To those hackers whose sense of ethics does not allow them to use trickery in an attempt to ascertain passwords, one form of social engi-neering still might be used without straying from one's sense of morality: the gentle art of asking, "Please ... ?" I think I've never heard of a verifiable instance where this has worked, though there are rumors that hackers have simply requested -and received - passwords from system users. Usually, the story goes, the system operator is either asked over the telephone, or e-mailed a letter which says something like: "I am a hacker. Give me a low access account and I will use my skills to show you what your
system's weak-nesses are. That way you can correct them and won't be troubled by malicious crackers in the future."
The other way to do this is to call up some-one - anyone - a secretary in an office for in-stance -1 and just ask, "What do you type in to start the computer in the morning?" Will this work? Well, you would have to be lucky enough to call someone who's fed up with his or her job, and who doesn't know any better about security procedures.
Social engineering minus the deceit is not likely to work, and could make it harder for you to get in, in the future. More likely you will want to bone up on your acting skills and try some telephone shenanigans.
