Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
Why Google Bought Nest: A Theory
Google is acquiring Nest, makers of a smart thermostat, for a reported $3.2 billion.
From ACM Opinion
Why We Don't Trust Technology Companies
Last October, T-Mobile made an astonishing announcement: from now on, when you travel internationally with a T-Mobile phone, you get free unlimited text messages...
From ACM Opinion
10 Bold Predictions For 2014
At the beginning of each year, it's possible to make predictions about the future of the tech sector simply by extrapolating from data in the latest Mary Meeker...
From ACM Opinion
When Doctors 'google' Their Patients
I remember when I first looked up a patient on Google.
From ACM Opinion
The Internet of Things Is Wildly Insecure—and Often npatchable
We're at a crisis point now with regard to the security of embedded systems, where computing is embedded into the hardware itself—as with the Internet of Things...
From ACM Opinion
Why Snowden Won't (and Shouldn't) Get Clemency
I regard Daniel Ellsberg as an American patriot.
From ACM Opinion
Edward Snowden, Whistle-Blower
Seven months ago, the world began to learn the vast scope of the National Security Agency's reach into the lives of hundreds of millions of people in the United...
From ACM Opinion
The Nsa's Metadata Program Is Perfectly Constitutional
Last month two judges issued two different opinions about the NSA's controversial bulk metadata collection program.
From ACM Opinion
The Top Four Tech Legal Cases to Watch in 2014
While we're all wiping the champagne-induced sleep from our eyes, inevitably we have to sober up for 2014.
From ACM News
Dogecoins and Litecoins and Peercoins Oh My: What You Need to Know About Bitcoin Alternatives
By now, most people have heard of Bitcoin, the peer-to-peer currency whose value has soared over the past couple of years.
From ACM Opinion
I Had My Dna Picture Taken, With Varying Results
I like to plan ahead; that much I knew about myself before I plunged into exploring my genetic code.
From ACM Opinion
Correcting the Record on the Nsa Review
One of the dangers of a 304 -page report on a complex subject is that everyone gets to choose what he or she thinks is the bottom line.
From ACM News
The One Big Question About Rsa and Its Relationship With the Nsa
Last week, the Internet security world was jolted by a Reuters report detailing a secret $10 million payment to the security company RSA from the National Security...
From ACM Opinion
The Dollar Will Never Fall to Bitcoin
Last month, several people appeared before a U.S. Senate committee to defend bitcoin, among them Patrick Murck, general counsel of the Bitcoin Foundation...
From ACM Opinion
Stanford Researchers: It Is Trivially Easy to Match Metadata to Real People
In defending the NSA's telephony metadata collection efforts, government officials have repeatedly resorted to one seemingly significant detail: This is just metadata—numbers...
From ACM Opinion
Do We Want an Erasable Internet?
This is going to sound silly, but I think Snapchat was the most important technology of 2013.
From ACM Opinion
Whither Net Neutrality?
As the new Federal Communications Commission chairman, Tom Wheeler, has kicked up some dust in the tech community by laying the groundwork for a grand vision for...
From ACM Opinion
The Predictive Power of Big Data
Right now, the average person's data footprint—the annual amount of data produced worldwide, per capita—is just a little short of one terabyte.
From ACM Opinion