Communications of the ACM
The opinion archive provides access to past opinion stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
August 2010
From ACM Opinion
Is Wikileaks Too Full of Itself?
Have the activists behind WikiLeaks—and in particular the Web site's founder, Julian Assange—become intoxicated by their own myth? Two recent events involving the now internationally watched Assange and the Web site seem to…
From ACM Opinion
Why Isn't There A Better Way to Text While Driving?
It's deadly. It's irresponsible. And we've all done it. Before you commute home think about this: Why isn't there a better solution to texting while driving.
From ACM Opinion
The Government Can se Gps to Track Your Moves
Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn't violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not…
From ACM Opinion
Grim Numbers Point to the End of the Venture Capital Era
Silicon Valley has passed an important milestone that may mark the end of one era and the beginning of another.
From ACM Opinion
Defending a New Domain: The Pentagon
Right now, more than 100 foreign intelligence organizations are trying to hack into the digital networks that undergird U.S. military operations. The Pentagon recognizes the catastrophic threat posed by cyberwarfare, and is…
From ACM Opinion
The Future Cloud Should Fend For Itself
It is fascinating the ways in which the world of computing can be made easier, thus creating opportunity for new complexities—usually in the form of new computing technologies. It's happened with programming languages, software…
From ACM Opinion
Why Intel Bought Mcafee
There's been quite a bit of head-scratching over Intel's decision to purchase McAfee, but, despite all the breathless talk about mobile security and ARM and virus-fighting processors, the chipmaker's motivations for the purchase…
From ACM TechNews
Dennis Shasha: Nature Can Improve Our Computers
New York University computer science professor Dennis Shasha thinks the future of computing lies in a synthesis with nature. He believes the next big leap in computing will be machines that are programmed to behave in evolutionary…
From ACM Opinion
Facebook Knows Where You Are
The social network's new Places feature will make it more difficult to lie to your friends.
From ACM Opinion
Beloit College Mindset List For the Class of 2014
Born when Ross Perot was warning about a giant sucking sound and Bill Clinton was apologizing for pain in his marriage, members of this fall’s entering college class of 2014 have emerged as a post-email generation for whom…
From ACM Opinion
Location Services Show the Way to the Next Great Internet Bubble
When Silicon Valley misses the mark on a new technology, the problem usually is an issue of timing. It's not what is going to happen, but when it will happen that usually trips up the valley.
From ACM Opinion
Data Mining Is Shaping Our World. Are We Ready For It?
Each day we exchange a mess of content through Facebook, Twitter, blogs, discussion boards and other online forums. How are companies and other organizations using that data? Rohini Srihari answers questions about data mining…
From ACM Opinion
Will Someone Leak the Leaker's Secrets?
Who has the right to decide what information should be kept secret? That's the vexatious question raised by WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange, who masterminded the publication of 75,000 classified military documents…
From ACM Opinion
A Review of Verizon and Google's Net Neutrality Proposal
Efforts to protect net neutrality that involve government regulation have always faced one fundamental obstacle: the substantial danger that the regulators will cause more harm than good for the Internet.
From ACM Opinion
Qualifications Needed to Be Hp's Next Ceo
The world's largest technology company by revenue and the outfit that birthed Silicon Valley has very suddenly and unexpectedly put out a figurative "help wanted" sign.
From ACM Opinion
The First Church of Robotics
This constant stream of stories about artificial intelligence suggests that machines are becoming smart and autonomous, a new form of life, and that we should think of them as fellow creatures instead of as tools. But such…
From ACM Opinion
Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty, With Real Dangers
In a 1963 Supreme Court opinion, Chief Justice Earl Warren observed that "the fantastic advances in the field of electronic communication constitute a great danger to the privacy of the individual." The advances have only…
From ACM Opinion
Evil?
The alleged Google-Verizon deal that's endangering net neutrality.
From ACM Opinion
Technology Lessons from the Wikileaks Saga
There's already debate about whether Wikileaks's release of 92,000 classified documents on the war in Afghanistan was more of a milestone in the annals of national security and the press than the 1971 leak of the Pentagon…
From ACM Opinion
Charging the Wikileaks Leaker with Treason Would Be Absurd
Should Pvt. Bradley Manning, the Army intelligence analyst charged with leaking troves of classified documents to WikiLeaks, be tried for treason? And what about Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks: Should he be locked…
From ACM Opinion
The Itch of Curiosity
Curiosity is one of those personality traits that gets short scientific shrift. It strikes me as a really important mental habit—how many successful people are utterly incurious?—but it’s also extremely imprecise. What does…
From ACM Opinion
I Tweet, Therefore I Am
On a recent lazy Saturday morning, my daughter and I lolled on a blanket in our front yard, snacking on apricots, listening to a download of E. B. White reading "The Trumpet of the Swan." Her legs sprawled across mine; the…
From Communications of the ACM
Remembrances of Things Pest
Recalling malware milestones.
From Communications of the ACM
Has China Caught Up in IT?
An assessment of the relative achievements in IT infrastructure, firms, and innovation in China.
From Communications of the ACM
Presenting Your Project
The what, the how, and the why of giving an effective presentation.
From Communications of the ACM
Rights For Autonomous Artificial Agents?
The growing role of artificial agents necessitates modifying legal frameworks to better address human interests.
From Communications of the ACM
An Interview With Edsger W. Dijkstra
The computer science luminary, in one of his last interviews before his death in 2002, reflects on a programmer's life.
From Communications of the ACM
Is the Internet a Maturing Market?
Two concerns dominate the current debates over U.S. Internet policy: the relatively low level of U.S. broadband adoption; and the debate over network neutrality. Interestingly…
From Communications of the ACM
Preparing Computer Science Students For the Robotics Revolution
Robotics will inspire dramatic changes in the CS curriculum.