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
Judges Poised to Hand .s. Spies the Keys to the Internet
How does the NSA get the private crypto keys that allow it to bulk eavesdrop on some email providers and social networking sites?
From ACM Opinion
I Spent Two Hours Talking With the Nsa's Bigwigs. Here's What Has Them Mad
My expectations were low when I asked the National Security Agency to cooperate with my story on the impact of Edward Snowden’s leaks on the tech industry.
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
I, Glasshole: My Year With Google Glass
An anecdote: I wanted to wear Google Glass during the birth of our second child.
From ACM Opinion
Doom's Creator Looks Back on 20 Years of Demonic Mayhem
At the stroke of midnight on December 10, 1993, an executive at id Software uploaded a file to an FTP site on the University of Washington's network.
From ACM Opinion
Falling in Love with AI Virtual Assistants: A Creepy Love Affair Nearer Than You Think
"I've never loved anyone the way I've loved you," swoons Joaquin Phoenix, in the movie Her.
From ACM Opinion
Software Is Reorganizing the World
For the first time in memory, adults in the United States under age forty are now expected to be poorer than their parents.
From ACM Opinion
A Neuroscientist's Radical Theory of How Networks Become Conscious
It's a question that’s perplexed philosophers for centuries and scientists for decades: Where does consciousness come from?
From ACM Opinion
Our Government Has Weaponized the Internet. Here's How They Did It
The internet backbone—the infrastructure of networks upon which internet traffic travels—went from being a passive infrastructure for communication to an active...
From ACM Opinion
Inside Paul Allen's Plan to Reverse-Engineer the Human Brain
In 2003, Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen spent $100 million to build the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle.
From ACM Opinion
How to Design—and Defend Against—the Perfect Security Backdoor
We already know the NSA wants to eavesdrop on the Internet.
From ACM Opinion
Want to Evade Nsa Spying? Don't Connect to the Internet
Since I started working with Snowden’s documents, I have been using a number of tools to try to stay secure from the NSA.
From ACM Opinion
Google in Jeopardy: What If IBM's Watson Dethroned the King of Search?
Remember Watson, IBM's Jeopardy! champion?
From ACM Opinion
How Advanced Is the NSA's Cryptanalysis—And Can We Resist It?
The latest Snowden document is the U.S. intelligence "black budget."
From ACM Opinion
How Protecting Your Privacy Could Make You the Bad Guy
There's a funny catch-22 when it comes to privacy best practices.
From ACM Opinion
Phew, Nsa Is Just Collecting Metadata. (you Should Still Worry)
We now know that every day, U.S. phone companies quietly send the government a list of who called whom and when—"telephony metadata"—for every call made on their...
From ACM Opinion
Connecting the Dots on Prism, Phone Surveillance, and the Nsa's Massive Spy Center
Physically, the NSA has always been well protected by miles of high fences and electrified wire, thousands of cameras, and gun-toting guards.
From ACM Opinion
Senator Rand Paul Talks Tech, Civil Liberties, and Keeping the Government Out of Your Email
Rand Paul is having some problems with the jerks back at the office. So today he's bypassing them on a road trip through Silicon Valley.
From ACM Opinion