“Social engineering” sounds like something out of a conspiracy thriller, charged with totalitarian control and fringe paranoia. More mundanely, it’s come to be associated with phishing and other scams, in which fraudsters manipulate people into disclosing personal information.

Yet the concept is older and more benign: it is the deliberate shaping of human behavior, often at scale. It predates silicon—and became pervasive, and ungoverned, especially once its practitioners learned to hide it. Authoritarian regimes and more recently scammers and big companies have profited from it. To defend ourselves from bad actors, and to benefit from social engineering’s good side, we need to reclaim the name, and govern it prudently.

The roots of engineering

In 1894, Dutch entrepreneur Jacques van Marken urged companies to hire “social engineers” to manage human systems such as insurance, education, and profit sharing for workers as carefully as they did mechanical ones. Fifteen years later, reformer William H. Tolman published Social Engineering, describing how U.S. industrialists optimized workers’ conditions alongside manufacturing methods. If industrialists could shape steel and electricity on demand, why not society itself?

By the 1920s, that confidence had spread. The architect Le Corbusier declared that dwellings were “machines for living in,” imagining cities as orderly lattices where people moved like parts on a conveyor belt. Civilization would run like a Swiss watch.

The idea soon darkened. Authoritarian regimes pushed it to extremes, promising to fashion “the New Man.” In Nazi Germany, engineer Fritz Todt founded Organization Todt, a vast state engineering enterprise that emerged from the autobahn highway system and later operated concentration camps using slave labor.

In the Soviet Union, leaders adopted U.S. scientific management techniques to plan factory-worker movements and classify populations through centralized records, feeding both rapid industrialization drives and the gulag system of forced labor. The same tools and managerial methods used to build highways and enact five-year plans worked for repression and mass control.

By the 1950s, “social engineering” had become a contaminated phrase. The revelations of Nazi and Soviet abuses, along with Cold War critiques of grand social planning turned the term from a progressive slogan into a warning label. Banishing the words pushed the practice underground, making it harder to recognize when it resurfaced in new forms—such as organizational psychology and systems management that still relied on classification and behavioral influence techniques but under softer, less loaded labels.

Social engineering’s more subtle spread

In the postwar years, the new social-engineering lexicon included “human factors” and “urban planning,” all promising integration rather than command. As computing advanced, the language shifted again: “customer journey mapping” to track interactions, “user experience” to script them. Engineering, which began as a means of reshaping physical space, set its sights on shaping behavior. Digital design features embedded in our smartphones now target our attention and desire.

Language helps conceal these modern forms of social engineering. “Data analytics” sounds neutral beside “surveillance.” “Personalization” flatters individuality while still sorting users into predictable categories. “Behavioral nudges” guide decisions without the sense of intrusion. We attach “social” as a favorable modifier to sciences, capital, and media, yet recoil when it meets “engineering.”

That discomfort is a clue. Engineering implies control, and control prompts us to ask who directs whom, toward what ends, and with whose permission.

Not all social engineering these days is hidden. Hackers don’t need to break a firewall if someone hands over their password. Romance scammers cultivate intimacy the way farmers cultivate crops. They succeed not through force but by exploiting trust. If even these obvious attacks work, the invisible kind, with roots in social engineering, are a shoo-in.

Most of the social engineering we encounter is proprietary and beyond our control. Firms build recommendation algorithms tuned to boost engagement and profit with no hearings or right of appeal. Browser and cookie defaults decide what data we surrender. A single autoplay toggle can cost users hours and build unhealthy habits. These are acts of engineering as deliberate as laying a road or redrawing an electoral district. They create a kind of curated itch by which boredom never settles, and satisfaction never arrives. The results are predictable—users click on targeted ads, make purchases, form habits, and lock in opinions.

Consent has transformed along with it. Once straightforward and revocable, it is now subtle and persistent, buried in defaults or opaque terms of service too quickly accepted. You remain free to opt out, much as you are free to refuse roads or electricity. Consent has become the preselected setting of modern life.

