acm-header
Sign In

Communications of the ACM

Recent Opinion


bg-corner

It's Finally Legal To Hack Your Own Devices (even Your Car)
From ACM Opinion

It's Finally Legal To Hack Your Own Devices (even Your Car)

You may have thought that if you owned your digital devices, you were allowed to do whatever you like with them.

Good Data Are Not Enough
From ACM Opinion

Good Data Are Not Enough

This summer, I visited the Mayan city of Chichén Itzá in the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico.

Digitizing the Cia: John Brennan's Attempt to Lead America's Spies Into the Age of Cyberwar
From ACM News

Digitizing the Cia: John Brennan's Attempt to Lead America's Spies Into the Age of Cyberwar

When America goes to the polls on Nov. 8, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials, it will likely experience the culmination of a new form of...

Chinese Characters Are Futuristic and the Alphabet Is Old News
From ACM Opinion

Chinese Characters Are Futuristic and the Alphabet Is Old News

On a bright fall morning at Stanford, Tom Mullaney is telling me what's wrong with QWERTY keyboards.

Why Robots Must Learn to Tell ­S 'no'
From ACM Opinion

Why Robots Must Learn to Tell ­S 'no'

HAL 9000, the sentient computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey, offers an ominous glimpse of a future in which machines endowed with artificial intelligence reject human...

Web Pioneer Tries to Incubate a Second Digital Revolution
From ACM Opinion

Web Pioneer Tries to Incubate a Second Digital Revolution

Brian Behlendorf knows it's a cliché for veteran technologists like himself to argue that society could be run much better if we just had the right software.

How Twitter Bots Are Shaping the Election
From ACM Opinion

How Twitter Bots Are Shaping the Election

There is power in numbers, or so the saying goes. But statistics mean different things to different people. Take Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, for instance.

We Went to the Grace Hopper Celebration. Here's What We're Bringing Back
From ACM Opinion

We Went to the Grace Hopper Celebration. Here's What We're Bringing Back

Members of The New York Times Developers recently made their first group trip to the Grace Hopper Celebration. At 15,000 attendees, GHC is the world's largest gathering...

Today's Artificial Intelligence Does Not Justify Basic Income
From ACM Opinion

Today's Artificial Intelligence Does Not Justify Basic Income

Not a day goes by when we do not hear about the threat of AI taking over the jobs of everyone from truck drivers to accountants to radiologists.

Nate Silver Blew It When He Missed Trump. Now He Really Needs to Get It Right.
From ACM Opinion

Nate Silver Blew It When He Missed Trump. Now He Really Needs to Get It Right.

Nate Silver is on the downtown 1 train. Possibly because he looks like a (modestly) hip math teacher, and hardly looks up from his phone, he goes unrecognized until...

America Isn't Ready For a Cyberattack
From ACM Opinion

America Isn't Ready For a Cyberattack

The recent cyberattack that rendered more than 1,200 websites unreachable was a warning. Experts say a similar, or larger, attack could be launched tomorrow, and...

E-Voting Refuses to Die Even Though It's Neither Secure Nor Secret
From ACM Opinion

E-Voting Refuses to Die Even Though It's Neither Secure Nor Secret

In theory, using the internet or e-mail to vote for the U.S. president sounds like a good idea.

Technology and Academic Lives
From Communications of the ACM

Technology and Academic Lives

Considering the need to create new modes of interaction and approaches to assessment given a rapidly evolving academic realm.

Time to Reinspect the Foundations?
From Communications of the ACM

Time to Reinspect the Foundations?

Questioning if computer science is outgrowing its traditional foundations.

Growing Computer Science Education Into a STEM Education Discipline
From Communications of the ACM

Growing Computer Science Education Into a STEM Education Discipline

Seeking to make computing education as available as mathematics or science education.

Fair Use Prevails in <i>Oracle v. Google</i>
From Communications of the ACM

Fair Use Prevails in Oracle v. Google

Two software giants continue with legal sparring after an initial judicial decision.

Who Oversees Data Brokers Selling Your Personal Info? No One
From ACM Opinion

Who Oversees Data Brokers Selling Your Personal Info? No One

You probably already know that you have precious little privacy, and that shadowy data brokers have built the buying and selling of people’s personal information...

The Decline in Chinese Cyberattacks: The Story Behind the Numbers
From ACM Opinion

The Decline in Chinese Cyberattacks: The Story Behind the Numbers

Last summer, an audience of government officials, military personnel, and foreign ambassadors gathered in Aspen, Colorado, to hear John Carlin, then an assistant...

Vulnerability Is the Internet's Original Sin
From ACM Opinion

Vulnerability Is the Internet's Original Sin

On the day (perhaps not long from now) when the entire internet crashes, no one will be able to say that we didn’t see it coming.

A.i. Inspiration: The Science Fiction That Frames Discussion
From ACM Opinion

A.i. Inspiration: The Science Fiction That Frames Discussion

Science fiction comes up often in serious discussions about artificial intelligence and weapons.
Sign In for Full Access
» Forgot Password? » Create an ACM Web Account