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
Facebook's Security Chief Talks Encryption Plan
Facebook has built its business upon the sharing of content between people worldwide, but protecting that data is a gargantuan responsibility—one that demands an...
From ACM Opinion
When Big Data Marketing Becomes Stalking
Many of us now expect our online activities to be recorded and analyzed, but we assume that the physical spaces we inhabit are different.
From ACM Opinion
Why Google Doesn't Have a Research Lab
Research vice presidents at some computing giants, such as Microsoft and IBM, rule over divisions housed in dedicated facilities carefully insulated from the rat...
From ACM Opinion
Three Things to Take Away from Cansecwest, Pwn2own
Browsers, brokers, and BIOS: You could safely call that triumvirate the past, present, and future of security, but you'd be wrong.
From ACM Opinion
Hacking Your Dna
Keeping track of what we reveal about ourselves each day—through email and text messages, Amazon purchases and Facebook "likes"—is hard enough.
From ACM Opinion
A Close Look at the Nsa's Most Powerful Internet Attack Tool
We already knew that the NSA has weaponized the Internet, enabling it to "shoot" exploits at anyone it desires.
From ACM Opinion
The Data Brokers: Selling Your Personal Information
Over the past six months or so, a huge amount of attention has been paid to government snooping, and the bulk collection and storage of vast amounts of raw data...
From ACM Opinion
Flight 370 and the Terror of Being Off the Grid
How can a commercial airliner go missing?
From ACM Opinion
The Future of Internet Freedom
Over the next decade, approximately five billion people will become connected to the Internet.
From ACM Opinion
Why You Should Embrace Surveillance, Not Fight It
I once worked with Steven Spielberg on the development of Minority Report, derived from the short story by Philip K. Dick featuring a future society that uses surveillance...
From ACM Opinion
Waiting For the Black Box
Days after the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 shortly after midnight on Saturday, investigators considering a range of possible causes—mechanical...
From ACM Opinion
Are You Too Paranoid About Digital Privacy, or Not Paranoid Enough?
Let's start with one thing you hear over and over again when interviewing people about privacy: "I've got nothing to hide."
From ACM Opinion
One-Hit Wonders
For more than a year now, tens of millions of Americans have found time each day to devote themselves to an essential task: swiping at their phones and tablets...
From ACM Opinion
There's No Real Difference Between Online Espionage and Online Attack
Back when we first started getting reports of the Chinese breaking into U.S. computer networks for espionage purposes, we described it in some very strong language...
From ACM Opinion
Language Barriers
The British scientist and polymath Stephen Wolfram has always had big ambitions.
From ACM Opinion
Why Copyrighted Coffee May Cripple the Internet of Things
With its single-serving coffee pods, Green Mountain Coffee has transformed the business of brew.
From ACM Opinion
Ballmer: Microsoft Missed the Mobile Market Over Last Decade
Microsoft Corp largely missed the mobile market in the last decade, its recently departed chief executive officer said Tuesday.
From ACM Opinion
Remembering Mit, When There Were Just 50 Women in a Class of 1,000
When Radia Perlman attended MIT in the late '60s and '70s, she was one of just a few dozen women (about 50) out of a class of 1,000.
From ACM Opinion
Encryption Would Have Stopped Snowden From sing Secrets
Edward Snowden could have been thwarted from leaking classified U.S. documents if the National Security Agency encrypted the information to make it unreadable,...
From ACM Opinion