Communications of the ACM
The blog archive provides access to past blog postings from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
September 2009
From Schneier on Security
Schneier on "The Future of the Security Industry"
Here's a video of a talk I gave at an OWASP meeting in August.
From Computational Complexity
The Mystique of the Open Problem
The story goes that Andrew Wiles dreamt of proving Fermat's last theorem when he was a kid. No surprise since all of us math-loving kids dreamed of solving this famous problem. We certainly talked about it much longer than the…
From Schneier on Security
Refuse to be Terrorized
Me from 2006.
From The Eponymous Pickle
Procter Value Strategy Working
P&G says that its value strategy is working and sales will recover this fall.
From The Eponymous Pickle
SAP and Retail Simulation
In a further indication of SAP's deeper interest in predictive analytics in retail, they have said they plan to acquire SAF (Simulation, Analysis and Forecasting AG), a company that ' ... specializes in the development of ordering…
From Schneier on Security
Eighth Anniversary of 9/11
On September 30, 2001, I published a special issue of Crypto-Gram discussing the terrorist attacks. I wrote about the novelty of the attacks, airplane security, diagnosing intelligence failures, the potential of regulating cryptography…
From Putting People First
The currency revolution
The Wall Street Journal looks at the rise of alternative currencies: “The weak dollar. A Federal Reserve constantly being second-guessed. It
From The Eponymous Pickle
The Smart Data Collective
Newly discovered: The Smart Data Collective: The data-driven enterprise community. A syndication of bloggers talking about the use of data and its profitable leverage in the enterprise. Good set of topics to follow.
From Computer Science Teachers Association
Using GameMaker to Spark an Interest in CS
In my work with middle school students, I feel that it is my responsibility to expose my students to as many topics as possible. It is my hope that by exposing them to a variety of topics, these students will find some that interest…
From U.S. Public Policy Committee of the ACM
ACM Washington Update, Vol. 13.7 (September 9, 2009), 2009)
CONTENTS
[1] Newsletter Highlights [2] ACM Urges That Education Funding Include Computer Science [3] USACM Comments on Government Web Tracking Policies [4] USACM Reacts to Representative Holt's Electronic Voting Legislation …From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Internet Stats
Google has launched an Internet stats center. Nice idea, have always looked for this kinds of resource for talks and background. Categorized and search able in useful ways. It is factoid oriented, includes a source attribution…
From The Noisy Channel
The Ethics of Blogging
From Schneier on Security
File Deletion
File deletion is all about control. This used to not be an issue. Your data was on your computer, and you decided when and how to delete a file. You could use the delete function if you didn't care about whether the file could…
From My Biased Coin
The Endowment
From BLOG@CACM
Frequent Releases Change Software Engineering
If you started deploying software much more frequently, how would it change your software development?
From Putting People First
What
Frank Spillers, a usability consultant, looks at the hot topic of Augmented Reality from a user experience point of view, shows some examples, and highlights the drawbacks and benefits. Read full story
From Putting People First
Understanding what drives profits for agents
In emerging markets, agents are the customer-facing element for mobile banking providers, “who rely on them to open accounts, do customer care, and (crucially) stock adequate amounts of cash and e-float to enable clients to deposit…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Is the Brain Shaping the Internet's Future?
Intriguing interview in Blogoscoped. On the thought interface, long imagined and implemented in still limited ways. The implications it might have for linking brain and net. Book on order. This again looks like the computational…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Google Solar Power
Was unaware of this, but Google is looking via investment to develop mirrors for more economical solar power. Statistics are interesting, but pessimistic. Recall reading in rags like Mechanics Illustrated in the 70s about how…
From Computer Science Teachers Association
New Podcast on Building a CS Program in Middle School
For the past year or so I've been visiting with interesting computer science educators and professionals in order to bring to you cool classroom strategies and interesting CS topics to ponder. The CSTA Snipits podcasts:
http…From The Eponymous Pickle
Sweetener Market
One of my of little side ventures. The growing of the sweetener Stevia. I grew my first crop this year. Article about its market potential.
From Schneier on Security
Demonstration of a Liquid Explosive
The BBC has a video demonstration of a 16-ounce bottle of liquid blowing a hole in the side of a plane.
I know no more details other than what's in the video.
From Return 42;
Randomized Shellsort
Not too long ago, I wrote a little bit about the randomized Quicksort algorithm. Right in time for the 50th anniversary of Donald Shell's Shellsort algorithm, Michael T. Goodrich from the University of California, Irvine uploaded…
From CERIAS Blog
ReAssure 1.20 Release
A new version of the ReAssure testbed software, 1.20, is now available on the project web site. This version features a rewritten reservation manager that is multi-threaded, object-oriented, better commented, tested with PyLint…
From The Eponymous Pickle
Business Blogging Blunders
Paul Gillin has posted several items on business blogging blunders. Here is the first, with links to the others. An exemplary read for anyone starting an external business blog to promote their services and interests.
From The Noisy Channel
CIKM 2009 Accepted Papers
From The Eponymous Pickle
Flu Patients Blogging and Reporting
A good overview of infodemiology, or using information on the Internet to report and track disease outbreaks. Blogs are good, but faster and simpler social networks may make this even easier to do. Also mentioned, Google's Flu…
From Schneier on Security
NSA Intercepts Used to Convict Liquid Bombers
Three of the UK liquid bombers were convicted Monday. NSA-intercepted e-mail was introduced as evidence in the trial:
The e-mails, several of which have been reprinted by the BBC and other publications, contained coded messages…From BLOG@CACM
CS Faculty Cause Inequality
A series of recent articles suggests that higher education in the United States is actually causing inequality, and that CS faculty play a role in that.
From My Biased Coin
Research Labs "vs." Academia
Muthu points to a blog entry (by Danah Boyd of Microsoft Research) on research labs vs. academia. It's a good read -- especially for graduate students thinking about career paths. It got me thinking about the topic as well.I…