Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
The Frightening Things You Hear at a Black Hat Conference
Here is a look at some of the highlights and scarier happenings taking place at the annual Black Hat hacker conference in Las Vegas last week.
From ACM Opinion
The Public Is Left in the Dark When Courts Allow Electronic Surveillance
A big part of Magistrate Judge Stephen W. Smith's job in Federal District Court in Houston is to consider law enforcement requests for cellphone and email records...
From ACM Opinion
So, Who Really Did Invent the Internet?
Gordon Crovitz of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page reopens the ancient debate over who invented the Internet with a column Monday calling out the notion...
From ACM Opinion
The End of Privacy?
Cellphones, email, and online social networking have come to rule daily life, but Congress has done nothing to update federal privacy laws to better protect digital...
From ACM Opinion
A Weapon We Can't Control
The decision by the United States and Israel to develop and then deploy the Stuxnet computer worm against an Iranian nuclear facility late in George W. Bush's presidency...
From ACM Opinion
Free Speech For Computers?
Do machines speak? If so, do they have a constitutional right to free speech?
From ACM Opinion
Drones, Computer Viruses, and Blowback
Another day, another senior al-Qaeda leader killed by a drone strike. (I can't be the first to point out that being al-Qaeda's No. 2 is like being the drummer for...
From ACM Opinion
Why Attack When We Can't Defend?
In December 2010, after we had reverse engineered the Stuxnet virus, I argued that the attackers must have known they would open Pandora's box. Others suggested...
From ACM Opinion
Facebook's Brilliant Disaster
So I guess you've heard about the recent initial public offering that didn't turn out the way it was supposed to. The company's Wall Street advisers misjudged the...
From ACM Opinion
Following the Breadcrumbs on the Data-Sharing Trail
Would you like to donate to the Obama campaign? Sign up for a college course? Or maybe subscribe to Architectural Digest?
From ACM Opinion
God and Man in Tennessee
Earlier this month state senators in Tennessee approved an update to our sex-education law that would ban teachers from discussing hand-holding, which it categorizes...
From ACM Opinion
Don't Be Evil, but Don't Miss the Train
Back in 2004, as Google prepared to go public, Larry Page and Sergey Brin celebrated the maxim that was supposed to define their company: "Don’t be evil."
From ACM Opinion
From the Birthplace of Big Brother
The George W. Bush team must be consumed with envy. Britain's government is preparing sweeping new legislation that would let the country's domestic intelligence...
From ACM Opinion
How China Steals Our Secrets
For the last two months, senior government officials and private-sector experts have paraded before Congress and described in alarming terms a silent threat: cyberattacks...
From ACM Opinion
Tv Makers Ignore Apps at Their Own Peril
Every night, I get home from work, drop onto the couch and sit there surfing the Web or watching videos on my 3 1/2-inch iPhone screen. My big-screen HDTV sits...
From ACM Opinion
A High-Tech War on Leaks
Back in 2006, before the Obama administration made leak prosecutions routine, a panel of three federal appeals court judges in New York struggled to decide whether...
From ACM Opinion
Are Supercomputers Worth Their Super Price Tags?
"Why do we have to aim for the world's No. 1 — what's wrong with being the world's No. 2?" That short question about Japan's vaunted K supercomputer program has...
From ACM Opinion
Facebook Is Using You
Last week, Facebook filed documents with the government that will allow it to sell shares of stock to the public. It is estimated to be worth at least $75 billion...
From ACM Opinion