Kickass article MeanSpleen, I saw that in the news too! When I read your post subject, my immediate response was "the human factor!"
All the firewalls and security technology in the world are worthless if you can talk someone into simply giving you the information you need or doing something for you, which they wouldn't otherwise do.
This isn't a plug (borrow it from your public library if you need to
) but I think everyone interested in this thread should read
The Art Of Deception by Kevin Mitnick. Check it out, that's a link to an excerpt.
It's the best book I've read in a while, it brilliantly describes exactly what we're talking about. Everyone, even non-techie types can learn a whole lot from from it....I wish I could think of another example but this thread and that excerpt pretty much cover the basic idea.