acm-header
Sign In

Communications of the ACM

Recent Opinion


bg-corner

Steve Mann: My 'augmediated' Life
From ACM Opinion

Steve Mann: My 'augmediated' Life

Back in 2004, I was awakened early one morning by a loud clatter. I ran outside, only to discover that a car had smashed into the corner of my house.

Can Your Boss Read Your Email?
From ACM Opinion

Can Your Boss Read Your Email?

Harvard faculty members responded with shock after the Boston Globe revealed that theuniversity’s administration had searched 16 faculty deans’ email accounts to...

Kim Dotcom Is the Anti-Zuckerberg: Share Nothing, Encrypt Everything, Be Happy
From ACM Opinion

Kim Dotcom Is the Anti-Zuckerberg: Share Nothing, Encrypt Everything, Be Happy

Appearing like a retro-futuristic apparition, digitally transmitted through pneumatic tubes from a future that was but will never be, the disembodied head of Kim...

Tim Berners-Lee on the Making of New Worlds
From ACM Opinion

Tim Berners-Lee on the Making of New Worlds

The Internet should be open.

Everything We Know About What Data Brokers Know About You
From ACM News

Everything We Know About What Data Brokers Know About You

Data companies are scooping up enormous amounts of information about almost every American. They sell information about whether you're pregnant or divorced or trying...

Lars Rasmussen: The Brains Behind Facebook's Future
From ACM Opinion

Lars Rasmussen: The Brains Behind Facebook's Future

For a man that made his career out of helping millions of people find their way around, Lars Rasmussen is frank about his own navigational shortcomings.

Google Glass: Is It a Threat to Our Privacy?
From ACM Opinion

Google Glass: Is It a Threat to Our Privacy?

If you haven't heard about the excitement around Google Glass—the head-mounted glasses that can shoot video, take pictures, and broadcast what you're seeing to...

From ACM Opinion

Shedding More Light on National Security Letters

Our users trust Google with a lot of very important data, whether it’s emails, photos, documents, posts or videos.

Are We Really Facing Cyberwar?
From ACM Opinion

Are We Really Facing Cyberwar?

A few weeks ago I was standing by a railway track in the small town of Gaithersburg in Maryland as a CSX freight train blasted through the level crossing; its horn...

Eye-Tracking Smartphones Have Arrived. What About the Privacy Implications?
From ACM Opinion

Eye-Tracking Smartphones Have Arrived. What About the Privacy Implications?

Last March, I wrote in Slate about eye-tracking, which could allow computers and smartphones of the future to collect information not only about what we read, but...

Google Services Should Not Require Real Names: Vint Cerf
From ACM Opinion

Google Services Should Not Require Real Names: Vint Cerf

In the face of increasing government-led crackdowns on social media, Google Inc. should not force Internet users to reveal their real names for some services, including...

What to Do After You've Been Hacked
From ACM Opinion

What to Do After You've Been Hacked

Evernote became the latest member of the "we’ve been hacked" club. And the thing is, what was once a pretty exclusive club now lets just about everyone in these...

The Dangerous Logic of the Bradley Manning Case
From ACM Opinion

The Dangerous Logic of the Bradley Manning Case

After 1,000 days in pretrial detention, Private Bradley Manning offered a modified guilty plea for passing classified materials to WikiLeaks. But his case is far...

Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow on 'homeland,' Printed Guns, and Heart Hacking
From ACM Opinion

Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow on 'homeland,' Printed Guns, and Heart Hacking

I had the pleasure of spending some time with Cory Doctorow on Feb. 25 at the Jefferson Hotel here in the nation's capital.

How the Cloud and Big Data Might Help Win the Hacker Wars
From ACM Opinion

How the Cloud and Big Data Might Help Win the Hacker Wars

Hewlett-Packard's senior VP and head of its Software Enterprise Security Products, Art Gilliland, is speaking today at the RSA Security conference in San Francisco...

Is It Time To Take Cyborg Rights Seriously? A Q&a With Neil Harbisson.
From ACM Opinion

Is It Time To Take Cyborg Rights Seriously? A Q&a With Neil Harbisson.

Harbisson was born without the ability to see color, but a device he calls his "eyeborg" allows him to now "hear" color.

The Art of Cyberwar
From ACM Opinion

The Art of Cyberwar

The New York Times’ front-page report last week that the Chinese army is hacking into America's most sensitive computer networks from a 12-story building outside...

Why Marissa Mayer's Ban on Remote Working at Yahoo Could Backfire Badly
From ACM Opinion

Why Marissa Mayer's Ban on Remote Working at Yahoo Could Backfire Badly

Not long after her arrival at Yahoo, new CEO Marissa Mayer started handing out carrots to her new employees, including new smartphones, free food, and other Google...

The Ar-15 Is More Than a Gun. It's a Gadget
From ACM Opinion

The Ar-15 Is More Than a Gun. It's a Gadget

I was shaking as I shouldered the rifle and peered through the scope at the small steel target 100 yards downrange.

What China's Hackers Get Wrong About Washington
From ACM Opinion

What China's Hackers Get Wrong About Washington

"Start asking security experts which powerful Washington institutions have been penetrated by Chinese cyberspies," report my colleagues Craig Timberg and Ellen...
Sign In for Full Access
» Forgot Password? » Create an ACM Web Account