acm-header
Sign In

Communications of the ACM

News


bg-corner

An edited collection of advanced computing news from Communications of the ACM, ACM TechNews, other ACM resources, and news sites around the Web.


Your Phone Is Blabbing Your Location to Anyone Who Will Listen
From ACM News

Your Phone Is Blabbing Your Location to Anyone Who Will Listen

Everywhere you go, your phone is sending out signals that can be assembled to form a picture of your movements.

Hack Attacks, Explained
From ACM TechNews

Hack Attacks, Explained

Harvard University professor Jonathan L. Zittrain says recent cyberattacks on media outlets offer lessons on how institutions can guard against future incidents...

Drug Agents ­se Vast Phone Trove, Eclipsing N.s.a.'s
From ACM News

Drug Agents ­se Vast Phone Trove, Eclipsing N.s.a.'s

For at least six years, law enforcement officials working on a counternarcotics program have had routine access, using subpoenas, to an enormous AT&T database that...

How 'cell Tower Dumps' Caught the High Country Bandit—and Why It Matters
From ACM News

How 'cell Tower Dumps' Caught the High Country Bandit—and Why It Matters

On February 18, 2010, the FBI field office in Denver issued a "wanted" notice for two men known as "the High Country Bandits"—a rather grandiose name for a pair...

Vending Machines Get Smart to Accommodate the Cashless
From ACM Careers

Vending Machines Get Smart to Accommodate the Cashless

More than 40 percent of U.S. adults say they can go a week without paying for something with cash, according to a survey conducted by Rasmussen Reports last year...

Inside the Response to the New York Times Attack
From ACM News

Inside the Response to the New York Times Attack

Late Tuesday morning, one of the engineers in CloudFlare's San Francisco office saw a message on Twitter saying that the New York Times Web site was down. Minutes...

The Proof in the Quantum Pudding
From ACM News

The Proof in the Quantum Pudding

In early May, news reports gushed that a quantum computation device had for the first time outperformed classical computers, solving certain problems thousands...

'zero Knowledge' May Answer Computer Security Question
From ACM TechNews

'zero Knowledge' May Answer Computer Security Question

A new protocol for the creation of a "zero-knowledge proof" involves answering questions that depend on having a secret bit of knowledge. 

How Syrian Hackers Found the New York Times's Australian Weak Spot
From ACM News

How Syrian Hackers Found the New York Times's Australian Weak Spot

A hacking attack launched by the Syrian Electronic Army may have targeted the New York Timesand other U.S. media companies, but the weak link was Melbourne IT (...

Here's How One Hacker Is Waging War on the Syrian Government
From ACM Careers

Here's How One Hacker Is Waging War on the Syrian Government

As President Obama weighed U.S. air strikes in Syria this week, a lone American hacker was waging his own attack on the Syrian government.

How Scholars Hack the World of Academic Publishing Now
From ACM News

How Scholars Hack the World of Academic Publishing Now

If you want to understand the modern academy, it wouldn't hurt to start at "impact factor."

The New York Times Web Site Was Taken Down By Dns Hijacking. Here's What That Means.
From ACM News

The New York Times Web Site Was Taken Down By Dns Hijacking. Here's What That Means.

Just weeks after The Washington Post had our own run-in with the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), the New York Times is down, and the SEA is claiming responsibility...

Hacked Feature Phone Can Block Other People's Calls
From ACM TechNews

Hacked Feature Phone Can Block Other People's Calls

A few changes to a standard phone can block calls and text messages intended for nearby users of the same GSM cellular network.

How Surveillance Changes Behavior: A Restaurant Workers Case Study
From ACM News

How Surveillance Changes Behavior: A Restaurant Workers Case Study

Surveillance is certainly much in the news lately. Most notably, of course, there is the continuing outcry over the National Security Agency’s call-tracking program...

How a Look at Your Gmail Reveals the Power of Metadata
From ACM News

How a Look at Your Gmail Reveals the Power of Metadata

Sometimes you have to give up a little privacy in order to find out how much—or how little—privacy you really have.

NIST Study Advances Use of Iris Images as a Long-Term Form of Identification
From ACM TechNews

NIST Study Advances Use of Iris Images as a Long-Term Form of Identification

Biometric researchers studying iris stability have determined that no consistent change occurs in the distinguishing texture of irises for at least a decade. 

New Technology Protects Against Password Theft and Phishing Attacks
From ACM TechNews

New Technology Protects Against Password Theft and Phishing Attacks

Scientists say they can protect Internet users from phishing attacks with a new system called Uni-IDM. 

How Snowden Did It
From ACM News

How Snowden Did It

When Edward Snowden stole the crown jewels of the National Security Agency, he didn't need to use any sophisticated devices or software or go around any computer...

The Pentagon as Silicon Valley's Incubator
From ACM News

The Pentagon as Silicon Valley's Incubator

In the ranks of technology incubator programs, there is AngelPad here in San Francisco and Y Combinator about 40 miles south in Mountain View. And then there is...

In Markets' Tuned-­p Machinery, Stubborn Ghosts Remain
From ACM News

In Markets' Tuned-­p Machinery, Stubborn Ghosts Remain

A generation ago, when the stock market crashed on Oct. 19, 1987, the Nasdaq stock market appeared to have done much better than the New York Stock Exchange.
Sign In for Full Access
» Forgot Password? » Create an ACM Web Account