Published in MIT Sloan Management Review
Think First, Verify Always is free, open, and ready to go. Read it, teach it, translate it, build it into your own work. No cost, no sign-up, no permission to ask for.
Start here: it is already yours.
Most things that protect people come with a gate: a price, a login, a license to negotiate, a logo you have to keep. This one does not. Think First, Verify Always is openly licensed under CC-BY 4.0, which means you can pick it up right now and put it to work: at home, in a classroom, on a security team, in a newsroom, at any scale you need. There is nothing to buy, nothing to sign up for, and no one to ask.
The protocol is two moves. Slow down, then verify through a channel you already trust. You can learn it in about three minutes and teach it the same day. We built it to travel, so the best thing you can do with it is use it and then hand it to someone else. The rest of this page shows you how to carry it into your own work.
Who it is for, and how to use it.
The protocol holds up wherever deception shows up, which is why it travels across such different rooms. Here is how to put it to work in yours, starting today.
A family at the dinner table. Say the two moves out loud, together, before anyone needs them. When a call comes in with a familiar voice asking for money right now, the whole table already has a plan: slow down, hang up, and reach that person on a number you already have. Teach it once to the youngest and the oldest at the same table. It is simple enough to hold when your heart is pounding, which is the only place it has to work.
A teacher in a classroom. Teach it as a single short lesson, because that is exactly how it was tested. Walk students through the two moves, then let them practice on real-shaped examples: the cloned voice, the fake invoice, the message that looks exactly like a bank. Adapt the wording to your grade level, translate it for your students, and build it into a plan with your own name on it. Students can carry it straight home to their parents and grandparents.
A security team training staff. Drop it into onboarding, phishing drills, and all-hands briefings as a habit every employee can hold under pressure. The core line fits on a badge and changes behavior: never verify a message using the message itself. Confirm through a channel your people chose in advance, a number they dial themselves, a person they reach directly, the official site they type in from memory. Because it was tested in a randomized controlled trial, you can point to evidence when you make the case internally. Train ten people or ten thousand, on your own systems, at no cost.
A newsroom briefing its readers. Give your audience something to do after the scary headline. Quote it, publish it, translate it, and build it into your consumer and safety coverage. When you cover the next voice-cloning or AI-fraud story, hand readers a tested, plain-language answer instead of only a warning, with MIT Sloan Management Review as a citable anchor. Use the two moves as your standing safety box on any fraud story.
If your work does not fit neatly into one of these, use it anyway. The habit is the same wherever you carry it.
The terms, in plain language.
Think First, Verify Always is released under a CC-BY 4.0 license. In plain terms, you can:
- Read it and use it, for yourself, your family, your students, or your staff.
- Teach it and share it, in any room, in any format, to any size of audience.
- Translate it and adapt it, into your language, your grade level, your industry, your house style.
- Use it commercially, inside a product, a training program, a course, or a campaign.
The one thing we ask in return is attribution: credit the source so people can find the evidence for themselves. That is the whole deal. Nothing to buy, nothing to sign, no permission to request. Use the line below and you are covered.
Already in use.
This is not a launch looking for its first adopter. It is already at work in the world.
Published where it counts. Think First, Verify Always was published in MIT Sloan Management Review, in the article “A Three-Minute Protocol to Reduce AI Manipulation Risk” (2026). Their editors chose to run it.
Tested, not asserted. It was measured in a randomized controlled trial, where a single session of about three minutes improved how well people resisted AI-driven manipulation by 7.87 percentage points over a control group (n=151). One short lesson, a real and measurable difference.
Referenced and recommended. Since publication, the protocol has been referenced and recommended by companies and media around the world, from technology press such as DevDiscourse and ZDNet Korea to security and training firms including Global Learning Systems, CybeReady, Cogent Info, NetCom Learning, Safe Harbour Security, and Croft Financial Group. These are organizations that looked at it, judged it sound, and pointed their own audiences to it. You would be in good company.
How to cite it.
Copy this wherever you use, teach, or adapt the protocol:
Cite this: Yuksel Aydin, “A Three-Minute Protocol to Reduce AI Manipulation Risk,” MIT Sloan Management Review (2026). Think First, Verify Always by HCSK, licensed under CC-BY 4.0.
Think First, Verify Always was created by Yuksel Aydin, an AI-security researcher and the founder of HCSK, a nonprofit.
Now it is yours.
We measure success one way: by how far this travels and how many people it protects. So take it. Teach it at your table, in your classroom, in your training, in your paper. Translate it, remix it, put it in front of the people you are trying to keep safe. The best outcome we can imagine is that it stops looking like ours and starts looking like common sense. That only happens if you pick it up, and you are welcome to, starting now.