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 Communications of the ACM
A Lesson in Resource Management
Waste not memory, want not memory — unless it doesn't matter.
From Communications of the ACM
Design Thinking
Design thinking is the newest fashion for finding better solutions to problems. Combining it with computational thinking offers some real possibilities for improving...
From Communications of the ACM
Patrick Blackett: Providing 'White Heat' to the British Computing Revolution
Reflections on a Nobel Prize-winning physicist's early contributions to computing.
From Communications of the ACM
Information Technology Impact Sourcing
New ways to contract IT work to base-of-the-pyramid suppliers.
From ACM Opinion
Wikimedia Foundation Sends Cease and Desist Letter to Wikipr
On October 21, the Wikimedia Foundation issued a statement from Sue Gardner, our executive director, condemning the black hat practice of paid advocacy editing...
From ACM Opinion
Why Google's Fair Use Victory In Google Books Suit Is A Big Deal—And Why It Isn't
Federal judge Denny Chin rejected a copyright challenge Google’s practices of scanning books into digital format and presenting snippets of those scans in search...
From ACM Opinion
Our Government Has Weaponized the Internet. Here's How They Did It
The internet backbone—the infrastructure of networks upon which internet traffic travels—went from being a passive infrastructure for communication to an active...
From ACM Opinion
Drm in Cars Will Drive Consumers Crazy
Forget extra cupholders or power windows: the new Renault Zoe comes with a "feature" that absolutely nobody wants.
From ACM News
The Daunting Challenge of Secure Email
When users of Lavabit, an encrypted e-mail service, logged on to the site this past August, they found a bewildering letter on the site's main page.
From ACM Opinion
A Stronger 'online Eraser' Law Would Be a Mistake
Excited teenagers—in other words normal teenagers—have never been famous for consistently wise decisions, nor should they be.
From ACM Opinion
No, Bitcoin Isn't Broken
"Bitcoin Is Broken," proclaimed Ittay Eyal and Emin Gun Sirer, two Cornell computer scientists.
From ACM Opinion
Bitcoin Is Broken
And not just superficially so, but fundamentally, at the core protocol level.
From ACM Opinion
Is Google Autocomplete Evil?
"Women shouldn't have rights." "Women shouldn't vote." "Women shouldn't work."
From ACM Opinion
Report on Government Information Requests
We believe that our customers have a right to understand how their personal information is handled, and we consider it our responsibility to provide them with the...
From ACM Opinion
Here's What the Morris Worm Prosecutor Thinks About Aaron Swartz
It was 25 years ago Tuesday that The New York Times first named 23-year-old Cornell graduate student Robert Morris as the culprit behind what became known as the...
From ACM Opinion
Tim Berners-Lee: Encryption Cracking By Spy Agencies 'appalling and Foolish'
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the computer scientist who created the World Wide Web, has called for a "full and frank public debate" over Internet surveillance by the National...
From ACM Opinion
Why the Googlification of Obamacare Really Matters
The Internet is piling yet more vitriol on the shoddy Obamacare rollout in response to a report, by Bloomberg's Alex Wayne, that the administration has recruited...
From ACM Opinion
Fifth Amendment Prohibits Compelled Decryption, New EFF Brief Argues
Encryption is one of the most important ways to safeguard data from prying eyes.
From ACM Opinion