behavior was enough to convince the investigator that not only did he have the right individual; he also realized the topic to pursue. In the end, after continued questioning about the ice pick, the subject began to reveal what happened the night of the murder. He was betrayed by his own eyes because of his guilty knowledge. You can still employ this technique even without a specific detail like the ice pick. To use a simple example, say your little brother stole your prized autographed baseball. You could ask him: If you had stolen it, would you have hid it under your bed? Would you have hidden it in your sock drawer? Would you have hidden it in your closet? If you get a nonverbal cue that stands out among the others—say he rubs his eyes as in the ice pick example—you have a detail you can investigate further. Again, you can't accuse him of lying right then and there (after all, he could just have been itching his eyes), but you do have something that can further your investigation. Photo by Lynne Furrer (Shutterstock). Get Liars to Confess When You Have Enough Evidence So if you can't make accusations from simple nonverbal cues, how do you finally get to the truth of the matter? In the case of the missing baseball, say your little brother seemed nervous after you asked about his sock drawer. You could simply go and check his sock drawer to see if he had the baseball, giving you clear evidence that he had stolen it and was lying. Other times, Navarro notes, knowing your subject is lying is all that you need. He recalls a story of a friend who wanted to buy a building in Manhattan: When the seller was asked general questions there were glowing responses about the building. However, when my friend asked about the "last time the duct work had been cleaned" the man ventilated his collar and coughed before he answered (pacifiers). Later he ran his hands through his hair multiple times to the question, "have there been any liens on this property?" My friend hired an investigator, not just a real estate agent, and found there were all sorts of issues with this property. His careful use of nonverbals detected issues which in the end made him wisely terminate further interest in the building. To this date, he still does not know the full truth about the building, he just knows that a lot was being concealed and the investigator confirmed there was enough there to avoid proceeding any further. Of course, not all cases are so simple. If you really need the detailed truth, you may have to ask quite a few questions before you have enough evidence to figure it out. In other cases, if you ask the right questions, the person will realize you're onto them and confess. Whatever you do, though, Meyer says putting pressure on them isn't the answer: First of all, don't try to be like the guy on Law and Order pummeling your subject into submission...it doesn't work. Find a relaxed, quiet, totally private place that's free of distraction, develop rapport with your subject, let them tell you their story, and then raise the cognitive load on them by asking them to tell it to you backwards. Liars often rehearse their story in chronological order, and law enforcement interrogators in particular often use the technique of asking one to tell the story in reverse order, in order to observe indicators of deceit. We rehearse our words but we rarely rehearse our gestures. In general, a truthful person will have less of a problem telling their story backwards (though it may still be a tad difficult). Navarro agrees that pressure is a bad strategy, noting that "if you use any kind of pressure on somebody, what you're going to get is compliance. Compliance gets you a limited amount of information." Cooperation, on the other hand—building up that rapport and that trust—will have them giving you much more. In the end, Meyer says, honesty and compassion can go a really long way: The best way to do this is to signal through your words and actions that your world is an honest one, that you act with integrity. Also why look down your nose at someone who just committed a moral act you never would? What's the point? Try hard to be focused on facts and not on judgement of others. Often people will feel more freedom to be honest when they do not feel that their questioner is being morally dismissive or superior. As well, try to understand one's motivation for doing whatever they are lying about, and provide a no-judgements attitude when discussing what motivated them, And never ask "why did you do it?" Asking "why" directly always puts someone on the defensive. Instead suggest several different reasons one might have for committing whatever act is under discussion and let your subject choose what to share with you. In short: The less accusatory of a tone you take, the more likely you'll get cooperation from your subject. Know what questions you need to ask, look for the right cues, and do some digging yourself. When you've uncovered enough evidence, you'll either have a strong case for the truth or they'll confess to you willingly. Photo by Richard Peterson. This post is part of Spy Week, a series at Lifehacker where we look at ways to improvise solutions to every day problems Bond-style. Want more? Check out our spy week tag page. Joe Navarro is a former FBI agent, lecturer, and author of the book What Every BODY Is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Speed-Reading People. You can see more of his work on his web site. Pamela Meyer is the author of the book Liespotting, and CEO of Calibrate, a leading deception detection training company. She has an MBA from Harvard, is a Certified Fraud Examiner and blogs regularly at www.Liespotting.com. Click to view Click to view

An Incredibly Simple Way to Escape from Wrist-Binding Zip Ties How Do I Get Companies to Stop Gouging Me for Money I Don't Owe? How to Detect When Someone's Lying (and Get Them to Tell the Truth) The Upside of Inefficiency How CIA Director David Petraeus's Emails Were Traced (and How to Protect Yourself) The Most Common Hiding Places for Workplace Passwords Waking from Sleep, Pandora Favorites, and Flash on Windows Tablets More Stories on Lifehacker »

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The Game that Defines this Generation + Valve's Next Engine & Design That Just Works

Plus, our Grand Theft Auto 5 Blowout is all week long! Does this e-mail look jacked up? View as a webpage   Top works on IGN last week: Halo 4, Assassin's Creed III, GTA V, Black Ops II, Skyrim (still!), and World War Z. @scottmucci >   Prototype 2 PS3 Action   Dust 514 PS3 Shooter   Skullgirls X360 Fighting  View More This October, I visited Rockstar Games with PlayStation Editor Greg Miller and UK EIC Alex Simmons to check out Grand Theft Auto V for the very first time. This week we finally get to pull the wraps off of all of our coverage, including our impressions of the first mission, new screens, and a top V list of things you need to know about GTA V. All week we'll be posting new impressions, new screens, and Wednesday, Nov 14. At 8am PT we'll reveal Trailer #2 and do a live breakdown with a twitter Q&A. Be sure to tweet us questions to @IGN #GTAV to win one of these. Casey Lynch, Editor-in-Chief Hey Gamer Set your email preferences so we can deliver emails that are relevant to you.  Set Preferences Top Story The Game that Defines this Generation Find out our picks plus our answers to more of your awesome questions!    Learn More   Featured Stories for You Valve Waiting on a Game to Launch New Engine Gabe Newell confirms the company is working on a next-gen engine. Source 2?  Learn More   The Game Designs That Just Work Franchises like Pokemon and Borderlands are successful for a reason.  Learn More   Holiday Gift Guide All the greatest gifts for the geeks and gamers in your life.  Learn More     Grand Theft Auto 5 Blowout Get ready for a week long trip to Los Santos. Learn More   IGN Essentials    Next Mass Effect Using Battlefield 3 Engine    Assassin's Creed Movie Coming Very Soon    The Walking Dead: The Aftermath If you no longer wish to receive IGN Games newsletters, you may unsubscribe by clicking here. To read about our privacy policy, click here. Copyright 2012 IGN Entertainment, 625 2nd Street, San Francisco, CA 94107. All Rights Reserved. IGN.com | GameSpy | AskMen | IGN Prime