Seth's Blog

A year ago my gmail account was hacked. I recovered it in an hour or so, not before a friend of mine had an amusing conversation. Recently, judging by James Fallows’s experiences, there has been a rise in these attacks. My mistake, I believe, was using the same password on my gmail account and another account. I suspect the recent outbreak of gmail break-ins is happening because there was recently a large exposure of passwords elsewhere.

But I can’t be sure because I cannot compare break-ins over time. What does a graph of break-ins-versus-time look like? Is what Fallows has noticed a recent spike?  (It probably is.) If so, that supports my explanation of its cause (passwords lost elsewhere). Or has there been a steady increase over time? That would contradict my explanation. It is revealing that Fallows provides two security suggestions, one of them really time-consuming (two-stage verification) in the long haul. He says nothing about making sure your gmail password is not used anywhere else. If he could have seen that break-ins-versus-time graph, he could better judge whether the gmail hacks are due to duplicated passwords. If I am right about the cause of these hacks, Suggestion #3 should have been don’t use your gmail password anywhere else — and would have been the most effective.

Gmail developers can help all of us be safe at reasonable cost by publishing graphs that show break-ins (and probability of break-in) per day. I think that is estimated by the number of account recovery requests they receive per day. After my gmail account was hacked, I contacted Google to recover it and soon did. Perhaps those account recovery requests could involve the person making the request giving a reason (e.g., “account hijacked”). Then Google could simply tell us (with a graph?) the number of hijacked accounts reported per day.

Security departments and others don’t like to provide this sort of information. Persons at the top of companies worry it will scare customers! Those in security departments worry people will be less scared — thus reducing their power. From a user point of view these are horrible reasons not to make this information public. With accurate knowledge of the likelihood of break-ins, gmail users can make reasonable estimates of the costs and benefits of various security options. Without knowing the likelihood of break-ins, they can’t.

If you live in Beijing, it may interest you that on April 23 (Saturday) I will give a 30-minute talk at Tsinghua University (Weiqing Building, Room 507) titled “The Value of Personal Science”. The talk will start at 1:30 pm.

• Scott Adams on realistic education
• Joshua Foer talks about memory tricks, memory competition, and his new book
• Awful side effect of drug does not remain hidden
• Testing the “10,000 hours of practice makes you an expert” idea literally
• another butter advocate: Julia Childs
• where are the climate refugees? How one climate-change prediction turned out

Thanks to Craig Fratrik, Tom George and Sean Curley.

My friend Carl Willat sent me this photo with the comment “noticeably worse” — meaning that the new version (on the right) is noticeably worse than the old version (on the left). 365 is the Whole Foods house brand. Years ago,the label of 365 balsamic vinegar said “aged 5 years”. Then one day it didn’t. The younger vinegar (aged 1 year?) tasted noticeably worse. In a side-by-side comparison, it was obvious.

Side-by-side comparisons, I discovered thanks to Carl, are powerful — and I could use that power to improve my life. A long time ago at his apartment I tasted five versions of limoncello (Italian lemon liqueur) side by side. Of course the differences became clearer–that’s obvious. The surprise was that all of a sudden I cared about the differences. Before that tasting, I had had plenty of limoncello. But only at the side-by-side tasting did I develop a liking for the good stuff (more complex flavor) and a dislike for the cheaper stuff (simpler flavor). I stopped buying cheap limoncello and started buying expensive limoncello. I got a lot of pleasure out of it. I still do this. A few weeks ago I bought some rum to flavor my yogurt. I started with the cheapest brand. A week later, to compare, I got a more expensive brand. Side-by-side tasting showed it was clearly better. Now I sort of relish it — the side-by-side comparison made rum drinking more enjoyable. Soon I will get an even more expensive rum, to see how it stacks up.

I’m pretty sure such side-by-side comparisons are how connoisseurs are made. The evolutionary reason for this effect, I believe, is that connoisseurs will pay more than other people for well-made stuff, thus helping skilled artisans — during the Stone Age, the main source of innovation — make a living.

In Carl’s picture the new vinegar looks much cheaper than the old vinegar. The previous change (from aged 5 years to not aged 5 years) wasn’t accompanied by a cheaper-looking label. Maybe Whole Food headquarters had received complaints from manufacturers of other balsamic vinegars: Your house brand is too good. And they replied: Okay, we’ll cheapen it.

On my Psychology Today blog someone left a surprising comment about why the Shangri-La Diet isn’t more popular:

Seth, I’ll tell you why. Because we are majorly competitive bitches, we women who care about our appearance. I’m 41, I have three children and I am a size 6. I fit into my wedding dress and the jeans I wore in college. How? Shangri-La. And there is no way in hell I am going to share my secret with anyone.

Went to the movies this weekend with a group of friends. They had the usual movie fare, I ordered a cup of tea (bag on the side), added two tablespoons of sugar (put the teabag in my purse for later), sipped it slowly throughout the movie, had not ONE craving for the popcorn or nachos or M&M’s everyone else was scarfing. I went home and had a light dinner and felt terrific!

Sounds more like an ad than an actual comment, but it could hardly be more vivid and I believe it.