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The Defenders of Anonymity on the Internet
From ACM Opinion

The Defenders of Anonymity on the Internet

You may not realise it, but every time you open up your laptop or switch on your phone, you are at the heart of one of the greatest battles now taking place in...

Why Do We Blindly Sign Terms of Service Agreements?
From ACM Opinion

Why Do We Blindly Sign Terms of Service Agreements?

Audie Cornish talks with University of Chicago Law School professor Omri Ben-Shahar about terms of service agreements for software and websites.

Satellites: Make Earth Observations Open Access
From ACM Opinion

Satellites: Make Earth Observations Open Access

Changes in land cover affect the global climate by absorbing and reflecting solar radiation, and by altering fluxes of heat, water vapour, carbon dioxide and other...

John Walker, the Navy Spy Who Defined Crypto-Betrayal, Dead at 77
From ACM Opinion

John Walker, the Navy Spy Who Defined Crypto-Betrayal, Dead at 77

This week, the man responsible for what is probably the biggest cryptographic failure in military history died—just a few months before he was due to be released...

Singularity or Transhumanism: What Word Should We ­se to Discuss the Future?
From ACM Opinion

Singularity or Transhumanism: What Word Should We ­se to Discuss the Future?

Singularity. Posthuman. Techno-Optimism, Cyborgism. Humanity+. Immortalist. Machine intelligence. Biohacker. Robotopia. Life extension. Transhumanism.

The History Inside ­S
From ACM Opinion

The History Inside ­S

Every day our DNA breaks a little. Special enzymes keep our genome intact while we're alive, but after death, once the oxygen runs out, there is no more repair.

Why Big Data Has Some Big Problems When It Comes to Public Policy
From ACM Opinion

Why Big Data Has Some Big Problems When It Comes to Public Policy

For all the talk about using big data and data science to solve the world’s problems—and even all the talk about big data as one of the world’s problems—it seems...

In Praise of Efficient Price Gouging
From ACM Opinion

In Praise of Efficient Price Gouging

In the four years since the car service Uber launched, it has been beset by criticism from myriad groups, including city officials annoyed by its sometimes cavalier...

Roots of a High-Tech Revolution
From ACM Careers

Roots of a High-Tech Revolution

Chuck Hull, 75, is co-founder and chief technology officer of 3D Systems. He is the inventor of the 3-D printer, which recently celebrated its 31st anniversary.

A ­nified Theory
From ACM Opinion

A ­nified Theory

For the last half-century we've had a popular notion that our intellectual culture is sundered in two—the literary and the scientific.

How to Save the Net: Keep It Open
From ACM Opinion

How to Save the Net: Keep It Open

For all of its history, the Internet has enjoyed the fruits of an openness principle: the idea that anyone can reach any site online and that information and data...

Tor Project's Struggle to Keep the Dark Net in the Shadows
From ACM Opinion

Tor Project's Struggle to Keep the Dark Net in the Shadows

The BBC has interviewed Andrew Lewman, executive director of the Tor Project.

Anatomy of an Air Strike: Three Intelligence Streams Working in Concert
From ACM Opinion

Anatomy of an Air Strike: Three Intelligence Streams Working in Concert

In a fast-moving war with an elusive foe like the Islamic State militants, information is as important as guns, jet fighters and bombs.

Police Cameras Can Shed Light, but Raise Privacy Concerns
From ACM Opinion

Police Cameras Can Shed Light, but Raise Privacy Concerns

Michael Brown, the unarmed teenager who was shot during an encounter with police in Ferguson, Mo., on Aug. 9, was recorded by a convenience store surveillance camera...

Cryptography Expert Says, 'pgp Encryption Is Fundamentally Broken, Time For Pgp to Die'
From ACM Opinion

Cryptography Expert Says, 'pgp Encryption Is Fundamentally Broken, Time For Pgp to Die'

A Senior cryptography expert has claimed multiple issues with PGP email encryption—an open source end-to-end encryption to secure email.

The Engineer of the Original Apple Mouse Talks About His Remarkable Career
From ACM Opinion

The Engineer of the Original Apple Mouse Talks About His Remarkable Career

Jim Yurchenco was responsible for squeezing the guts inside the impossibly slim Palm V.

Former Nsa Deputy Director John C. Inglis
From ACM Opinion

Former Nsa Deputy Director John C. Inglis

More than a year after ex-National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden began leaking details of the agency's electronic surveillance programs, questions remain...

Beyond Classic Brain Illustrations That Make ­S Drool
From ACM Opinion

Beyond Classic Brain Illustrations That Make ­S Drool

I threw down a bit of a challenge last month at the Association of Medical Illustrators Conference in Minnesota.

Okcupid's Co-Founder on Experiments, Data Science and the Myth of the 'unicorn'
From ACM Opinion

Okcupid's Co-Founder on Experiments, Data Science and the Myth of the 'unicorn'

Christian Rudder, co-founder and president of the IAC/InterActiveCorp.'s OkCupid, caused a stir recently when he responded to Facebook's news feed controversy with...

What It's Like to Fly Passenger Planes from the Ground
From ACM Opinion

What It's Like to Fly Passenger Planes from the Ground

Bob Fraser explains what it feels like to pilot a Jetstream airliner containing passengers on 800-kilometre trips from his desk at BAE Systems in Warton, U.K.
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