Communications of the ACM
Innovation Is Overrated: A Provocation
Digital innovation is not working in the interest of the whole of society. It is time to radically rethink its purpose without…
From ACM Opinion
You Won't Believe What Nasa Hid from US This Year
As the federal agency at the forefront of exploring outer space, NASA winds up being the front door for all manner of alien conspiracies.
From ACM Opinion
Here's What a 'digital Miranda Warning' Might Look Like
Anyone who has ever watched an American crime movie or television show can practically recite the Miranda warning by heart, even if they don't know its official...
From ACM Opinion
What the Trump Win Means For Tech, Science, and Beyond
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton. Trump will now become the 45th president, succeeding President Barack Obama.
From ACM Opinion
George Orwell Never Dreamed of Advertising as Invasive as Yahoo's Proposal
Yahoo wants to take advertising to the next level—that is, the Orwellian level—bombarding people in public places with targeted advertising served up by the surveillance...
From ACM Opinion
Y2k 2.0: Is the .s. Government Set to 'give Away the Internet' Saturday?
Remember the projected Y2K bug disaster? The world's computers would supposedly go haywire as the clock ticked to January 1, 2000, thus destroying the world and...
From ACM Opinion
Everyone Gets the Future Wrong: Lo and Behold Movie Review
Hackers? Check. Driverless cars? Check. SpaceX? Check. Robots? Check. Elon Musk? Check. ARPANET? Check. Video game addicts? Check. Brainscans? Check. Internet of...
From ACM Opinion
Dark Patterns Are Designed to Trick You (and They're All Over the Web)
It happens to the best of us. After looking closely at a bank statement or cable bill, suddenly a small, unrecognizable charge appears.
From ACM Opinion
Turkish Coup Plotters' Cyber Fail: Not Turning Off Internet
A failed coup attempt in Turkey, which began during the evening of July 15, was apparently coordinated using the WhatsApp mobile messaging service, according to...
From ACM Opinion
It'll Be Very Hard For Terrorism Victim's Family to Win Lawsuit Against Twitter
Legal experts say that it will be an uphill battle for the plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit this week against Twitter, Facebook, and Google.
From ACM Opinion
Ford's Futurist Knows Kids Today See Status in Their Smartphones, Not Cars
There can't be many job titles out there cooler than "futurist." And earlier this week, I sat down with Sheryl Connelly, who holds that position at the Ford Motor...
From ACM Opinion
If Apple Aids Terrorists and the Fbi Is Big Brother… Whom Do We Root For?
There's been a lot of bluster about the ongoing encryption saga between the FBI and Apple.
From ACM Opinion
Snowden Lawyer: Bill of Rights Was Meant to Make Government's Job 'more Difficult'
Ben Wizner, a top attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, is probably best known for being one of the lawyers representing Ed Snowden, the former National...
From ACM Opinion
From Exile to Eminence: How the Alien Hunters Conquered Astronomy
When Jill Tarter first began to look for aliens, she drew looks askance from her friends and colleagues.
From ACM Opinion
Why Safe Harbor 2.0 Will Lose Again
Over the weekend, negotiators from the European Union's executive body, and the US Federal Trade Commission worked frantically to thrash out a deal to allow transatlantic...
From ACM Opinion
Power Wars: How Obama Justified, Expanded Bush-Era Surveillance
Over the winter holidays, I took some well-needed time offline, away from e-mail and social media.
From ACM Opinion
In 2016, Terror Suspects and 7-Eleven Thieves May Bring Surveillance to Supreme Court
It has now been 2.5 years since the first Snowden revelations were published. And in 2015, government surveillance marched on in both large (the National Security...
From ACM Opinion
In 2015, Promising Surveillance Cases Ran Into Legal Brick Walls
Today, the first Snowden disclosures in 2013 feel like a distant memory.
From ACM Opinion
What the Government Should've Learned About Backdoors from the Clipper Chip
In the face of a Federal Bureau of Investigation proposal requesting backdoors into encrypted communications, a noted encryption expert urged Congress not to adopt...
From ACM Opinion
Movies That Predicted the Future—and Some That Didn't
Making fun of how movies screw up the future is one of the main reasons why the Internet was invented.
From ACM News