Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
December 2023
From Schneier on Security
Police Get Medical Records without a Warrant
More unconstrained surveillance:
Lawmakers noted the pharmacies’ policies for releasing medical records in a letter dated Tuesday to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra. The letter—signed…From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
How Much Hardware Knowledge do CS Students Need
Back to the basics! Get students close to the hardware! Really? Just how much hardware knowledge do students need today? This post was prompted by a post getting some attention in Facebook this weekend. The Decline of Hardware…
From Computational Complexity
Archimedes, Pi, and Pickelball
I typed
3,1,4,1,5,9
into OEIS and, as expected, I found that these are the first few digits of \(\pi\). See here.
I then read on the page:
\(\pi\) is sometimes refereed to a Archimedes constant, because the Greek mathematician…From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)
CS4FN Advent 2023 – Day 17: pocket-switching networked reindeer
Gosh, Christmas is just around the corner! It’s Day 17 of the CS4FN Christmas Computing Advent Calendar and we’ve posted a blog post every day since 1 December, and you can catch up with all of those posts at the end of thisContinue…
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)
CS4FN Advent 2023 – Day 16: candy cane or walking aid: designing for everyone, human computer interaction
Welcome to Day 16 of the CS4FN Christmas Computing Advent Calendar in which we’re posting a blog post every day in December until (and including) Christmas Day. A little later than planned (sorry!) because we’ve been screening…
From Gödel's Lost Letter and P=NP
Numbers Too Big for Our Universe
Starting from games and models that look like child’s play Ben Brubaker is a staff writer covering computer science for Quanta. He previously covered physics as a freelance journalist, and his writing has also appeared in Scientific…
From Putting People First
What does it mean to trust a technology?
Trust depends on perceptions of whether sociotechnical systems are seen as beneficial and well-governed as well as whether they work as their designers expect.
From Schneier on Security
Friday Squid Blogging: Underwater Sculptures Use Squid Ink for Coloring
The Molinière Underwater Sculpture Park has pieces that are colored in part with squid ink.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.
Read my blog posting…From insideHPC
At SC23: Achronix Talks Turnkey FPGA Solutions for Generative AI
We caught up with Achronix at SC23, the FPGA company that touts its turnkey solutions for generative AI workloads – automatic speech recognition in particular. Achronix Director of Product Marketing Ron Renwick walked us through…
From ACM-W supporting, celebrating and advocating for Women in Computing
ACM-W Chair Review of 2023
It is great to look back on the year to see just how far we have come. This year, new people joined our groups, working groups, and standing committees. The ACM-W has worked to put structures around their work to enable ease…
From ACM-W supporting, celebrating and advocating for Women in Computing
Quantum Computing: Potential, Practicality and Perils
The latest episode of Celebrating Technology Leaders focused on Quantum Computing, a relatively new yet fascinating career track. Our panelists How did our panelists end up in Quantum Computing? Mariia Mykhailova, Principal…
From Schneier on Security
A Robot the Size of the World
In 2016, I wrote about an Internet that affected the world in a direct, physical manner. It was connected to your smartphone. It had sensors like cameras and thermostats. It had actuators: Drones, autonomous cars. And it had …
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)
CS4FN Advent 2023 – Day 15: a candle: optical fibre, optical illusions
After yesterday’s tinsel image inspiring a cable / broadband speeds themed post, today’s CS4FN Christmas Computing Advent Calendar picture of a candle has of course put me in mind of optical fibre, then that eminded me of optical…
From Schneier on Security
Surveillance Cameras Disguised as Clothes Hooks
This seems like a bad idea. And there are ongoing lawsuits against Amazon for selling them.
