The irony of parent's racist comment is that this sort of blatantly dangerous road use, and lack of understanding of it, are really quite British in their attitudes. As was the punishment.

You have got to be fucking kidding me. They restrict maximum password length way below sensible limits, can't seem to get their various assets to log me in correctly, first time. I've recently been bounced between various login screens, been literally typing in my user name and before I can press tab to move focus, the page is redirecting and some of what I wrote is lost or entered as entry into the password field. (None of this was a problem with my end - I tried various methods to see if I was going wrong somewhere). At the moment you have to try to understand what they're talking about when they ask "what sort of login you have, a workplace/organisation or your own?" I click the relevant option and find out it's the wrong one, but I was logged in anyway. Microsoft don't seem to have offered a functioning, reliable, consistent authentication interface for at least ten years.

How about you get the basics working first, before you start with dabbling with fads just to rise your share price?

Or for them to take up sax! A repugnant idea!

That's one advantage of a country that does not have the laws of mathematics apply to them - it makes rocket science much easier!

As they add another hook in their system to maintain the presence of their products.

"Click this ad from our sponsors to keep your Platinum Status in Life Alert!"

I don't know if it's common, I do not use Facebook. I wouldn't use an email list to tell anyone about my safeness if I was in the vicinity of an accident. My friends and family don't tend to be aware of my daily whereabouts so why would they have any reason to worry about me if something happened somewhere?

You make an interesting point about Facebook deciding how to classify a disaster - but then I suppose, differing countries, states etc. probably all have their own criteria, as well as individuals. In our modern-day hyper-aware lives, even small events can be blown out of proportion so it's not as if Facebook could rely on crowdsourcing such a definition on the fly - not without problems, anyway.

As an outsider to the mindset of every-day life being a step away from catastrophe, it strikes me as quite chilling that there is a mental hair-trigger that such people carry around with them. Are these victims able to truly relax? Can they sit and unwind and let their guard down at the end of the day? It must be an exhausting way to live.

I do empathise. I feel sadness that you and your "we" are living lives of anxiety.

Wow. I had no idea just how deeply social media's infection had reached into people's lives. People carry around "disaster alerts" in their pockets now? They expect their friends and family to actively mark themselves as "safe"? I can't fathom what it must be like to live such a life of fear.

Or a certain sort of Captain. Even cheaper than torpedoes!

The vessel in this instance was not armed, equipped or even military. I suspect one would have a harder time attacking an active vessel.

And if you flew such a drone at an equipped, manned, military ship (none of which the article's aircraft carrier were) you'd be much less likely to succeed in delivery. Once you were collared, the authorities would also take a very dim view of your actions. If you weren't just shot on the spot.

Switching one's software to using secure settings shouldn't be outside the realm of possibility for anyone talented enough to write and publish their own software. If I was using a system which didn't offer an email client that could read in plain text, I would find another email client. It's an important security choice and not one I'd be without.

I'd be careful calling anyone "dumb" and "incompetent". You'll find that after first time you get phished (or very nearly), you realise just how easy it is, with a moment's inattention to be lumped in with those two words.

I do agree that not electing to use 2FA et al, when a service provider offers them, is a very foolish mistake to make.

I have yet to see a single phishing email that, when viewed in plain text mode, is remotely convincing. I still don't understand why people compromise so heavily for prettiness instead of privacy and security.

Courageously so! Can't be seen to fall behind Google, so don't join the race at all.