The Author would like to dispel one persistent myth about social engineering. This myth claims that social engineering is a terrible phenomenon that emerged in the 1980's due to the activities of the famous hacker Kevin Mitnick, and that it is impossible to protect oneself from this new pestilence. In fact, social engineering is neither terrible, nor a new phenomenon - the idea that the human factor is always the weakest link is something that mankind has known for a long time. Social engineering methods have been around for centuries, long before Mitnick.