From insideHPC
Intel Announces AI-Oriented 5th Gen Xeon, Gives Gaudi3 GPU Accelerator Sneak Peak
Gearing up for what it intends to be a multi-horse race in the exploding AI chip sector, Intel today announced a next-generation Xeon enterprise and data center CPU built with AI inferencing in mind, along with mobile processors…
From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)
CS4FN Advent 2023 – Day 14: Why is your internet so slow + a festive kriss-kross puzzle
Today’s CS4FN Christmas Computing Advent Calendar is showing a picture of shiny tinsel, which reminds me a bit of computer cables. At least, enough to theme this post around broadband speeds
From insideHPC
How HPC Centers Can Start the Move to Quantum Now
By Mark Mattingley-Scott, Quantum Brilliance -- To get started, it's best HPC center and their customers to go with a small and incremental quantum strategy. A solution that can provide a running start and simplicity for scaling…
From Geeking with Greg
Extended book excerpt: Computational propaganda
(This is a long excerpt about manipulation of algorithms by adversaries from my book, "Algorithms and Misinformation: Why Wisdom of the Crowds Failed the Internet and How to Fix It")
Inauthentic activity is designed to manipulate…
From Computational Complexity
Respect
I've generally avoided talking about all the events at college campuses in the last few months that came to a head at the congressional hearings last week that led to the resignation of Penn's president Liz Magill. It's not that…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
CCC and CRA-I Respond to NIH RFI on Developing Consent Language for Research Using Digital Health Technologies
Yesterday, CCC, in collaboration with CRA-Industry (CRA-I), responded to a Request for Information released by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Developing Consent Language for Research Using Digital Health Technologies…
From Computer Science Teacher - Thoughts and Information From Alfred Thompson
Looking Forward to Computer Science Education in 2024
“Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future!” --Niels Bohr
My track record at looking forward in CS education is a mixed bag. I kept expecting a big jump in internet of things courses and those never developed…From Schneier on Security
Surveillance by the US Postal Service
This is not about mass surveillance of mail, this is about sorts of targeted surveillance the US Postal Inspection Service uses to catch mail thieves:
To track down an alleged mail thief, a US postal inspector used license plate…From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)
CS4FN Advent 2023 – Day 13: woolly hat: warming versus cooling
Welcome to Day 3 of the CS4FN Christmas Computing Advent Calendar. The picture on the ‘box’ was a woolly bobble / pom-pom hat, so let’s see if we can find something computer-ish that might vaguely relate to that in a fairly tenuous…
From Daniel Lemire's Blog
Measuring the size of the cache line empirically
Our computers do not read or write memory in units of bits or even bytes. Rather memory is accessed in small blocks of memory called “cache line”. For a given system, the cache line size is usually fixed and small (e.g., 16Continue…
From insideHPC
Terra Quantum Launches TQ42 Quantum-as-a-Service Platform
St. Gallen, Switzerland – December 12, 2023 – Quantum softare company Terra Quantum today launched TQ42, a quantum software-as-a-service platform designed to make quantum solutions easily accessible to enterprises. TQ42 delivers…
From Schneier on Security
New Windows/Linux Firmware Attack
Interesting attack based on malicious pre-OS logo images:
LogoFAIL is a constellation of two dozen newly discovered vulnerabilities that have lurked for years, if not decades, in Unified Extensible Firmware Interfaces responsible…From CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun)
CS4FN Advent 2023 – Day 12: Computer Memory – Molecules and Memristors
Computer memory molecular style, memristors, maths puzzle answer and a “20 questions” activity Remember remember the 24th of December – as that’s the day to hang out your Christmas stocking! We’re halfway through our CS4FN Christmas…
From insideHPC
IBM, Micron, Others Partner with NY State in $10B Project for Sub-2nm Chip Fab
New York state has announced a partnership with IBM, Micron, and other industry players to invest $10 billion into expanding the Albany NanoTech Complex with a new High NA EUV Center that will drive what the organizations said…
From insideHPC
Ayar Labs Names Mark Wade CEO
SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Dec. 11, 2023 – Silicon photonics company Ayar Labs today announced the appointment of co-founder and CTO Mark Wade (pictured here) to serve as its new CEO. Wade succeeds Charles Wuischpard, who will continue…
From The Computing Community Consortium Blog
CCC Accepting Visioning Proposals from the Community
The mission of Computing Research Association’s (CRA) Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is to enable the pursuit of innovative, high-impact research that aligns with pressing national and global challenges. The CCC welcomes…