When we go to see a stage magician, we enjoy a wondrous spectacle. We eagerly and willingly suspend disbelief and are awed by the things that the magician does. Quite often those illusions are accomplished by misdirecting our attention. The magician does something flashy with one hand, while the other hand performs the work, as it were.
That is not the only way that misdirection works however.
I experienced what I am almost sure was misdirection last night. I got home, ate dinner and decided to play an online MMORPH. I logged in - began play - and then noticed in general chat that someone was busily attacking gay people and asserting that being gay was a "lifestyle" choice. As a person who does NOT think that not engaging can EVER be the right tact, I engaged. I engage, when I do, with clear facts to back me. I have a background in both the sciences and theology. I am used to discussing these things with fundamentalists who don't want to hear what I have to say.
This seemed to me no different. There were oddities, the gentleman seemed to have little knowledge of significant parts of basic biblical theology. Not knowing what the Torah was for example, and thinking it was "Muslim" struck me as a bit odd. Attempting to assert that the "law" was only human law and not divine, while claiming to be fundamentalist was also unexpected. Likewise, I had never encountered anyone who practiced fundamentalist Christianity and didn't seem to know the difference between Pentecostal and non-Pentecostal fundamentalism, and whose explanation of his personal experience with "the Holy Spirit" was that he'd never felt a "need" to speak in tongues, which I got a feeling he didn't understand as a phenomena.
But I soldiered on, maybe he was new, maybe he was as ESL speaker -- there were many possibilities and I simply continued, asserting that his faith and beliefs were his own but that he had to respect others and not attack them. I also pressed him to tell me whether or not the requirement that a virgin who is raped marry her rapist without possibility of divorce and her father accept a payment in silver for her was actually moral.
Anyone observing the discussion, which stretched out for nearly three hours, would have seen what appeared to be the rhetorical equivalent of me pushing the young man (I presume) into a fetal ball. Near the end of the debate he admitted to having become a Christian after being involved in "Satanism" - which he equated with Santeria (a lay practice at the fringe of Catholicism). I thought that was also a bit odd, but I pressed on. He suggested that the would prove the existence of the spirit realm to me (I actually believe very strongly in such a realm, just not the one he was purporting to be ready to show me) and asked me for my name.
Somewhere a bell rang dully in my brain.
In the following minute I realized that over the course of the hours of sometimes barely coherent discussion he had extracted from me through innocuous sounding questions my approximate location within my state, the fact that I had a terminal SMAT (Science Math and Technology) degree and was seeking another one, the fact that I worked professionally, the fact that my name was fairly unique and the first names of my children. My blood ran cold. He had everything he needed, except my name to locate me, find my employer, use FOIA to find my salary and possibly my bank, and he had my children's names, which with anything resembling patience would offer him a path into my accounts, a path which, because of the tenuous connection would be almost surely impossible for the authorities to ever trace.
I refused to offer my name. He made one attempt, rather feeble. "If you don't believe then what are you afraid of?" I replied "I don't believe in your god or your Satan, but I do believe in cybercrime and I do believe in the billions stolen every year from citizens who are too free with information. I'm sorry I won't give you my name."
The reply?
"Bye." He was gone and instantly I was blocked from communicating with him. I don't think he had enough, I think he needed my name. I will watch my accounts closely for months, but I don't really expect to see anything untoward.
Misdirection isn't always on a stage with colored silk handkerchiefs. All of us need to be very aware of that and ready to protect our personal information. Watch the hand that isn't waving. Don't be misdirected by a cybercriminal. I believe I was, although I cannot prove it legally. Luckily I realized it and did not go the final step.