Over the last few articles, we've discussed whether software engineers have ethical responsibilities over the code that they write. We've talked about how badly written code can lead to harm, how failures — even lethal ones — don't necessarily lead us to write better software. Let's say, for the moment,...

After my last article, I had a lot of interesting conversations with different people on whether software development is a form of engineering, as well fascinating conversations on ethics in general. Not long after my last post, in fact, The Atlantic did an interesting piece covering some of the same...

There is an apocryphal tale I've heard many times about how, in Ancient Rome (or, in some tellings, Greece), the engineers responsible for the construction of an arch were required to stand underneath it as the final wooden supports were taken out. In some version of the story, not only...

Let me say this right off of the bat: I'm not weighing in on the business model or the controversies of MEGA when I say that its model is genius. What I am specifically talking about is only its security model. MEGA uses an often misunderstood scheme of encryption as...

When we left off last article, we examined the two most common security models used today and found them both lacking. But fear not, brave readers - there are yet more key distribution solutions out there. Surely one of them isn't total shit! TOFU, or "eh, it's probably alright" There...