What Happened on February 19th

This research proposal was presented to a meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Teddington, England, and approved at a second meeting held a month later.

Turing based this research on von Neumann’s "First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC." He had studied it in summer 1945 when he was recruited by J.R. Womersley to join the staff of the NPL.

The first warrant is issued to search a computer storage device. Although the requirements for obtaining such a warrant were similar to those for searching a home, they ushered in a new era that would lead to increasingly sophisticated methods of encryption to hide computer files from law enforcement agents.