Despite the new systems, safeguards, and laws introduced each year promising to protect our digital domain, none have managed to have the needed strength to win the war against hackers. Attacks are escalating; and the casualties (business, financial, health care, privacy, and national security, among others) are mounting on a global scale. Last year goes […]
February 2001 - Vol. 44 No. 2
Features
NASA, Carnegie Mellon, and a dozen leading technology firms have formed the High Dependability Computing Consortium with the goal of creating crash-free software. The group signed a three-year agreement to attack the problem of unstable systems by building tools “of such a magnitude that no single company could afford to build them alone,” explains James […]
I agree with Hal Berghel’s thesis ("Digital Politics 2000," Nov. 2000, p. 17) that the major presidential candidates’ Web sites did nothing to advance the state of democracy. The column raises a few questions, including: What steps are necessary to improve the state of democracy? Berghel mentions low voter turnout and the influence of monied […]
The Profession of IT: Who Are We?
This new column calls for information technology to be defined as a profession rather than a discipline and invites computer scientists to cross the chasm.
Staying Connected: Name Is the Game
A rose by any other name may be just what the company needs in this manic era of corporate image adjustments.
On Site: to Opt-in or Opt-Out?: It Depends on the Question
Permission marketing requires consumers’ consent before a Web site can track them with cookies, or send them marketing email, or sell their data to another company. Yet a study by Cyber Dialogue found that 69% of U.S. Internet users did not know they had given their consent to be included on email distribution lists. Here’s […]
Securing Network Software Applications: Introduction
Ask a school-age child about Melissa, and instead of hearing about the "red-haired girl in Mrs. Stiefel’s class," the most likely answer would point to the Microsoft Word macro virus that wreaked havoc around the world in March 1999. The impact of the ubiquitous World Wide Web, the fastest growing element of the Internet, is […]
Trust (and Mistrust) in Secure Applications
Exploring and considering trust assumptions during every stage of software development.
Security Models For Web-Based Applications
Using traditional and emerging access control approaches to develop secure applications for the Web.
The Privacy Practices of Web Browser Extensions
Whatever they are, the full terms of privacy these products offer are seldom made clear.
Software Security and Privacy Risks in Mobile E-Commerce
Examining the risks in wireless computing that will likely influence the emerging m-commerce market.
An Operating System Approach to Securing E-Services
Implementing Trusted Linux, an ideal platform for e-services application hosting.
Intellectual Property For an Information Age: Introduction
How to balance the public interest, traditional legal principles, and the emerging digital reality.
Copyrightable Functions and Patentable Speech
Defying the legal categories of patent, copyright, and protected speech, and barring a new category all its own, software may be destined for further awkward accommodation in established law.
How intellectual property laws might embrace the apparently paradoxical goals of motivating individual creation and preserving the ultimate benefits of that creation for the common good.
The Battle Over the Institutional Ecosystem in the Digital Environment
How U.S. law, by adding exclusive private rights to information, favors traditional industrial production of information products and discourages the emerging culture of Net-based peer production.
The Collision of Trademarks, Domain Names, and due Process in Cyberspace
The increasingly uneasy coexistence between the Internet's domain-name system and established trademark law raises questions about whether the Internet's regulations are technically expert or democratic and fair.
Is Virtual Trespass an Apt Analogy?
Despite the appeal of equating virtual and real property rights, providing relatively open Web access is likely to yield a more vibrant Internet.
Inside Risks: What to Know About
In this column, we assert that deeper knowledge of fundamental principles of computer technology and their implications will be increasingly essential in the future for a wide spectrum of individuals and groups, each with its own particular needs. Our lives are becoming ever more dependent on understanding computer-related systems and the risks involved. Although this […]
