DefCon18: The Social Engineering contest
A the DefCon social engineering contest, contestants are given a list of information they have to obtain and a target company that they have to obtain it from, along with a list of phone numbers of people to get it from. They are given a limited amount of time to get as much of the information as they can.
I walked into the social engineering contest just as the second contestant was ready to start his assignment. His target was a major US automotive company. During his session he was able to speak to two people.
It is very good to hear that at least the first guy they got on the line was actually not comfortable to answer the questions ask them by the contestant.
The second victim was a person that only worked with the company (a major automobile manufacturer) for 2 months as a security engineer. He was eased into answering mundain but valuable questions like his work and break times, but also about food service at the company etc.