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 Communications of the ACM
How We Build Things: . . . and Why Things Are 90% Complete
It seems to be a law of software development that things always take longer than we expect. When a project manager talks to a designer, programmer, or tester...
From Communications of the ACM
The Apple-Samsung Lawsuits
In search of a middle ground in the intellectual property wars.
From ACM Opinion
Five Big Tech Stories to Watch For in 2013
We were dazzled by an array of smartphones. We were fascinated and then disappointed by Facebook's initial public offering. And we held our breaths as we awaited...
From ACM Opinion
How Hackers Exploit 'the Seven Deadly Sins'
This isn't the high tech wizardry of Hollywood but is a good, old-fashioned confidence trick.
From ACM Opinion
Intellectual Ventures: Why the Patent System Needs Aggregators Like S
The U.S. patent system borrowed from mainland Europe a concept that had evolved over hundreds of years: the "moral right" for inventors to protect their ideas....
From ACM Opinion
A Plea to Google: Protect Our Email Privacy
We recently learned that even the director of the CIA, David Petraeus, can't seem to secure his private email conversations properly, and over the past month tech...
From ACM Opinion
Internet Regulation Seen at National Level As Treaty Talks Fail
The world's major Internet companies, backed by U.S. policymakers, got much of what they wanted last week when many nations refused to sign a global telecommunications...
From ACM Opinion
How the n's 'game-Changing' Internet Treaty Failed
Did you know that, for the past two weeks, the future of the Internet has been at stake?
From ACM Opinion
I Am Not Big Brother
I've grown accustomed to reading inaccurate accounts of my day job. I'm in political data.
From ACM Opinion
The Fog of Cyberwar
In mid-2010, thousands of centrifuges, enriching uranium at Iranian nuclear research facilities, spun out of control.
From ACM Opinion
How the nited Nations Could Ruin the Internet
The Internet has sustained some pretty intense assaults in the past couple of years. There was the heavy-handed attempt to stamp out content piracy with SOPA/PIPA...
From ACM Opinion
At Dawn We Sleep
If you read the newspapers on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, you would have been led to believe that Japan was poised to attack—but in Southeast Asia, not Pearl Harbor...
From ACM Opinion
No Warrant, No Problem: How the Government Can Still Get Your Digital Data
The U.S. government isn’t allowed to wiretap American citizens without a warrant from a judge. But there are plenty of legal ways for law enforcement, from the...
From ACM Opinion
Could a Syria-Style Internet Blackout Happen in the .s.?
The ongoing Internet blackout in Syria, like the one that occurred in Egypt early in 2011, prompts curiosity as to whether such an event could happen in one's own...
From ACM Opinion
Was a Texas Student Really Expelled for Refusing To Wear an RFID Chip?
The Texas school district that began requiring its students to wear RFID tracking chips this year is now facing a fight in federal court.
From ACM Opinion
Why We Must Fight For the Internet's Freedom
The Internet empowers each one of us to speak, create, learn, and share.
From ACM Opinion
'your Criticisms Are Completely Wrong': Stallman on Software Patents, 20 Years In
The large, bearded man bounded to the front of the room last Friday, hand thrust into the air, fingers shaking.
From ACM Opinion
Security Guru Pledges to Strengthen Critical Computers
Stuxnet, a piece of malicious software discovered in 2010, targeted industrial software controlling Iran’s uranium-enrichment centrifuges. But the code got loose—and...
From Communications of the ACM