However, the best way Howard gets the truth out of his guests is by lying directly to them about a specific piece of their life. By telling them a lie about themselves, the very first reaction they have is to correct it and by doing so, they give the answer he’s searching for. This is very useful Usenet+ trick to get an answer to a question. You could be nice and simply ask a question: "How can I do X in Y?" and you…
This is also a common social engineering trick. If you ask someone for their password, alarm bells usually go off. However, if you tell someone their password is XYZ, they'll potentially correct you (esp. if there's some degree of trust) and tell you it's ABC.
I remember reading Mitnick used this trick a fair bit.