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 'worm' That Could Bring Down the Internet
For the past three years, a highly encrypted computer worm called Conficker has been spreading rapidly around the world. As many as 12 million computers have...
From ACM News
Security Expert: .s. 'leading Force' Behind Stuxnet
German cybersecurity expert Ralph Langner warns that U.S. utility companies are not yet prepared to deal with the threat presented by the Stuxnet computer worm...
From ACM Opinion
Gov. Brown: Sign Bill Outlawing Warrantless Smartphone Searches
There’s a bill sitting on the desk of California Governor Jerry Brown, which if signed would ban police from searching the mobile devices of people arrested for...
From ACM Opinion
Yes, Google Really Should Worry About Facebook
The algorithm is the key to success. That's how Google replaced Yahoo as the Web's best search engine in 1998. Google became the font of the online world's information...
From Communications of the ACM
Rebooting the CS Publication Process
A proposal for a new cost-free open-access publication model for computer science papers.
From Communications of the ACM
Testing: Failing to Succeed
There are two situations in software testing that scare testers: when they see "too many" defects and when they do not see "enough."
From Communications of the ACM
Modernizing the Danish Democratic Process
Examining the socio-technological issues involved in Denmark's decision to pursue the legalization of electronic elections.
From Communications of the ACM
File-System Litter
Cleaning up your storage space quickly and efficiently.
From Communications of the ACM
The Platform Leader's Dilemma
Studying the lessons learned from past and present platform leaders.
From ACM News
The America Invents Act and the Individual Inventor
Much has been said about how the newly passed patent reform legislation, the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, benefits large corporations. While that argument...
From ACM Opinion
Protect Our Right to Anonymity
In November, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case that could redefine the scope of privacy in an age of increasingly ubiquitous surveillance technologies...
From ACM Opinion
How 9/11 Completely Changed Surveillance in .s.
Former AT&T engineer Mark Klein handed a sheaf of papers in January 2006 to lawyers at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, providing smoking-gun evidence that...
From ACM News
Can Brain Research Keep S Safe?
Human conflict is often associated with the emergence of a new science or technology. The Civil War's Gatling gun changed battlefield tactics and led to modern...
From ACM News
Bike Crash Wiped Details; Gps Data Filled Them In
After racing and biking back roads on the San Francisco Peninsula for almost half a century without serious incident, on July 3 I crashed while riding downhill...
From ACM Opinion
Post-9/11, Nsa 'enemies' Include s
Somewhere between Sept. 11 and today, the enemy morphed from a handful of terrorists to the American population at large, leaving us nowhere to run and no place...
From ACM Opinion
A Cloud Over Ownership
Online services set content free from the physical world's constraints—including those that have defined the very idea of possession.
From ACM Opinion
The Calm Before the Storm
Revelations of wholesale electronic fraud and massive data heists have become weekly, even daily affairs.
From ACM News
Cryptocurrency
The bitcoin, a virtual medium of exchange, could be a real alternative to government-issued money—but only if it survives hoarding by speculators.
From ACM Opinion
Eff to Court: Don't Let Government Hide Illegal Surveillance
The Electronic Frontier Foundation urged the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday to preserve lawsuits challenging the government's illegal mass surveillance...
From ACM Opinion