Dr. Nick Yee, of the Daedalus Project, is an American researcher who studies self-representation and social interaction in virtual environments.  The Daeldulus Project is Dr. Yee’s research initiative into the psychology and sociology of MMORPGs.  Yee, well respected by academia and extensively cited, has published a number of articles concerning the power of social context in virtual environments.  One in particular, “The Proteus Effect: The Effect of Transformed Self-Representation on Behavior”, at a high level depicts how similarities in social interaction in the real world extend virtual environments.  Malicious users, comprehending these social similarities can effectively instigate social actions as a means to expose expected social reactions.  This understanding gives attackers a powerful platform to utilize contextually and socially relevant phishing and social engineering attacks not yet possible in today’s two-dimensional Web.
 
Yee’s “The Proteus Effect” discusses an idea known as the behavioral confirmation, which is the process, whereby the expectations of one person (typically referred to as the perceiver) cause another person (typically referred to as the target) to behave in ways that confirm the perceiver’s expectations (Snyder, Tanke, & Berscheid, 1977).  For instance, a perceiver, using an attractive avatar to interact with a target will likely find the target to behave more friendly and in an altruistic manner. It is important to note that the source of behavioral change from the effects of behavioral confirmation stem from the perceiver rather than the target. It is the perceiver’s behavior that in turn causes a change in the target’s behavior (Yee 2007).  
 
In virtual, three-dimensional social contexts, attackers will understand aspects of behavioral confirmation and initiate perceiver behavior that will help better facilitate phishing and social engineering attacks.  Attackers will expose how individuals feel inclined to help others given certain social circumstance.
 
Lets say I am an attacker, in the perceiver’s social role, aware that how I look and act will influence my social target(s) to respond in a manner I can readily predict.  Perhaps, my avatar is displayed as an attractive female mulling about at a chessboard in Second Life looking confused.  Perhaps, my avatar sits down and stands up at the board multiple times.  Maybe my avatar wonders around the board in circles.  These signs taciturnly suggest that I am confused and in need of help.  Without initiating conversation, there is an excellent chance another user’s avatar will approach me to see if I need help.  At this point, as an attacker, I have an excellent chance of getting my overly altruistic target to interact with my malicious chessboard that perhaps runs a malicious script upon moving a piece (or something along those lines).
 
What is unequivocally powerful concerning this method of attack is that attackers no longer need to seek out victims.  Attackers can manipulate social context and drive unsuspecting victims to the attackers themselves.  Instead of baiting a hook and placing it in water hoping for fish to bite, fish are jumping out of water and directly into a fisherman’s clutches.