It’s been a while since I posted here. The hiatus is attributable to a whirlwind of other projects, and while I may have been missing in action here, I have been occupied elsewhere with lots of writing. This has included four book chapters that I authored or co-authored in 2023, exploring various facets of deception. Here is a summary of each chapter, with links to pre-print versions that are available for download.
Creativity and Morality in Deception
Henderson, S. (2023). Creativity and morality in deception. In H. Kapoor & J. C. Kaufman (Eds.), Creativity and Morality. Academic Press. 101-124.
As mentioned in a previous post, I contributed a chapter on Creativity and Morality in Deception to a book that examines the relationship between Creativity and Morality, edited by my colleagues Prof. James Kaufman from the University of Connecticut and Dr. Hansika Kapoor from Monk Prayogshala University in Mumbai.
In this chapter, I explore various philosophical perspectives concerning the rights and wrongs of deception, the contribution of creativity to the formulation and execution of deception, and the practical impact of these factors in the real world.
The book is available here, and a pre-publication version of the chapter can be found here.
Innovative Deception Across Cultures
Kapoor, H., & Henderson, S. (2023). Innovative deception across cultures. In D. D. Preiss, M. Singer, & J. C. Kaufman (Eds.), Creativity, Innovation, and Change Across Cultures. Springer. 143-173.
In this chapter, which appears in a book on Creativity, Innovation, and Change Across Cultures, Hansika Kapoor and I discuss how culture interacts with deception. The chapter afforded an opportunity to discuss how common recurring structures, strategies, and patterns of deception can be found across multiple cultures, while the content of such patterns (i.e., the constituent cues) often exhibit cultural specificity.
We exemplify this phenomenon by discussing how drug smuggling often relies upon the common strategy of repackaging, i.e., wrapping the thing you seek to hide with cues that create the appearance of something else. However, in smuggling, wrapper cues usually reflect cultural aspects of the origin of, or destination for, the drugs. For example, in Iran, heroin has been discovered packed into thin plastic tubes woven into Persian carpets. In Hong Kong, liquid ketamine has been bottled and labelled as ‘rose water’ for use in religious ceremonies. In South America, cocaine has been disguised as charcoal for export to Europe. And in India, ‘Brown Sugar’ (inferior quality heroin) has been passed off as ‘prasadam’, a religious offering used in Hindu ceremonies. Drug smuggling within and between many other countries similarly reflects local cultures.
The chapter also provided an opportunity to discuss Hanko fraud, a deeply ingrained and culturally unique form of identity fraud found only in Japan, and how the Covid pandemic inadvertently decreased its prevalence.
The book Creativity, Innovation, and Change Across Cultures is available here, and a pre-publication copy of the chapter can be found here.
Intelligence and Wisdom’s Role in Moral Versus Amoral Creativity
Kapoor, H., Henderson, S., & Kaufman, J. C. (2023). Intelligence and Wisdom’s Role in Moral Versus Amoral Creativity. In R. J. Sternberg, J. C. Kaufman, & S. Karami (Eds.), Intelligence, Creativity, and Wisdom: Exploring their Connections and Distinctions. Springer. 177-197.
In this chapter, written for a book on Intelligence, Creativity, and Wisdom, Hansika Kapoor, James Kaufman, and I examine the contribution of creativity, intelligence, and wisdom to moral and amoral applications of deception. As part of my contribution, I compiled a set of case studies to illustrate different permutations of these factors, including the case of a child who draws on a friend of her mother’s expensive wallpaper and blames it on her invisible friend, a bank robber who was convinced he had rendered himself invisible by covering his face with lemon juice, and a document forger who used his skills to save over 14,000 lives, among a variety of other case studies. It was also fascinating to consider the highly innovative forms and applications of deception originated by Pablo Escobar, the Colombian drug lord and founder of the Medellín Cartel, as well as the moral relativism inherent in assessing the impact of his actions.
The book is available here, and a pre-publication version of the chapter can be found here.
Deception in Cyberwarfare
Henderson, S. (In Print). Deception in Cyber Warfare. In T. Stevens & J. Devanny (Eds), Handbook on Cyberwarfare. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd.
Late in 2023, I submitted a chapter on Deception in Cyberwarfare for the forthcoming Edward Elgar Handbook on Cyberwarfare, due to be published in late 2024.
The prevalence of cyberspace as a contemporary theatre of war raises important questions about the evolution of deception in warfare. What exactly constitutes deception in the present day? Is cyber deception comparable to deception in the physical world? What purpose does deception serve in cyberwarfare? How do humans and machines collaborate to enable cyber deception? And how will the relentless advancement of technology, particularly in machine learning, shape the role of deception in future cyberwarfare?
The chapter explores these questions. It begins by reviewing dictionary and military definitions of deception before offering a more rigorous and utilitarian alternative. I then consider traditional military applications of deception and examine the different forms of deception in cyber operations. The chapter reviews various case studies to show how deception contributes to cyberwarfare. Challenges to using deception in current and future cyberwarfare are discussed, and I conclude by summarising key emergent issues.
A pre-publication version of the chapter can be found here.
