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
Big Tech Walking Fine Line on Data
A year after Edward Snowden shocked citizens with details of how much of their lives are being snapped up by the National Security Agency, tech giants have sounded...
From ACM Opinion
Former Counterterrorism Czar Richard Clarke: .s. Drone Program nder Obama 'got Out of Hand'
Richard Clarke served as the nation's top counterterrorism official under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush before resigning in 2003 in protest of the...
From ACM Opinion
Imposing Security
Three computer bugs this year exposed passwords, e-mails, financial data, and other kinds of sensitive information connected to potentially billions of people.
From ACM Opinion
Spy vs. Spy
Last month, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the United States was charging members of the Chinese military with economic espionage.
From ACM Opinion
How the Nsa Could Bug Your Powered-Off Phone, and How to Stop Them
Just because you turned off your phone doesn't mean the NSA isn't using it to spy on you.
From ACM Opinion
Why Did the Justice Department Indict Five Chinese Military Officers?
At first glance, the Justice Department's 31-count indictment of five Chinese military officers for hacking into the computers of six American corporations, in...
From ACM Opinion
China's Cyber-Generals Are Reinventing the Art of War
The conventional wisdom is that the future of war will involve private robot armies, predator drones carrying out precision strikes, and maybe even the militarization...
From ACM Opinion
Meet the People Behind the Wayback Machine, One of Our Favorite Things About the Internet
Brewster Kahle is quick to point out that we are not standing inside a former Scientology church.
From ACM Opinion
How the .s. Could Escalate Its Name-and-Shame Campaign Against China's Espionage
Earlier this week the U.S. Department of Justice indicted five Chinese military officers for industrial espionage, accusing them of leading attacks on the computers...
From ACM Opinion
Man Behind the First Computer Password: It's Become a Nightmare
In the early 1960s, Fernando Corbató helped deploy the first known computer password.
From Communications of the ACM
Beyond Data and Analysis
Why business analytics and big data really matter for modern business organizations.
From Communications of the ACM
Avalanches Are Coming
Computing technology has generated conditions for radical transformations of jobs and professions — including education. How shall we cope?
From Communications of the ACM
FUD: A Plea For Intolerance
Relying on dubious claims can cause researchers to focus on the wrong questions and organizations to misdirect security spending.
From Communications of the ACM
EMV: Why Payment Systems Fail
What lessons might we learn from the chip cards used for payments in Europe, now that the U.S. is adopting them too?
From ACM Opinion
Secrets, Lies and Snowden's Email: Why I Was Forced to Shut Down Lavabit
My legal saga started last summer with a knock at the door, behind which stood two federal agents ready to to serve me with a court order requiring the installation...
From ACM Opinion
Should .s. Hackers Fix Cybersecurity Holes or Exploit Them?
There's a debate going on about whether the U.S. government—specifically, the NSA and United States Cyber Command—should stockpile Internet vulnerabilities or disclose...
From ACM Opinion
The Internet's History Isn’t As "open" As You Think
This spring, the Federal Communications Commission is deciding how to regulate the "Open Internet"—a term it uses to refer to the movement for net neutrality.
From ACM Opinion