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
Connecting the Dots, Missing the Story
Could Big Data have prevented 9/11? Perhaps—Dick Cheney, for one, seems to think so.
From ACM Opinion
I Would Have Hired Edward Snowden
I don't know Edward Snowden, but I know his kind.
From ACM Opinion
Why Americans Don't Fear the Nsa
Cybersnooping was always scheduled to be an important topic during President Obama’s meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
From ACM Opinion
Who's Watching You? Not Just the Nsa.
While you were tweeting an Instagram of your home-cooked tikka masala last night, we learned that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been collecting data on...
From ACM Opinion
Our Guts May Hate Mars
Eighty thousand people recently applied for a trip to Mars, an excursion that will allegedly be funded by selling reality-TV show rights for the voyage.
From ACM Opinion
Government Plan to Build 'back Doors' For Online Surveillance Could Create Dangerous Vulnerabilities
Recently, the FBI has been attacking the "going dark" problem—that is, its inability to read all electronic communications—from both legal and technological angles...
From ACM Opinion
Google Glass Isn't Lame
I've spent the last few weeks lowering my expectations for Google Glass.
From ACM Opinion
How Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen See the Future
Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt is ready for a future where his smart mattress monitors sleep patterns and alerts the curtains to allow daylight in, waking...
From ACM Opinion
Why I Love the National Internet Sales Tax Plan
The Internet, in the popular imagination, is supposed to be free—"the last bastion of our economy untouched by the government," as they say on Fox News.
From ACM Opinion
We Need More Cameras, and We Need Them Now
On Thursday afternoon, the FBI released photos and video of two persons of interest in the Boston Marathon bombing.
From ACM Opinion
How New Military Technologies Can Help Prevent the Next Boston or Newtown
This week, it's bombs. In December, it was guns.
From ACM Opinion
Save a Soccer Referee. Hire a Machine to Rule on Goals.
Referees are the worst. Anyone who plays, coaches, or watches sports will agree. They call either too little or too much. They're blind, stupid, paid off, or just...
From ACM Opinion
Can Your Boss Read Your Email?
Harvard faculty members responded with shock after the Boston Globe revealed that theuniversity’s administration had searched 16 faculty deans’ email accounts to...
From ACM Opinion
Eye-Tracking Smartphones Have Arrived. What About the Privacy Implications?
Last March, I wrote in Slate about eye-tracking, which could allow computers and smartphones of the future to collect information not only about what we read, but...
From ACM Opinion
Instead of 'dead Dropping,' Petraeus and Broadwell Should Have sed These Email Security Tricks
Having an extramarital affair in 2012 is not an easy task if you’re the chief of the world’s most renowned spy agency.
From ACM Opinion
Can We Trust Voting Machines?
Last week, a congressional report claimed that using Chinese telecommunications companies’ goods and services in the United States could threaten national security...
From ACM Opinion
The ncanny Valley of Internet Advertising
If you ask an Internet ad guy to defend himself—to explain why you, dear Web surfer, should feel comfortable letting him serve you ads based on everything you do...
From ACM Opinion
Is It Time To Stop Trusting Google?
Was Google's snooping on home Wi-Fi users the work of a rogue software engineer? Was it a deliberate corporate strategy? Was it simply an honest-to-goodness mistake...
From ACM Opinion