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iContact email address breach

We've had an interesting scenario happen. A small number of customers contacted us, concerned that their private, single-use email addresses had somehow fallen into the hands of spammers.

Now we don't ever sell or give away anyone's personal data (as per the Golden Rule), so we immediately checked our own servers and current IT suppliers to make sure their hadn't been a breech of any sort. There wasn't; all of our data remained secure.

But something struck me as odd. The first couple of folks who wrote us hadn't ordered recently. Their accounts were set up back in 2008 or so. Aha.

We used to use iContact.com to send our email newsletter to our loyal readers. Dissatisfied with their service, we switched over to using MadMimi.com last fall. And lo and behold, according to several blog postings and twitter traffic, iContact indeed had suffered some sort of security breech around the end of January, 2010.

iContact has now admitted the breach.

But that still didn't make any sense. We had cancelled our account with them some five or six months ago. They didn't still have our data on their servers, did they?

Yes, they did.

Turns out that iContact doesn't delete your data when you cancel your account unless you specifically request them to do so. It just sits there, despite the fact that you have no further business relationship with them. Vulnerable. And in this case, exploited.

After several un-answered emails to their support folks, I finally had to phone them up and demand they remove our data. The fellow I spoke with was very nice; he told me that they don't automatically delete customer's address databases and said they'd get right on it. They'd close that barn door right nice and tight now that the horses are loose. sigh.

We take your privacy as seriously as we do our own (which is very seriously). We are saddened at this turn of events; its unfortunate (and unethical, IMHO) that iContact didn't delete the data when they should have, and that they then were breached.

Fortunately, the only data that iContact had in their possession was email address alone, no names or other data is at any risk.

On behalf of the Pragmatic Bookshelf, I apologize for any inconvenience this incident may have caused anyone, and rest assured that we're on your side, and will continue to watch out for your interests.

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Read Faster by Reading Less

Here's a variation on the SQ3R reading method I mention in Pragmatic Thinking and Learning.  It's called 5S (in German, the steps all start with 'S').  To recap,  the original SQ3R steps are:

• Survey
• Question
• Read
• Recite
• Review

And the 5S version changes that to:

• Survey
• Question
• Search
• Write
• Memorize

The Write and Memorize facets I've talked about before, both in the book and here on the blog (i.e., memory retention is strengthened by recall, not by re-read).

But notice the difference at 'Search'.  Instead of reading the entire text, you can cheat.  Look for the answers to your questions by scanning through the text for just that particular answer.  The theory is that you can read fastest what you don't read at all.  (Sort of like writing less code–the code you don't write is guaranteed not to have any bugs.  Ergo, write less code.)

Here, the focus is on getting your specific question(s) answered.  It's just like using Google :-) That's not always an appropriate way to tackle a book, of course.  If it's a new area and you aren't even sure of the right questions to ask, you'd be better served reading most of the text.

But if you're looking for "just the facts," then it can pay to be pragmatic about it.

Thanks to Erik Tittel for describing the 5S method.

Andy's interview on NOOP.nl

Jurgen Appelo has a brief interview with me as part of his "Six Simple Questions" series (http://bit.ly/6X7yVv). They weren't that simple! But I hope you enjoy my responses.

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Halloween fun

OK, I have to admit, we tend to go a little overboard for halloween decorations. It's a great excuse for the theatric. On the right is one of our larger glowing ghosts we made this year.

We also did a new mummy -- chicken wire and Papier-mâché construction. I hooked it up to an oscillating stand fan, so the mummy swings back and forth in a slow and creepy manner.

And speaking of fun with fans, the dangling hands here were attached to a fan up in a tree branch. What you see are hands that appear to reach down and try and grab you as you walk under.

And of course, our usual thunder-and-lighting with fog machines really sets the mood. The lightening is set to light up the house and an unusually large ghoul hung in a tree. It's pretty startling to the unaware.