When social engineering operated more in the open, citizens could contest it, at least in societies with responsive government. Today’s invisible version diffuses accountability so thoroughly that scrutiny becomes hard to direct. Despite recent congressional hearings on social media’s impact on youth mental health and juries agreeing that firms are knowingly designing algorithms that cause harm, pinpointing responsibility remains elusive. When the mechanism is buried inside a system used by billions, we cannot easily point to a single decision-maker or trace the precise moment of manipulation.

Today’s social engineering is less overt and theatrical than its predecessors. Earlier versions arrived on public posters and loudspeakers for mass audiences. Today’s version is more intimate, delivered through personal devices and constant feeds tailored to the individual. The model succeeds because participation feels like freedom, not control.

Not all social engineering is dystopian. Well-kept parks foster community, accessible buildings extend dignity, vaccines and seatbelts save lives. Even in the digital realm, positive examples exist: browser extensions that automatically block hidden trackers, search engines that refuse to build personalized surveillance profiles, and decentralized social platforms that give users greater control over their own data and feeds.

The term “social engineering” still unsettles, though. But “asocial” engineering, which ignores human consequences entirely, is worse. Recognition of the human dimension to engineering is the beginning of repair. Only by seeing the machinery clearly and naming it honestly can we decide who engineers what and why. The machinery will not dismantle itself. Once named, it becomes subject to choice. That negotiation of purpose, power, and process are the defining political questions of any real democracy. We cannot ensure that social engineering serves and sustains society so long as we dodge the words.

Systems

PLUS: Huawei says it’s replaced Moore’s Law; Chinese mobile plans add token allowances; Singtel slinging Optus; And more!

ASIA IN BRIEF Workers at Samsung Electronics may score bonuses of well over $100,000 after calling off a planned strike.

Samsung’s profits recently shot into the stratosphere along with the price of memory and solid-state storage. Staff threatened to strike if the company did not share some of the largesse.

Last-minute talks saw the National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU) agree not to strike, after Samsung agreed to create a fund that will share profits with workers. A Bloomberg report suggests some workers could be in line for payments of $340,000 under the scheme.

The Union is now running a vote on whether to approve the plan.

Workers appear to have mixed feelings about the plan, as on Sunday the Union published a post in which it tries to justify the settlement as benefiting workers from all divisions of Samsung Electronics, and its plan to create a fund that would see all employees granted around $17,000.

“Your anger must be directed not at us, but at the company,” wrote NSEU Acting Representative Woo Ha-kyung. “It must be directed at the company that is dividing us. I earnestly hope that workers will not thrust arrows of blame and criticism at other workers, but instead unite our strength to move forward.”

Huawei claims it’s leapfrogged Moore’s Law

Huawei on Monday proposed a new scaling law to replace Moore’s Law – which isn’t a law at all and postulates that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles about every two years.

Speaking at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 2026 International Symposium on Circuits and Systems, the president of Huawei’s semiconductor division He Tingbo proposed the Tau (τ) Scaling Law.

According to Huawei’s announcement, “This law proposes replacing geometric scaling with time (τ) scaling as a new guiding principle for the evolution of both semiconductors and electronic systems.”

This “law” seems to be tangled up with a technology Huawei calls the “LogicFolding architecture” which apparently represents an alternative to traditional semiconductor design by “significantly shortening critical-path wiring, effectively reducing the resistive and capacitive load of signal propagation, and ultimately boosting transistor density and circuit performance.”

Huawei will debut LogicFolding chips later this year and says “By 2031, the high-end chips Huawei designs based on the τ Scaling Law are expected to feature a transistor density that is equivalent to 1.4 nm processes.”

If accurate, that would mean Huawei is five years away from a manufacturing process that will be comparable to the most advanced tech offered by the likes of TSMC and Intel.

Chinese mobile phone plans now come with token allowances

Some mobile phone subscriptions in China now include a quota of tokens to use on AI services.

In the last ten days at least two Chinese telcos – China Telecom and Shanghai Telecom –launched plans that include a token allowance.

State media hailed the plans as representing “a shift in how China’s telecom sector hopes to profit from generative AI, as operators attempt to transform computing power and AI model access into a utility-like service resembling traditional mobile data packages.”

