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
Telegraph to the Iphone: A Short History of Corporate Defiance
The high-stakes stalemate between Apple and the Justice Department isn’t the first time that Washington and Silicon Valley have come to a showdown over security...
From ACM News
Apple's Fbi Battle Is Complicated. Here's What's Really Going On
The news this week that a magistrate ordered Apple to help the FBI hack an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooter suspects has polarized the nation—and...
From ACM Opinion
Nsa Chief: 'paris Would Not Have Happened' Without Encrypted Apps
National Security Agency Director Adm. Michael Rogers warns that encryption is making it "much more difficult" for the agency to intercept the communications of...
From ACM Opinion
The President's Nsa Advisory Board Finally Gets a Tech Expert
It's taken more than a decade, but a critical oversight board tasked with advising the president on the privacy and civil liberties implications of the NSA's surveillance...
From ACM Opinion
The Apple Fight Isn't About Encryption
The most striking aspect of Apple's message to customers on Tuesday wasn't the rejection of U.S. authorities' demand that the company help them break the encryption...
From ACM Opinion
Eff to Support Apple in Encryption Battle
We learned on Tuesday evening that a U.S. federal magistrate judge ordered Apple to backdoor an iPhone that was used by one of the perpetrators of the San Bernardino...
From ACM Opinion
Y'all Have a Texas Accent? Siri (and the World) Might Be Slowly Killing It
It was a simple enough question, at least in this part of the world.
From ACM Opinion
Obama's Cybersecurity Plan Is Meant to Secure His Legacy
The end of White House terms are often about trying to shape historic legacies, and President Obama is out to build his in the new area of cybersecurity.
From ACM Opinion
Congress Starts to Get Serious About Online Privacy
Congress could soon vote on a bill that would require law enforcement agencies to get a search warrant from a judge to obtain emails, photographs and other documents...
From ACM Opinion
Your Next New Best Friend Might Be a Robot
One night in late July 2014, a journalist from the Chinese newspaper Southern Weeklyinterviewed a 17-year-old Chinese girl named Xiaoice (pronounced Shao-ice).
From ACM Opinion
It's Been 20 Years Since This Man Declared Cyberspace Independence
When digital dystopians and critics of Internet libertarians need a rhetorical dart board, they often pull out a document written by John Perry Barlow, co-founder...
From ACM Opinion
AI Is Transforming Google Search. The Rest of the Web Is Next
Yesterday, the 46-year-old Google veteran who oversees its search engine, Amit Singhal, announced his retirement. And in short order, Google revealed that Singhal's...
From ACM Opinion
Why Safe Harbor 2.0 Will Lose Again
Over the weekend, negotiators from the European Union's executive body, and the US Federal Trade Commission worked frantically to thrash out a deal to allow transatlantic...
From ACM Opinion
The Step Needed to Make Virtual Reality More Real
It's one thing to play the arcade game Whac-A-Mole by swinging around an oversized mallet; it's far easier to whack those moles virtually, controlling the mallet...
From ACM Opinion
Proposed State Bans on Phone Encryption Make Zero Sense
American politics has long accepted the strange notion that just a pair of states—namely Iowa and New Hampshire—get an outsize vote in choosing America’s next president...
From ACM Opinion
There May Be a Way to Allow Mass Surveillance and Preserve Our Privacy at the Same Time
If we've learned anything over the past few years, it's that governments will make all sorts of excuses to justify the surveillance of its citizens.
From ACM Opinion
The Language Barrier Is About to Fall
It used to be the case when I traveled abroad that I would take a little pocket dictionary that provided translations for commonly used phrases and words.
From ACM Opinion
Digital Intuition
Napoleon had it and so did Charles Darwin. Tennis champion Roger Federer has it in spades. The dictionary defines intuition as knowledge obtained without conscious...
From ACM Opinion
To Make AI More Human, Teach It to Chitchat
Tom was discussing the film star Tang Wei with a chatbot named XiaoIce, and the bot was excited: "A goddess! She stole my heart … and then went off and married!"...
From ACM Opinion