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
The Frightening Things You Hear at a Black Hat Conference
Here is a look at some of the highlights and scarier happenings taking place at the annual Black Hat hacker conference in Las Vegas last week.
From ACM Opinion
The Public Is Left in the Dark When Courts Allow Electronic Surveillance
A big part of Magistrate Judge Stephen W. Smith's job in Federal District Court in Houston is to consider law enforcement requests for cellphone and email records...
From ACM Opinion
The Trouble With Online Education
"Ah, you're a professor. You must learn so much from your students."
From ACM Opinion
The End of Privacy?
Cellphones, email, and online social networking have come to rule daily life, but Congress has done nothing to update federal privacy laws to better protect digital...
From ACM Opinion
With Apple
Late last summer, I was introduced to a new special someone. I wasn’t looking to meet this new muse; it all just kind of happened.
From ACM Opinion
A Weapon We Can't Control
The decision by the United States and Israel to develop and then deploy the Stuxnet computer worm against an Iranian nuclear facility late in George W. Bush's presidency...
From ACM Opinion
Free Speech For Computers?
Do machines speak? If so, do they have a constitutional right to free speech?
From ACM News
How Depressives Surf the Web
In what way do you spend your time online? Do you check your email compulsively? Watch lots of videos? Switch frequently among multiple Internet applications—from...
From ACM Opinion
Desktop Computers Look More and More Like Smartphones
If you're an experienced computer user, you probably remember explaining to newbies how a desktop computer worked: Your photos should go in this folder; your documents...
From ACM News
Apple's Stash of Credit Card Numbers Is Its Secret Weapon
That little iPhone in your pocket is perfectly positioned to become a clone of the credit cards in your wallet or purse.
From ACM Opinion
Why Attack When We Can't Defend?
In December 2010, after we had reverse engineered the Stuxnet virus, I argued that the attackers must have known they would open Pandora's box. Others suggested...
From ACM Opinion
The Flight From Conversation
We live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating. And yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection.
From ACM Opinion
Following the Breadcrumbs on the Data-Sharing Trail
Would you like to donate to the Obama campaign? Sign up for a college course? Or maybe subscribe to Architectural Digest?
From ACM Opinion
How China Steals Our Secrets
For the last two months, senior government officials and private-sector experts have paraded before Congress and described in alarming terms a silent threat: cyberattacks...
From ACM Opinion
Tv Makers Ignore Apps at Their Own Peril
Every night, I get home from work, drop onto the couch and sit there surfing the Web or watching videos on my 3 1/2-inch iPhone screen. My big-screen HDTV sits...
From ACM Opinion
Apple's Mountain Lion Makes the Mac More Like the Ipad
Apple's iPhones and iPads get most of the attention, but Apple is now directing the spotlight on the Mac.
From ACM Opinion
A High-Tech War on Leaks
Back in 2006, before the Obama administration made leak prosecutions routine, a panel of three federal appeals court judges in New York struggled to decide whether...
From ACM Opinion
Beyond Sopa
We welcomed the collapse this month of two flawed bills to prevent online piracy, bills that could have stifled speech and undermined Internet safety. But piracy...
From ACM Opinion