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
Networks Are Not Always Revolutionary
"For most artists," as the famous Tim O'Reilly aphorism has it "the problem isn't piracy, it's obscurity." To me, this is inarguably true and self-evident—the...
From ACM Opinion
China's Cyberassault on America
In justifying U.S. involvement in Libya, the Obama administration cited the "responsibility to protect" citizens of other countries when their governments engage...
From ACM News
All Your Bitcoins Are Ours
Malware authors move fast. Following on from the previous blog post on Bitcoin botnet mining, we have seen a recent Trojan in the wild targeting Bitcoin wallets...
From ACM News
Has Facebook Peaked?
Facebook's active user base grew by only 1.7% in May. That's about half its usual growth rate, and it came after similarly slow growth in April. According to Inside...
From ACM News
Who Is Behind the Hacks?
Every day there's another report of a computer hack. Yesterday it was a video game company and a U.S. Senate database. And today it could be the Federal Reserve...
From ACM Opinion
Palin Fans Trying to Edit Wikipedia Paul Revere Page
Man, you've gotta almost admire the sheer blind dedication of Sarah Palin's wingnut acolytes.
From ACM Opinion
Weiner's Law
The Web makes it easier than ever to cheat—and easier than ever for cheaters to get caught.
From ACM Opinion
The Danger of E-Books
In an age where business dominates our governments and writes our laws, every technological advance offers business an opportunity to impose new restrictions...
From ACM TechNews
Internet Architect Vint Cerf to Young People: Science and Tech Careers Can Be Rewarding
Vint Cerf, one of the Internet's original inventors, notes in an interview that although industry awards are important, they do not receive enough visibility.
From ACM News
Security 'tokens' Take Hit
RSA Security is offering to provide security monitoring or replace its well-known SecurID tokens—devices used by millions of corporate workers to securely log...
From ACM Opinion
Feds Versus the Hacker nderground: Army of Informers Turned By Fear
When Jeff Moss, popularly known as the Dark Tangent, started holding underground hacker conferences in Las Vegas he knew he had a problem. All previous gatherings...
From ACM Opinion
On the Latest Google Chinese-Hacking News
Thanks to many people who have written in asking whether the recent Google announcement of a new China-based wave of attacks on Gmail accounts is related to the...
From ACM News
Darpa's Regina Dugan on 'the Nation
Dr. Regina Dugan is director of the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency, where she researches, develops, and demonstrates high-risk, high-payoff projects...
From ACM Opinion
A Brief Lesson in American History, or Why 'world of Warcraft' Matters
Many readers are probably too young too remember Senator William Proxmire. I am sorry to say he served in the U.S. Senate from 1957 to 1989. Despite some good...
From ACM Opinion
Critical Mass: How to Maintain the Power of Online Reviews
The wisdom of crowds can be brilliant. It can also be corrupt.
From ACM Opinion
The STEM (aka "smarty Pants") Conundrum
The promotion of science and math degrees is hampered by the impression that only the smartest of the smart can obtain them. What can educators do to make STEM's...
From ACM Opinion
When the Internet Thinks It Knows You
Once upon a time, the story goes, we lived in a broadcast society. In that dusty pre-Internet age, the tools for sharing information weren’t widely available....
From Communications of the ACM
Computer Science Can Use More Science
Software developers should use empirical methods to analyze their designs to predict how working systems will behave.
From Communications of the ACM
The Risks of Stopping Too Soon
Good software design is never easy, but stopping too soon makes the job more difficult.
From Communications of the ACM