Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
I, Glasshole: My Year With Google Glass
An anecdote: I wanted to wear Google Glass during the birth of our second child.
From ACM Opinion
Why We Can't Let American Tech Take Over the World
Whenever an app, a website, or a physical product like a gaming console is exported, it ships with a side of cultural influence.
From ACM Opinion
Falling in Love with AI Virtual Assistants: A Creepy Love Affair Nearer Than You Think
"I've never loved anyone the way I've loved you," swoons Joaquin Phoenix, in the movie Her.
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
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
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...
From ACM Opinion
How Steve Jobs Made the Ipad Succeed When All Other Tablets Failed
Steve Jobs's solution to Google's Android-everywhere strategy was simple and audacious: he unveiled the iPad.
From ACM Opinion
How to Design—and Defend Against—the Perfect Security Backdoor
We already know the NSA wants to eavesdrop on the Internet.
From ACM Opinion
Want to Evade Nsa Spying? Don't Connect to the Internet
Since I started working with Snowden’s documents, I have been using a number of tools to try to stay secure from the NSA.
From ACM Opinion
Why Free Software Is More Important Now Than Ever Before
It is now 30 years since I launched the campaign for freedom in computing, that is, for software to be free or "libre" (we use that word to emphasize that we're...
From ACM Opinion
Forget Foreign Languages and Music. Teach Our Kids to Code
J. Paul Gibson began to teach programming classes for teens out of frustration.
From ACM Opinion
If the New Iphone Has Fingerprint Authentication, Can It Be Hacked?
When Apple bought AuthenTec for its biometrics technology—reported as one of its most expensive purchases—there was a lot of speculation about how the company would...
From ACM Opinion
How Advanced Is the NSA's Cryptanalysis—And Can We Resist It?
The latest Snowden document is the U.S. intelligence "black budget."
From ACM Opinion
How Protecting Your Privacy Could Make You the Bad Guy
There's a funny catch-22 when it comes to privacy best practices.
From ACM Opinion
Your Creative, Open Hackathon Is Ripe For Legal Challenges
NASA's Space Apps Challenge recently became the world's largest open hackathon, with over 8,000 participants spanning 44 countries.
From ACM Opinion
Phew, Nsa Is Just Collecting Metadata. (you Should Still Worry)
We now know that every day, U.S. phone companies quietly send the government a list of who called whom and when—"telephony metadata"—for every call made on their...
From ACM Opinion
Connecting the Dots on Prism, Phone Surveillance, and the Nsa's Massive Spy Center
Physically, the NSA has always been well protected by miles of high fences and electrified wire, thousands of cameras, and gun-toting guards.
From ACM Opinion
Forget Google Glass. These Are the Interfaces of the Future
When we talk about design nowadays, the focus has been on the lures (or dangers) of flat design and skeumorphism; whether there should be (or really are any) ...
From ACM Opinion