Goodbye, Passwords. You Aren’t a Good Defense.

Came across this interesting article on passwords in NT Times (August 9, 2008) by Randall Stross. Passwords won’t keep us safe from identity theft, no matter how clever we are in choosing them argues Randoll Stross. Some highlights -

THE best password is a long, nonsensical string of letters and numbers and punctuation marks, a combination never put together before. Some admirable people actually do memorize random strings of characters for their passwords — and replace them with other random strings every couple of months.

Then there’s the rest of us, selecting the short, the familiar and the easiest to remember. And holding onto it forever.

I once felt ashamed about failing to follow best practices for password selection — but no more. Computer security experts say that choosing hard-to-guess passwords ultimately brings little security protection. Passwords won’t keep us safe from identity theft, no matter how clever we are in choosing them.

The solution urged by the experts is to abandon passwords — and to move to a fundamentally different model, one in which humans play little or no part in logging on. Instead, machines have a cryptographically encoded conversation to establish both parties’ authenticity, using digital keys that we, as users, have no need to see.

How Bad Are iPods for Your Hearing?

Today, iPods (or) products similar to iPods are quite common. But will this lead to hearing loss? Does listening to loud music through headphones lead to long-term hearing loss? Brian Fligor, director of diagnostic audiology at Children's Hospital Boston, explains how much damage your headphone habit might cause — and how to mitigate your risk, in this interesting article in Time (July 28, 2008). Some highlights from the article -

"... I don't want to single out iPods. Any personal listening device out there has the potential to be used in a way that will cause hearing loss. We've conducted studies of a few MP3 players and found very similar results across the MP3 manufacturers.

Some in-the-ear earphones are capable of providing higher sound levels than some over-the-ear earphones. That said, studies we've done on behavior show that the type of earphones has almost nothing to do with the level at which people set their headphones. It's all dictated by the level of background noise in their listening environment.

When we put people in different listening environments, like flying in an airplane — we used noise we'd recorded while flying on a Boeing 757 commercial flight, and we simulated that environment in our lab — 80% of people listened at levels that would eventually put their hearing at risk. On the subway system here in Boston, the ambient noise levels are very comparable to the level on an airplane, although it sounds very different.

The noise is sufficiently high that it induces people to listen to their headphones at excessively loud volume. But in order to listen as loud as you want, you need to be careful about how long you're listening.

I would also strongly recommend that people invest in better earphones that block out background noise. Some of the research we did studied earphones that completely seal up the ear canal. These are passive sound-isolating earphones, as opposed to the ones that are active noise cancelers that block out some of the noise.

As far as I can tell, both would allow people to listen to their headphones at their chosen level — and more likely at a lower volume than if they were using the stock earbuds...."

Women, Repeat This: Don’t Ask, Don’t Get

Came across this interesting article in NYTimes by LINDA BABCOCK. The author says that women are much less likely than men to use negotiation to promote their goals and wishes. Women should learn how to assess and strengthen their bargaining power; research, prepare and practice before their negotiations; and use strategies that won’t make them seem threatening and provoke a backlash. Some highlights -

ABOUT 10 years ago, I heard that my boss was recommending two of my male colleagues for promotion. Both of these men had joined the faculty the same year I was hired, both were good teachers, and both had published important research. They were certainly qualified to move to the next level, from associate professor to full professor.

But so was I. I figured it was just a matter of time before my boss stopped by my office with the good news that he was promoting me, too. So I waited. And waited. As time passed, it became clear that I might be waiting a very long time.

Finally, I worked up the nerve to talk to him about it. I vividly remember his reaction. A big smile spread across his face. “Well, let’s promote you, too!” he said.

When my two male colleagues had asked to be promoted, my boss, seeing that they met all the requirements, readily agreed. Since he was a busy man, he didn’t stop to think about who else was ready for promotion. A question was posed, he answered it, and he went on to the next problem.

About three years later, I held my boss’s job. While hiring two people with similar credentials, a woman and a man, I made each the same salary offer. The woman accepted the offer without negotiating. The man bargained hard, and I had to raise his offer by about 10 percent before he would agree to it.

