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Inside the Secret World of the Data Crunchers Who Helped Obama Win
From ACM Opinion

Inside the Secret World of the Data Crunchers Who Helped Obama Win

In late spring, the backroom number crunchers who powered Barack Obama's campaign to victory noticed that George Clooney had an almost gravitational tug on West...

And the Firewalls Came Tumbling Down
From ACM Opinion

And the Firewalls Came Tumbling Down

There's much to like about "This Machine Kills Secrets," Andy Greenberg's well-reported history of WikiLeaks and the many projects it has inspired, but one unintentionally...

Why Wi-Fi Is Often So Slow
From ACM Opinion

Why Wi-Fi Is Often So Slow

A number of Internet service providers, including Comcast Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc., have recently upped the maximum speeds of broadband they offer...

From ACM Opinion

When Gps Tracking Violates Privacy Rights

For the right to personal privacy to survive in America in this digital age, courts must be meticulous in applying longstanding privacy protections to new technology...

Architecture and the Lost Art of Drawing
From ACM Opinion

Architecture and the Lost Art of Drawing

It has become fashionable in many architectural circles to declare the death of drawing. What has happened to our profession, and our art, to cause the supposed...

Giving In to the Surveillance State
From ACM Opinion

Giving In to the Surveillance State

In March 2002, John M. Poindexter, a former national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan, sat down with Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the director of the National...

Apple's Stash of Credit Card Numbers Is Its Secret Weapon
From ACM News

Apple's Stash of Credit Card Numbers Is Its Secret Weapon

That little iPhone in your pocket is perfectly positioned to become a clone of the credit cards in your wallet or purse.

Following the Breadcrumbs on the Data-Sharing Trail
From ACM Opinion

Following the Breadcrumbs on the Data-Sharing Trail

Would you like to donate to the Obama campaign? Sign up for a college course? Or maybe subscribe to Architectural Digest? 

From ACM Opinion

Facebook Is Using You

Last week, Facebook filed documents with the government that will allow it to sell shares of stock to the public. It is estimated to be worth at least $75 billion...

From ACM Opinion

Privacy, Technology, and Law

Every day, those of us who live in the digital world give little bits of ourselves away. On Facebook and LinkedIn. To servers that store our email, Google searches...

From ACM Opinion

Research Bought, Then Paid For

Through the National Institutes of Health, American taxpayers have long supported research directed at understanding and treating human disease.

Why I Already Miss Physical Media
From ACM Opinion

Why I Already Miss Physical Media

For years, I had a happy weekend ritual. I'd head to my local Tower Records and lose myself in the aisles of CDs and DVDs. After emerging from the store—usually...

Assange on Secrecy, China, and Wikileaks' Growth
From ACM Opinion

Assange on Secrecy, China, and Wikileaks' Growth

"Secrecy is important for many things," said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in an interview with Time over Skype on Monday. Managing editor Richard Stengel...

From ACM TechNews

Enlist It Tools

Throwing more teams of specialists at intelligence gaps that allowed terror suspects to slip through the net will not solve the problem, write Rensselaer Polytechnic...

From ACM Opinion

Cisco's New Router: Trouble For Hollywood

Cisco's CRS-3 router made a bit of a splash when it was announced on March 9, but the power of this new device hasn't yet sunk in. Consider: The CRS-3, a network...

From ACM Opinion

Why Can

All of the gloss and glitter doesn’t hide the fact that both Mac and Windows operating systems are still pretty geeky and difficult for many computer users to navigate...

From ACM Opinion

Why Google Wants a Faster Internet

There was no lack of, well, buzz about Google's new Buzz social-media platform last week, but more important were a series of moves that suggest the search giant...

Is Wikipedia a Victim of Its Own Success?
From ACM TechNews

Is Wikipedia a Victim of Its Own Success?

The exponential growth of Wikipedia has flattened out since 2007, a development that may signal the limits of crowdsourcing. One explanation is that Wikipedia...
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