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
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
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
To Keep AI Safe—use AI
Software is already pervasive in our society, but artificial intelligence software raises unique concerns even among the technological elite.
From ACM Opinion
Snowden's Chronicler Reveals Her Own Life nder Surveillance
Laura Poitras has a talent for disappearing. In her early documentaries like My Country, My Country and The Oath, her camera seems to float invisibly in rooms where...
From ACM Opinion
The Embarrassing, Destructive Fight Over Biotech's Big Breakthrough
A defining moment in modern biology occurred on July 24, 1978, when biotechnology pioneer Robert Swanson, who had recently co-founded Genentech, brought two young...
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
When Will We Be Able to Vote Online?
Sooner or later everything seems to go online. Newspapers. TV. Radio. Shopping. Banking. Dating.
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 News
Is Blockchain the Most Important It Invention of Our Age?
There are not many occasions when one can give an unqualified thumbs-up to something the government does, but this is one such occasion.
From ACM Opinion
If Killer Robots Arrive, the Terminator Will Be the Least of Our Problems
Autonomous weapons experts sounded the alarm last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, cautioning that unless governments act to limit these...
From ACM Opinion
Power Wars: How Obama Justified, Expanded Bush-Era Surveillance
Over the winter holidays, I took some well-needed time offline, away from e-mail and social media.
From Communications of the ACM
Having a Conversation About Bulk Surveillance
Considering a controversial subject that extends far beyond the collection of phone metadata.
From Communications of the ACM
Lessons from the Tech Transfer Trenches
Moving from the research realm to real-world business application.
From Communications of the ACM
Code Hoarding
Committing to commits, and the beauty of summarizing graphs.
From Communications of the ACM
Broadening Access to Computing Education State By State
Influencing computer science education at the state level.
From Communications of the ACM
Privacy Research Directions
What must we learn in order to support privacy requirements as technology advances?
From ACM Opinion
The Case For Looking to the States, Not the Federal Government, to Protect Your Privacy
A year ago, President Obama stood behind a podium at the Federal Trade Commission and called for legislation that would set a single national standard for when...
From ACM Opinion
The Long and Winding History of Encryption
Never in history have more people had access to advanced encryption in their homes, offices, and pockets.
From ACM Opinion