I don't want to be associated with Facebook then Facebook should "notice" that I am not a user and not associate my name with the photo.

One of the things that shocked me when I tried out Facebook, and a thing that made me delete the account immediately, was how much they already knew about me BEFORE I ever told them anything. They knew my kids, my neighbours, the local swimming pool, where I work, etc etc. I didn't need to be telling them anything else.

1) This implies that Google takes a look at EVERYTHING that goes on Google Drive, otherwise how did they know it was porn? This may be obvious to some but there is a difference between secure and private. Secure means no third party can see your stuff, private means the storage provider doesn't get to look.

2) It is just plain wrong that the file would disappear. Block sharing and notify the user that the file should be removed.

3) If terms of service say don't do something then don't do it.

Let's start by getting it out in the open, I AM NOT AND APPLE FANBOY, ok, I'll take a deep breath and continue.

I have a lot of gripes against Apple and not being able to easily change the battery in my phone is one of them. On the other hand, is legislature the right way to approach this? Look what happened with the EU and cookies. I don't give a flying monkey's about cookies but now I have to look at a banner on websites that explains in "Web for Dummies" style all about cookies. We all know that most politicians do not understand technology, despite being pissed about how hard it is to fix a phone I don't want one that is thick, heavy and looks like crap. I'm willing to pay Apple's, or Samsung's or anyone else's premium for something that looks like a 21st century phone. If that means it is hard to fix then OK AS LONG AS THERE IS COMPETITION. If I don't like it I vote with my feet and go somewhere else. If there was a monopoly then it would be right to legislate, a monopoly should be forced to offer something that people can both afford and maintain.

More than 10c worth but there you go.

What's the editor doing? He's out 'ittin' 'eds.

...then I wouldn't be home sick like I am now because someone came to work sick.

It's a fine line with a steep drop filled with mixed metaphors on each side. I think the issue here hinges on the word "arbitrary" and in who's eyes?

I manage a group of programmers in an R&D environment. We routinely drive professional project manager types crazy because R&D means that, at some level, we really don't know what we are doing or how long it will take because we haven't done that particular thing before. On the other hand, we DO know what we are doing because, whatever it is that we are doing, we've been doing it successfully for some time. So, internally to the group we make realistic deadlines for ourselves and map them onto what the project managers want to know. Still, there are often the cases where we get 90% of the way through a project and realise that there is a much better way of doing it. This can be for many reasons, "the penny finally drops" and the programmer realises what they are doing, someone hears something at a conference or workshop, or a new feature emerges in a programming language or library.

I wonder if anyone has turned down a multi million inheritance thinking it was a scam? Quite a few years ago a descendent of one of my grandfather's cousins died. He had never married, had no siblings and his parents had passed away before him. So my grandfather's decedents ended up inheriting his estate. That turned out to be a fair few people to divide it between and he was by no means rich but we all got something. Sadly I never knew that he existed until a letter came in the mail. If it had come via email either the spam filter would have got it or I would have deleted it as a scam. Thinking about it I suppose that the non-scam inheritances always come in the mail from a law firm that you can check for legitimacy and, I would hope, contain some information that a scammer shouldn't know.

Who asked you?

I use my phone for banking, health tracking, Apple Pay and other activities that require it to be secure in case of theft or loss. Apple have developed a system that is superior to the fingerprint method currently used. The data used for facial recognition is, according to Apple, isolated to the device and not available on the cloud. Of course you may not trust Apple but that is your problem not mine. What fascinates me is how this is somehow creepy and immoral when Apple adds the technology but not so when other companies have introduced similar technology.

As for "privacy concerns" that horse bolted from the barn and was well into the next county the moment cameras became ubiquitous on cellphones. Anyone can take my photograph and post it to social media for the world to see. Many photo organising software packages now support facial recognition as a cataloging aid. For example, find all photos with grandma in them. In such a world it is trivial for someone to do a time-lapse of a street and pull out every photo that has a particular person in it.

No, it is not Apple or their implementation that is Orwellian and creepy, it is the world in general and we have to live with it.

I had a good laugh at this. I got my PhD in the UK and moved to the US years ago. I had to get my UK university to send a letter to my new employer in the US because my PhD certificate said "PhD in Natural Philosophy" when I'd claimed to have a PhD in Physics...

I wrote my first code at high school in about 1976 in Fortran.

There were no computers at school so the code was written by shading in little ovals on each of a stack of cards using a soft pencil. The cards were sent to a college that had a mainframe. The cards were read and used to generate a stack of punched cards that were returned the next day. You then inspected the cards to see if they correctly coded what you wanted them to code. If not the card was "edited" by covering incorrect holes with tape and punching new ones with a hand held punch. The cards were then sent back overnight to be re-read, and this time an attempt at compilation and execution was made. If you were lucky you got a printout from a line printer with the result of your code. If you were unlucky there was a syntax error and the cards had to be re-edited. Running "Hello World" could take several days with each step of the process requiring sending the cards to the college and getting the results back the next day.

I was going to accuse you of being paranoid but then again, for all I know, they may still be out to get you...

Yep, that was my first thought. I type my PIN with the other hand. So, a non issue for the most part.

Also, I go to the ATM maybe once a month but type on a computer at work for 8 hours + per day. So, a hacker would not only have to hack my watch but also pinpoint the few seconds that I was at the ATM. Of course they could try to use the same hack to record keystrokes but my typing pattern is so bizarre that I challenge anyone to figure out which keys I am pressing based on which fingers are moving.

There's something a little predictable about Palin and Lamar Smith inviting along Bill Nye the science guy instead of a "real scientist", i.e. one with impeccable climate science credentials, then using the argument "but he's not a real scientist".

Exactly. There are several stores close by where I live that use Apple Pay and I'm usually out of the door and half way to the car before the guy in the next line has waited for his chip card to be read and authorized. I don't know why but Apple Pay is very fast, most of the cashier's comment on how much they love it. No more having people swipe cards several times etc.

Your comment makes no sense. What are these fees you are talking about? I have several cards and pay no fees. What I do know is that I don't want automatic payments set up to pull from my bank because that takes real money immediately. The credit card transactions spend virtual money that converts into real money once a month as a bill which I pay in full.