Telcos around the world have historically struggled to create new revenue streams from technology innovations – Google, Meta, and Apple have scooped most of the profits flowing from mass adoption of smartphones, leaving carriers to operate low-margin connectivity services.

APAC bit barn boom peaks in Australia, Malaysia

Commercial real estate outfit CBRE last week reported that datacenter investment in the Asia Pacific region hit a record US$11.6 billion in 2025, much of it going on neoclouds.

“For neocloud providers, access to power is increasingly outweighing traditional location advantages,” said Matt Madden, CBRE’s senior managing director for data center solutions in the region. “This is directing demand toward markets that can support high-density campuses at scale, particularly across India, Malaysia, and parts of Southeast Asia.”

Malaysia’s Johor saw a 53 percent year-on-year increase in live capacity last year, ahead of 37 percent growth in the Australian city of Melbourne.

“This underscores strong expansion momentum outside mature markets such as Singapore and Hong Kong SAR, with around 6-8 percent growth,” CBRE said.

$11.5 billion is a tiny fraction of the giant sums Big Tech is spending on datacenters and infrastructure. Last year we spotted $142 billion of spending in Q3 alone. The world’s most populous region clearly isn’t getting much of that.

In related news, IBM Cloud last week flicked the switch on a new region in the Indian city of Mumbai.

Singtel ready to sling Optus

Singtel last week published a filing [PDF] that declares it is open to offloading a substantial stake in its Australian telco operation, Optus.

Readers may recall that Optus has a long history of trouble, including failing to notice a breakdown of its emergency calling service that is thought to have cost at least two lives, a massive outage, and a major data breach.

Singtel hopes to court “potential Australian partners that align with its objectives of ensuring that Optus continues to be a strong alternative operator in the industry, providing a reliable and trusted critical service to all Australians. Singtel contemplates a like-minded long-term local partner owning a meaningful minority stake in Optus.” ®

Ferrari has officially entered the electric era with the unveiling of the all-new Ferrari Luce, the first fully electric production car in the company’s history. Revealed in Rome, the Luce marks one of the biggest shifts the Maranello-based automaker has made since the company was founded in 1939.

For years, Ferrari resisted going fully electric. The company repeatedly argued that emotion, sound, and driver engagement were core to the Ferrari experience, something enthusiasts believed could not exist without a combustion engine. Even when rivals like Porsche launched EVs such as the Porsche Taycan and brands like Lamborghini began discussing electrification strategies, Ferrari largely stayed focused on hybrids and traditional performance cars.

That changed as emissions regulations tightened globally and EV technology matured enough to support the kind of performance Ferrari customers expect. Ferrari first outlined its “multi-energy strategy” in 2022, confirming electrification would become part of the brand’s future without replacing combustion engines entirely.

The result is the Ferrari Luce, a car Ferrari says is not simply “an electric Ferrari,” but an entirely new type of Ferrari built around an all-electric architecture. The company worked alongside the design collective LoveFrom, led by former Apple design chief Jony Ive and designer Marc Newson, to create the car’s unusually minimalist design language.

And that design is already proving divisive

Unlike Ferrari’s traditionally aggressive and sculpted supercars, the Luce adopts a much smoother, cleaner appearance dominated by a massive glasshouse design and floating aerodynamic wings. Ferrari describes it as “shell-like,” while critics online have compared it to a futuristic crossover more than a traditional Ferrari.

The proportions are also different from what many expect from the brand. The Luce is Ferrari’s second four-door model and its first with five seats. It rides on enormous 23-inch front and 24-inch rear wheels, making it one of the largest road-going Ferraris ever built.

Underneath the controversial styling is an extremely ambitious EV platform. The Ferrari Luce uses four independent electric motors – one for each wheel – producing a combined 1,050 horsepower (772kW). Ferrari claims a 0-100km/h sprint in just 2.5 seconds, 0-200km/h in 6.8 seconds, and a top speed exceeding 310km/h.

Power comes from a large 122kWh battery pack developed in-house at Maranello using 800V architecture. Ferrari says the car supports charging speeds up to 350kW and can recover around 70kWh of charge in 20 minutes under ideal conditions. The estimated driving range is over 530km.