In between these two events, I watched similar situations play out among my students and friends. Time and again, I saw women accept the status quo, take what they were offered and wait for someone else to decide what they deserved. Men asked for what they wanted and usually got what they asked for.

Prompted by these experiences, I started a research project with several colleagues to study how and when men and women initiate negotiations. In my book “Women Don’t Ask,” I laid out overwhelming evidence that women are much less likely than men to use negotiation to promote their goals and wishes.

Warning: Habits May Be Good for You

I read an interesting article by CHARLES DUHIGG in NY Times about how companies had perfected the art of creating automatic behaviors — habits — among consumers. These habits have helped companies earn billions of dollars when customers eat snacks, apply lotions and wipe counters almost without thinking, often in response to a carefully designed set of daily cues.

While those were the old days when companies made products which satisfied the need of the customer, we are today in a modern world, where corporates indulge in scientific study designed to create new habits which will help in selling their new products. While this article per se is about how it can be used to improve the public health, I am very skeptical about the altruistic nature of modern day corporates.

Some highlights from the article -

• Many of the products we use every day — chewing gums, skin moisturizers, disinfecting wipes, air fresheners, water purifiers, health snacks, antiperspirants, colognes, teeth whiteners, fabric softeners, vitamins — are results of manufactured habits. A century ago, few people regularly brushed their teeth multiple times a day. Today, because of canny advertising and public health campaigns, many Americans habitually give their pearly whites a cavity-preventing scrub twice a day, often with Colgate, Crest or one of the other brands advertising that no morning is complete without a minty-fresh mouth.
• A few decades ago, many people didn’t drink water outside of a meal. Then beverage companies started bottling the production of far-off springs, and now office workers unthinkingly sip bottled water all day long. Chewing gum, once bought primarily by adolescent boys, is now featured in commercials as a breath freshener and teeth cleanser for use after a meal. Skin moisturizers — which are effective even if applied at high noon — are advertised as part of morning beauty rituals, slipped in between hair brushing and putting on makeup.
• Not everyone is comfortable with the arrangements. Some critics complain that public health professionals are becoming too cozy with companies ultimately focused on their bottom lines. Others worry that these advertising techniques may be manipulative.
• “OUR products succeed when they become part of daily or weekly patterns,” said Carol Berning, a consumer psychologist who recently retired from Procter & Gamble, the company that sold $76 billion of Tide, Crest and other products last year. “Creating positive habits is a huge part of improving our consumers’ lives, and it’s essential to making new products commercially viable.” Through experiments and observation, social scientists like Dr. Berning have learned that there is power in tying certain behaviors to habitual cues through relentless advertising. “For most of our history, we’ve sold newer and better products for habits that already existed,” said Dr. Berning, the P.& G. psychologist. “But about a decade ago, we realized we needed to create new products. So we began thinking about how to create habits for products that had never existed before.”
  
• Academics were also beginning to focus on habit formation. Researchers like Wendy Wood at Duke University and Brian Wansink at Cornell were examining how often smokers quit while vacationing and how much people eat when their plates are deceptively large or small.
• Those and other studies revealed that as much as 45 percent of what we do every day is habitual — that is, performed almost without thinking in the same location or at the same time each day, usually because of subtle cues.
• For example, the urge to check e-mail or to grab a cookie is likely a habit with a specific prompt. Researchers found that most cues fall into four broad categories: a specific location or time of day, a certain series of actions, particular moods, or the company of specific people. The e-mail urge, for instance, probably occurs after you’ve finished reading a document or completed a certain kind of task. The cookie grab probably occurs when you’re walking out of the cafeteria, or feeling sluggish or blue.
• Our capacity to develop such habits is an invaluable evolutionary advantage. But when they run amok, things can become tricky.
• “Habits are formed when the memory associates specific actions with specific places or moods,” said Dr. Wood, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke. “If you regularly eat chips while sitting on the couch, after a while, seeing the couch will automatically prompt you to reach for the Doritos. These associations are sometimes so strong that you have to replace the couch with a wooden chair for a diet to succeed.”