acm-header
Sign In

Communications of the ACM

Recent Articles


bg-corner

Owning and Using
From Communications of the ACM

Owning and Using

On vital and supporting systems.

EMV
From Communications of the ACM

EMV: Why Payment Systems Fail

What lessons might we learn from the chip cards used for payments in Europe, now that the U.S. is adopting them too?

Secrets, Lies and Snowden's Email: Why I Was Forced to Shut Down Lavabit
From ACM Opinion

Secrets, Lies and Snowden's Email: Why I Was Forced to Shut Down Lavabit

My legal saga started last summer with a knock at the door, behind which stood two federal agents ready to to serve me with a court order requiring the installation...

Should ­.s. Hackers Fix Cybersecurity Holes or Exploit Them?
From ACM Opinion

Should ­.s. Hackers Fix Cybersecurity Holes or Exploit Them?

There's a debate going on about whether the U.S. government—specifically, the NSA and United States Cyber Command—should stockpile Internet vulnerabilities or disclose...

The Internet's History Isn’t As "open" As You Think
From ACM Opinion

The Internet's History Isn’t As "open" As You Think

This spring, the Federal Communications Commission is deciding how to regulate the "Open Internet"—a term it uses to refer to the movement for net neutrality.

Every Little Byte Counts
From ACM Opinion

Every Little Byte Counts

In "On What We Can Not Do," a short and pungent essay published a few years ago, the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben outlined two ways in which power operates...

How a Raccoon Became an Aardvark
From ACM Opinion

How a Raccoon Became an Aardvark

In July of 2008, Dylan Breves, then a seventeen-year-old student from New York City, made a mundane edit to a Wikipedia entry on the coati.

Ordering Google to Forget
From ACM Opinion

Ordering Google to Forget

In a ruling that could undermine press freedoms and free speech, the highest court of the European Union said on Tuesday that Google must comply with requests from...

Maths Spying: The Quandary of Working For the Spooks
From ACM Opinion

Maths Spying: The Quandary of Working For the Spooks

For the past 10 months, a major international scandal has engulfed some of the world's largest employers of mathematicians.

Farewell Nokia: The Rise and Fall of a Mobile Pioneer
From ACM Opinion

Farewell Nokia: The Rise and Fall of a Mobile Pioneer

You never forget your first cellphone.

Robots Are Coming
From Communications of the ACM

Robots Are Coming

Considering the societal implications of the robotics revolution.

Building a Virtual Community of Practice For K-12 CS Teachers
From Communications of the ACM

Building a Virtual Community of Practice For K-12 CS Teachers

Bringing educators together and focusing their interests toward improving computer science education in high schools.

Tom Kilburn
From Communications of the ACM

Tom Kilburn: A Tale of Five Computers

Reflections on a British computer engineer who influenced several important machines, including the first stored-program computer.

What Happened to Video Game Piracy?
From Communications of the ACM

What Happened to Video Game Piracy?

How video games thrive in a world of piracy.

Why Bitcoin Has Value
From Communications of the ACM

Why Bitcoin Has Value

Evaluating the evolving controversial digital currency.

The Justice of Coders
From ACM Opinion

The Justice of Coders

Among the most important changes in the structure of this society is the rise of engineers and the ethics they make manifest.

The Cloud Industry Needs Aereo to Win. But Consumers Need Something Better.
From ACM Opinion

The Cloud Industry Needs Aereo to Win. But Consumers Need Something Better.

The best way to think about Aereo, the company at the center of this week's Supreme Court battle over the future of computing, is as an example of legal performance...

At Aereo Arguments, Can Old-School Analogies Explain New Technology?
From ACM Opinion

At Aereo Arguments, Can Old-School Analogies Explain New Technology?

Technology is hard. Valet parking and coat check rooms are not, at least for U.S. Supreme Court justices.

The Most Expensive Lottery Ticket in the World
From ACM Opinion

The Most Expensive Lottery Ticket in the World

No Exit, the new book from Gideon Lewis-Kraus, should be required reading for anybody who thinks it might be a good idea to found a startup in Silicon Valley.

Google Wants to Make 'science Fiction' a Reality—and That's Limiting Their Imagination
From ACM Opinion

Google Wants to Make 'science Fiction' a Reality—and That's Limiting Their Imagination

Self-driving cars, extreme life extension, and global wifi provided by weather balloons: Google makes projects that sound like science fiction into reality at its...
Sign In for Full Access
» Forgot Password? » Create an ACM Web Account