The pope has been found to be catholic, birds fly, fish swim and bears defecate in woods.

This sounded like it might be a fundamental change in something big, but it isn't. As many have already said, anyone with a passing knowledge of chemistry - even misremembered over 19 years like mine - is aware of the underlying reasons and the implications!

It's presented as sensational but it's really not news in any way, shape or form.

It's only a simple AI that's needed, too.

Prime directive: screw the public by charging for everything, do not pay for marketing or advertising by coming up with hare brained schemes that will never pass any safety test or be unacceptable thus causing outrage and guaranteeing free publicity...

I really do wish that the media wouldn't report this attention whoring.

I booked a ferry crossing from the UK to France through Brittany Ferries' website, and since then I've often been presented with adverts for Brittany Ferries. It is actually putting me off, and has made me install Adblock plus. I don't mind adverts: I know that they're needed to try and monetise this crazy thing. What I do object to is being stalked by an advert for something that I've already bought the product for! So, well done, that's me now out of the internet advertising audience. I suspect I'm not the only one who has been pushed over the edge by this...

Customer: Hi, I'm having troubles with ebilling
Demon: OK, let's see if we can help. I just need to take you through security. Can you give me your username
Customer: customer1
Demon: And, without revealing your full password, characters 3 and 5 of... the MD5 hash of your password?
Customer: WTF?
Demon: sorry, that's not right.

In the case where you want to use the same password to authenticate across multiple channels, and use human interaction, storing plain passwords (with appropriate control) is unfortunately still useful. Yes, there's other ways to do it, but people are conditioned to be asked for letters of their password by humans.

Gilbert and Sullivan references on slashdot? Whatever next!

They're Oxford scientists. They created transparent aluminium.

If it's truly mission critical (and if it is, it sounds like your mission is in real danger if you keep dropping bytes!), you could do worse than look at Connect:Direct from Sterling Software. It's the standard transmission software for bits of the core financial transaction world in the UK and with good reason.

Sure it's "only" a secure transmission and there's plenty of free alternatives, but this is one time when I would recommend paying out for the certainty you need... Others will no doubt disagree, but having used a variety of things for mission critical file transmission, C:D is a safe choice.