Yes, we had a blast. Next year, we'll add some Arduino-powered props. If we start now, we might just make it!

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Smiling better than antidepressants?

In my recent book, I point out that the ever-adapting brain can take remarkable steps to trick itself into performing better.

Along those same lines, a pair of researchers in the UK are putting up the idea that smiling and sending fewer emails can make you feel happier—much more so than pharmaceutical treatments such as Prozac and other modern "happy pills."

Professor Janet Plant (an environmental geochemist by trade) and therapist Janet Stephenson outline their ideas in a new(ish) book entitled Beating Stress, Anxiety & Depression. I haven't read it yet, but they claim hard scientific evidence to back up what we already know empirically:

The mind is it's own place, and can make a heaven of a hell, or a hell of a heaven.

So the secret to happiness may be just that simple. Smile.

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Wetware Workshop on Monday

If you're in London next Monday (10/12), please join us for a workshop hosted by the folks at Skills Matter. Details are online here. I'll walk though the major topics from my book and we'll try some of the activities together, and help discover what works and what doesn't. It's usually a lot of fun. See you there! -- /\ndy

Restoring cognitive function, cheap and easy

Nature, which is filled with intriguing stimuli, modestly grabs attention in a bottom-up fashion, allowing top-down directed attention abilities a chance to replenish.

So says researchers from the University of Michigan in Cognitive Benefits of Nature Interaction (Psychological Science, December 2008).

They're looking at a side-effect free, zero-cost, readily available therapy to improve your cognitive functioning. All it takes is a walk in the park.

Or an afternoon at the beach. Or a weekend camping. Interacting with nature is the key: escaping, however briefly, the insistent demands of common urban and suburban environments. And there's more to it than just quiet vs. loud.

It's not that the natural environments offer any less stimulation, but it's of a different kind. Urban environments tend to capture attention dramatically and require additional directed attention. Natural environments are as rich, if not richer, but tend to invoke involuntary attention more modestly, allowing directed attention mechanisms a chance to rest and recoup. Interaction with nature improves your ability to perform directed-attention tasks—things you need to concentrate on.

So if you find you're in need of a recharge, get out of the office, and find yourself a spot of nature. It's just what the doctor ordered to improve your cognitive functioning.

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Placebo effect: it's not all in your head

From an article in Wired:

Ironically, Big Pharma's attempt to dominate the central nervous system has ended up revealing how powerful the brain really is. The placebo response doesn't care if the catalyst for healing is a triumph of pharmacology, a compassionate therapist, or a syringe of salt water. All it requires is a reasonable expectation of getting better.

You, too, can release opiates, alter hormone and other chemical levels, heart rate and blood pressure. Change your expectation, and change your world.

Wild stuff.

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Pragmatic Thinking & Learning: London, October 12

If you're in London this October, please join us for a workshop hosted by the folks at Skills Matter. Details are online here. I'll walk though the major topics from my book and we'll try some of the activities together, and help discover what works and what doesn't. It's usually a lot of fun. See you there! -- /\ndy

The Meaning of (Pragmatic) Life

As you may have heard, we're launching a new series of books under the banner Pragmatic Life. It includes books for your life beyond coding.

You're a professional, you're good at what you do, and (if the ton of email we get is any indication) you like our books that treat you as a professional--someone who's good at what you do, but there's something new you need to learn. We've got you covered.

Our first two books in the series include The Passionate Programmer and Land the Tech Job You Love. We'll be following up later this year with books on geek hobbies, health and lifestyle topics. Tomorrow, we're going to launch our first fiction book.

Now, when I was young, I rarely read fiction, because I considered it to be "not true." It wasn't until I was older that I finally realized that good fiction exposes far more truth than most history or technical works can.

Will this fiction book be to everyone's liking and taste? Probably not. But we like it, we think your kids will like it, and we hope you will too.

We're here to help make developer's lives easier and more interesting. And because life doesn't stop at the office door, neither will we. Join us in celebrating the pragmatic life.

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