The Luce also introduces several technologies never before seen on a Ferrari road car. These include active aerodynamic grilles, four-wheel independent torque vectoring, active suspension derived from the Ferrari F80 hypercar, and Ferrari’s new “Torque Shift Engagement” system, which attempts to recreate progressive acceleration feel through paddle-controlled torque delivery.

Ferrari says it achieves the lowest drag coefficient ever seen on one of its road cars thanks to its smooth bodywork, active aerodynamic grilles, and adaptive ride height system that lowers the front by 10mm at higher speeds.

So, what’s up with the Luce – is it worth the hype?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Ferrari has also spent considerable effort trying to address the emotional side of EV driving. Instead of fake engine sounds, the Luce uses accelerometers mounted inside the drivetrain to capture real vibrations and mechanical frequencies from the electric motors. Ferrari then amplifies and refines those sounds both inside and outside the vehicle to create what it calls an “authentic and functional” soundtrack.

Inside, the Luce looks more like futuristic consumer electronics than a traditional sports car. The cabin features OLED displays developed with Samsung Display, a rotating center control panel, extensive use of recycled aluminum and glass, and a 21-speaker 3,000W audio system.

The EV platform also enables a lower centre of gravity and improved weight distribution for sharper handling. Ferrari’s new Vehicle Control Unit manages power delivery and dynamics in real time, while the brand’s first electric all-wheel-drive system uses advanced torque vectoring for better responsiveness.

Whether Ferrari enthusiasts fully embrace the Luce remains uncertain. But one thing is clear: Ferrari is no longer treating electrification as a side experiment. The Luce represents the company’s clearest acknowledgment yet that the future of high-performance cars will include EVs — even if that future looks very different from Ferrari’s past.

The tech giant claims it can reach cutting-edge chip density by 2031, closing the gap with TSMC.

Huawei has proposed a new guiding principle for the semiconductor industry that it says could allow it to design chips rivalling the world’s most advanced processes, without needing the cutting-edge manufacturing equipment it has been denied under US sanctions.

At the 2026 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS) in Shanghai today (25 May), He Tingbo, president of Huawei’s semiconductor business and chair of its Scientist Committee, delivered a keynote speech entitled ‘New Semiconductor Path in Practice’, in which she presented what the company calls the ‘Tau Scaling Law’.

The law proposes replacing geometric scaling, the decades-old practice of physically shrinking transistors, with time scaling as the new guiding principle for semiconductor evolution. The idea is to reduce the time it takes for signals to propagate through chips and computing systems rather than making individual components smaller.

The principle has already acquired a nickname: “Her’s Law”, according to the South China Morning Post – a play on both He Tingbo’s surname and the tradition of naming foundational scientific laws after their originators, as with Moore’s Law.

The approach relies heavily on a technology Huawei calls LogicFolding. By breaking down the physical boundaries of traditional circuit layouts and significantly shortening critical-path wiring, LogicFolding aims to reduce resistive and capacitive load on signal propagation, ultimately boosting transistor density and circuit performance.

The ambitious production target puts Huawei in direct competition with the world’s leading chipmakers. According to Bloomberg, there is currently around a five-year gap between what TSMC can produce and what Huawei, working with its manufacturing partner SMIC, is capable of.

TSMC, the world’s largest producer of advanced chips, currently uses 2nm manufacturing technology and plans to introduce a 1.4nm process for mass production in 2028. Huawei says it will reach that same 1.4nm equivalence by 2031, although it did not provide independent data to support its claims.

Huawei says the framework is already in production. Over the past six years, it has designed and mass-produced 381 chips based on the Tau Scaling Law, for industries from smartphones to AI computing, it says. The Kirin chips scheduled to launch in autumn 2026 will be the first to adopt the LogicFolding architecture.

“We believe that openness and collaboration are key to driving ongoing progress in the semiconductor industry,” He Tingbo said. “No single company can independently find all the answers along the path of semiconductor evolution.”

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently told CNBC the company had “largely conceded” China’s AI chip market to Huawei.

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The company said its next-gen chips will be “feasible and affordable.”