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subjectComputers And Society
authorThe Washington Post
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An edited collection of advanced computing news from Communications of the ACM, ACM TechNews, other ACM resources, and news sites around the Web.


From ACM News

Fbi's Search For 'mo,' Suspect in Bomb Threats, Highlights ­se of Malware For Surveillance

The man who called himself "Mo" had dark hair, a foreign accent and—if the pictures he emailed to federal investigators could be believed—an Iranian military uniform...

When Bitcoins Go Bad: 4 Stories of Fraud, Hacking, and Digital Currencies
From ACM News

When Bitcoins Go Bad: 4 Stories of Fraud, Hacking, and Digital Currencies

With Bitcoin interest (and prices) spiking, you might be considering investing in your own little cache of digital currency.

Supreme Court Declines Case on Making Online Retailers Collect Sales Taxes
From ACM News

Supreme Court Declines Case on Making Online Retailers Collect Sales Taxes

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to get involved in state efforts to force online retailers such as Amazon.com to collect sales tax from customers even in places...

Google Books Ruling Is a Huge Victory For Online Innovation
From ACM News

Google Books Ruling Is a Huge Victory For Online Innovation

 It's taken almost a decade, but the courts have finally handed down a ruling on Google's audacious project to scan millions of books to build a book search engine...

The Head of Google X Thinks We're All Too Risk-Averse
From ACM Opinion

The Head of Google X Thinks We're All Too Risk-Averse

Google X is responsible for some of Google's most literally fantastic projects: Google Glass, self-driving cars, gigantic inflatable balloons that beam Internet...

Here's What the Morris Worm Prosecutor Thinks About Aaron Swartz
From ACM Opinion

Here's What the Morris Worm Prosecutor Thinks About Aaron Swartz

It was 25 years ago Tuesday that The New York Times first named 23-year-old Cornell graduate student Robert Morris as the culprit behind what became known as the...

How a Grad Student Trying to Build the First Botnet Brought the Internet to Its Knees
From ACM Careers

How a Grad Student Trying to Build the First Botnet Brought the Internet to Its Knees

On November 3, 1988, 25 years ago Sunday, people woke up to find the Internet had changed forever.

NSA Infiltrates Links to Yahoo, Google Data Centers Worldwide, Snowden Documents Say
From ACM News

NSA Infiltrates Links to Yahoo, Google Data Centers Worldwide, Snowden Documents Say

The National Security Agency has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, according to documents...

Here's Why the Feds Didn't Have More Skilled Programmers For Healthcare.gov
From ACM Opinion

Here's Why the Feds Didn't Have More Skilled Programmers For Healthcare.gov

HealthCare.gov, the Web site at the center of President Obama's federal health insurance exchange, has been plagued with problems since it opened for business Oct...

NSA Collects Millions of Email Address Books Globally
From ACM TechNews

NSA Collects Millions of Email Address Books Globally

The U.S. National Security Agency harvests hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal email and instant messaging accounts worldwide.

Here's Everything You Should Know About Nsa Address Book Spying in One Faq
From ACM News

Here's Everything You Should Know About Nsa Address Book Spying in One Faq

A new report from The Washington Post, based on documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden, reveals that the National Security Agency is collecting hundreds...

Nsa Chief Defends Collecting Americans' Data
From ACM Opinion

Nsa Chief Defends Collecting Americans' Data

The head of the National Security Agency delivered a vigorous defense Wednesday of his agency's collection of Americans' phone records for counterterrorism purposes...

Alan Turing’s Story Could Be Rebooted By Calls to Pardon Late Computer Legend
From ACM TechNews

Alan Turing’s Story Could Be Rebooted By Calls to Pardon Late Computer Legend

More than 50 years after the death of computing pioneer Alan Turing, a movement is cresting to reboot the record of the British mathematician's life. 

The Skies. The Limits.
From ACM News

The Skies. The Limits.

Long ago, in a dreamier era, space stations were imagined as portals to the heavens.

The Nsa Sponsors 'cyber Operations' Training at ­niversities. Here's What Students Learn.
From ACM News

The Nsa Sponsors 'cyber Operations' Training at ­niversities. Here's What Students Learn.

Last week, Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh became one of the latest—and most prestigious—schools to partner with the National Security Agency on a program...

Here's How One Hacker Is Waging War on the Syrian Government
From ACM Careers

Here's How One Hacker Is Waging War on the Syrian Government

As President Obama weighed U.S. air strikes in Syria this week, a lone American hacker was waging his own attack on the Syrian government.

The New York Times Web Site Was Taken Down By Dns Hijacking. Here's What That Means.
From ACM News

The New York Times Web Site Was Taken Down By Dns Hijacking. Here's What That Means.

Just weeks after The Washington Post had our own run-in with the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), the New York Times is down, and the SEA is claiming responsibility...

Nsa Gathered Thousands of Americans' Emails Before Court Ordered It to Revise its Tactics
From ACM TechNews

Nsa Gathered Thousands of Americans' Emails Before Court Ordered It to Revise its Tactics

The U.S. National Security Agency illegally collected up to 56,000 "wholly domestic" communications each year from 2008 to 2011. 

Google Maps Trained ­S to Follow Directions. Now Its Former Developer Wants ­S to Explore.
From ACM Opinion

Google Maps Trained ­S to Follow Directions. Now Its Former Developer Wants ­S to Explore.

It's not evident from the way his hair flops casually down and across, nor from his equally relaxed demeanor, but John Hanke is one of Google's most important idea...

Here's What You Find When You Scan the Entire Internet in an Hour
From ACM News

Here's What You Find When You Scan the Entire Internet in an Hour

Until recently, scanning the entire Internet, with its billions of unique addresses, was a slow and labor-intensive process.
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