Networked Synthetic Social Engineering on the Web

Abstract

Several genuine AI services may repeat one unsupported source, and correcting that source may leave later reports unchanged. We examine these networked consequences of synthetic social engineering (SSE), deliberately misleading influence intended to redirect AI recipients from authorized objectives. Our framework connects social influence, information aggregation, and misinformation correction research to observable evidence and permission boundaries. It separates originating attempts from legitimate intermediaries' work and distinguishes identity, evidentiary support, and authorization. We test four relationships using Qwen3-4B and two briefing tasks across 1,080 research units in our Agent Service Exchange and Evidence Commons (ASE-EC). Multiple dependent publishers produced no supported increase in unsupported verification (78.3% versus 75.0%); publication availability left downstream violation reach at 40.0% in both arms. These comparisons direct attention to weaknesses already present in the reference workflows. High reference error rates and retained private handoffs preclude claims of immunity to social pressure. Without scope revalidation, corrections identifying dependent reports reduced residual invalid decisions from 14.4% to 8.1% at equal notification coverage and increased successful report repairs from 16/63 to 36/63. Scope revalidation added no demonstrated protection, and clearing dialogue offered no established recovery advantage. Unapproved requests persisted, all blocked by an external gateway. For designers, the findings caution against treating publisher count as independent evidence, notification as repair, or cleared histories as recovery. They support targeting corrections at reused reports, assessing factual and permission recovery separately, and enforcing authorization at execution.