Cognitive Heist series #2: The Bait Man

Welcome to part 2 of the Cognitive Heist miniseries: The Bait Man 🗝️ He doesn’t pick the lock. 🚪 He doesn’t sneak in the back. 🪝 He just leaves something shiny on the ground and waits for you to pick it up. Enter "The Bait Man": the scammer who lets your own curiosity or greed do all the work. Part 2 of Cognitive Heist explores: 👉 Why bait-based scams (phishing, “found” USBs, QR traps, honeytexts) work so well 👉 The irresistible psychology of forbidden knowledge and too-good-to-miss offers 👉 A chilling parallel with the Nazi gold train legend—possibly the most expensive “nothing” in history 👉 The ancient myth of Pandora’s Box... and what it says about modern clickbait 👉 And as always: tentacles, noir, and cognitive traps. In other news: 👉 The FAIK Files: Climbing Through the Context Window Audio version: YouTube version: 👉 Research Paper of the Week: Project Vend-- Can Claude run a small shop? (And why does that matter?) Anthropic's page discussing the experiment Business Insider P.S. -- Just a quick reminder that I've got a great book out that's all about deepfakes, disinformation, and deception. Be sure to check it out if you haven't already: Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You can listen to Cognitive Heist series #2: The Bait Man online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Cognitive Heist series #2: The Bait Man is an episode from 8th Layer Insights by Perry Carpenter | N2K Networks.

This episode is 13:31 long.

This episode was published on Jul 17, 2025.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from 8th Layer Insights when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.