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How Cloud Storage Complicates the Supreme Court Debate Over Cell Phone Privacy
From ACM News

How Cloud Storage Complicates the Supreme Court Debate Over Cell Phone Privacy

Should police be able to search the contents of your smartphone without a warrant?

Goodbye, Net Neutrality; Hello, Net Discrimination
From ACM Opinion

Goodbye, Net Neutrality; Hello, Net Discrimination

In 2007, at a public forum at Coe College, in Iowa, Presidential candidate Barack Obama was asked about net neutrality.

Tom Kilburn
From Communications of the ACM

Tom Kilburn: A Tale of Five Computers

Reflections on a British computer engineer who influenced several important machines, including the first stored-program computer.

The Justice of Coders
From ACM Opinion

The Justice of Coders

Among the most important changes in the structure of this society is the rise of engineers and the ethics they make manifest.

The Cloud Industry Needs Aereo to Win. But Consumers Need Something Better.
From ACM Opinion

The Cloud Industry Needs Aereo to Win. But Consumers Need Something Better.

The best way to think about Aereo, the company at the center of this week's Supreme Court battle over the future of computing, is as an example of legal performance...

How America's Leading Science Fiction Authors Are Shaping Your Future
From ACM Opinion

How America's Leading Science Fiction Authors Are Shaping Your Future

Stories set in the future are often judged, as time passes, on whether they come true or not.

Is There Anything Beyond Quantum Computing?
From ACM News

Is There Anything Beyond Quantum Computing?

A quantum computer is a device that could exploit the weirdness of the quantum world to solve certain specific problems much faster than we know how to solve them...

The Fuzzy Math Behind the Search For Mh370
From ACM Opinion

The Fuzzy Math Behind the Search For Mh370

Five weeks into the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, more than $30 million has been spent scouring great swatches of the southern Indian Ocean.

It's Time to Encrypt the Entire Internet
From ACM Opinion

It's Time to Encrypt the Entire Internet

The Heartbleed bug crushed our faith in the secure Web, but a world without the encryption software that Heartbleed exploited would be even worse.

Why the Web Needs Perfect Forward Secrecy More Than Ever
From ACM Opinion

Why the Web Needs Perfect Forward Secrecy More Than Ever

EFF has long advocated for websites to support HTTPS instead of plain HTTP to encrypt and authenticate data transmitted on the Internet.

Google Wants to Make 'science Fiction' a Reality—and That's Limiting Their Imagination
From ACM Opinion

Google Wants to Make 'science Fiction' a Reality—and That's Limiting Their Imagination

Self-driving cars, extreme life extension, and global wifi provided by weather balloons: Google makes projects that sound like science fiction into reality at its...

Can We Really ­pload Johnny Depp's Brain?
From ACM Opinion

Can We Really ­pload Johnny Depp's Brain?

When Wally Pfister's Transcendence is released on April 17, millions of moviegoers will be asking themselves, "Could we really upload Johnny Depp into a computer...

Bruce Schneier: Technology Magnifies Power in Survellance Era
From ACM Opinion

Bruce Schneier: Technology Magnifies Power in Survellance Era

History is not entirely kind to those responsible for the Industrial Age in the 19th century.

The Internet's Telltale Heartbleed
From ACM Opinion

The Internet's Telltale Heartbleed

The cryptography expert Bruce Schneier, who has been writing about computer security for more than fifteen years, is not given to panic or hyperbole.

The Lewis Effect
From ACM Opinion

The Lewis Effect

Michael Lewis couldn't have timed it better if he'd tried.

From ACM Opinion

Abstract Ideas Don't Deserve Patents

The Constitution gives Congress the power to grant inventors a temporary monopoly over their creations to "promote the progress of science and useful arts."

Five Ways to Make Sure We Never Lose a Plane Again
From ACM Opinion

Five Ways to Make Sure We Never Lose a Plane Again

For the past few weeks the world's attention has been focussed on the lost Malaysia Airlines plane and its 239 passengers and crew that has apparently crashed in...

What Oculus's $2 Billion Payday Teaches ­S About Innovation
From ACM Opinion

What Oculus's $2 Billion Payday Teaches ­S About Innovation

Tuesday's announcement that Facebook is buying the virtual-reality start-up Oculus for $2 billion no doubt left many people scratching their heads.

A Close Look at the Nsa's Most Powerful Internet Attack Tool
From ACM Opinion

A Close Look at the Nsa's Most Powerful Internet Attack Tool

We already knew that the NSA has weaponized the Internet, enabling it to "shoot" exploits at anyone it desires.

The Future of Internet Freedom
From ACM Opinion

The Future of Internet Freedom

Over the next decade, approximately five billion people will become connected to the Internet.
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