Communications of the ACM
The opinion archive provides access to past opinion stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
November 2013
From ACM Opinion
Can You Hack It?
Wherever you're sitting right now, take a moment to note the connected devices around you.
From ACM Opinion
Answers to All the Tech Questions Your Family Will Ask You This Holiday
Maybe it's your mom and/or dad. Maybe it's a sibling or a grandparent. Or maybe it's just that one friend who still uses a Motorola Razr from the early 2000s.
From ACM Opinion
My Quantum Algorithm Won't Break the Internet… Yet
Internet security relies on the fact that our computers can't break its cryptosystems. But the quantum algorithm you devised has the potential to do just that.
From ACM Opinion
Software Is Reorganizing the World
For the first time in memory, adults in the United States under age forty are now expected to be poorer than their parents.
From ACM Opinion
Charlie Rose Talks to Nathan Myhrvold
You worked for years at Microsoft, where things now look uncertain.
From ACM Opinion
Three Questions For Computing Pioneer Carver Mead
Computer scientist Carver Mead gave Moore's Law its name in around 1970 and played a crucial role in making sure it's held true in the decades since.
From ACM TechNews
Sc13 Talk Pushes Hpc in New Educational Directions
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign National Center for Supercomputing Application director Thom Dunning discusses the potential for using computational simulation to transform scientific and engineering education.
From ACM Opinion
Wikimedia Foundation Sends Cease and Desist Letter to Wikipr
On October 21, the Wikimedia Foundation issued a statement from Sue Gardner, our executive director, condemning the black hat practice of paid advocacy editing and sockpuppeting on Wikipedia.
From ACM Opinion
Why Companies Desperately Need to Make Wearables Cool
Both consumer electronics and apparel are notoriously difficult businesses competing in mature industries. Wearable technology—everything from activity trackers like Fitbits and Misfits to watches like the Pebble to jewelry…
From ACM Opinion
A Neuroscientist's Radical Theory of How Networks Become Conscious
It's a question that’s perplexed philosophers for centuries and scientists for decades: Where does consciousness come from?
From ACM Opinion
Why Google's Fair Use Victory In Google Books Suit Is A Big Deal—And Why It Isn't
Federal judge Denny Chin rejected a copyright challenge Google’s practices of scanning books into digital format and presenting snippets of those scans in search results because the practices qualify as fair use.
From ACM Opinion
Will Ibm's Watson sher in a New Era of Cognitive Computing?
Computers as we know them have are close to reaching an inflection point—the next generation is in sight but not quite within our grasp.
From ACM Opinion
Blinded By the Light
The probe sails through space, traveling the distance of the LA-to-Chicago red-eye in a minute.
From ACM Opinion
Our Government Has Weaponized the Internet. Here's How They Did It
The internet backbone—the infrastructure of networks upon which internet traffic travels—went from being a passive infrastructure for communication to an active weapon for attacks.
From ACM Opinion
Drm in Cars Will Drive Consumers Crazy
Forget extra cupholders or power windows: the new Renault Zoe comes with a "feature" that absolutely nobody wants.
From ACM News
The Daunting Challenge of Secure Email
When users of Lavabit, an encrypted e-mail service, logged on to the site this past August, they found a bewildering letter on the site's main page.
From ACM Opinion
The Head of Google X Thinks We're All Too Risk-Averse
Google X is responsible for some of Google's most literally fantastic projects: Google Glass, self-driving cars, gigantic inflatable balloons that beam Internet down to the disconnected.
From ACM Opinion
A Stronger 'online Eraser' Law Would Be a Mistake
Excited teenagers—in other words normal teenagers—have never been famous for consistently wise decisions, nor should they be.
From ACM Opinion
Mayor Ed Lee: 'tech Workers Are Not Robots'
Q: There's a concern that, because of all the in-house perks, tech companies don't help local economies that much.
A: I feel the opposite. We have done two studies, and both verify every tech job that is created in San Francisco…From ACM Opinion
Should Tech Designers Go With Their Guts—or the Data?
For many tech companies, design is no longer subjective.
From ACM Opinion
Nest's Tony Fadell on Smart Objects, and the Singularity of Innovation
Tony Fadell is the founder and chief executive of Nest, a company that is trying to bring a high-end technology experience to some of the most prosaic areas of the home.
From ACM Opinion
The False Promise of Classroom Technology
The cover story of Life magazine on Oct. 16 was "U.S. Schools: They Face a Crisis."
From ACM Opinion
What's the Nsa Going to Do With Your Data?
We are all Angela Merkel.
From ACM Opinion
No, Bitcoin Isn't Broken
"Bitcoin Is Broken," proclaimed Ittay Eyal and Emin Gun Sirer, two Cornell computer scientists.
From ACM Opinion
Bitcoin Is Broken
And not just superficially so, but fundamentally, at the core protocol level.
From ACM Opinion
Markus 'notch' Persson: The Mind Behind Minecraft
Markus Persson, known also by the online handle "Notch," is an indie game success story like no other.
From ACM Opinion
Is Google Autocomplete Evil?
"Women shouldn't have rights." "Women shouldn't vote." "Women shouldn't work."
From ACM Opinion
Report on Government Information Requests
We believe that our customers have a right to understand how their personal information is handled, and we consider it our responsibility to provide them with the best privacy protections available.
From ACM Opinion
Here's What the Morris Worm Prosecutor Thinks About Aaron Swartz
It was 25 years ago Tuesday that The New York Times first named 23-year-old Cornell graduate student Robert Morris as the culprit behind what became known as the Morris Worm, the Internet's first major malware outbreak.
From ACM Opinion
Tim Berners-Lee: Encryption Cracking By Spy Agencies 'appalling and Foolish'
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the computer scientist who created the World Wide Web, has called for a "full and frank public debate" over Internet surveillance by the National Security Agency and its British counterpart, GCHQ, warning…