February 2007 - Vol. 50 No. 2

Features

Opinion Editorial pointers Feb 1 2007

It’s a cyberspace cat-and-mouse game with billions at stake and billions more spent in intercepting and eradicating spam. No sooner does a new crop of anti-spam solutions hit the market than spammers find new ways to defeat them. There appeared to be a global reprieve of sorts about 18 months ago that experts credited to […]

Diane Crawford

Computing Applications

News News track Feb 1 2007

News Track

U.S. employers are now compelled to keep track of all email messages, instant messages, and other electronic documents generated by their employees, as per new federal rules that took effect last December. The Associated Press reports the legislation, approved by the U.S. Supreme Court, requires companies involved in federal litigation to produce "electronically stored information" […]

CACM Staff

Computing Applications

Opinion Forum Feb 1 2007

Forum

The conclusion by Peter J. Denning and Rick Hayes-Roth in their "The Profession of IT" column ("Decision Making in Very Large Networks," Nov. 2006) should have been that hastily formed networks are useful but only when information flow (as opposed to raw data flow) is high and coordination minimal. In any other context (such as […]

Computing Applications

News Student de-charter notice Feb 1 2007

Student De-Charter Notice

ACM is considering the de-charter of the following chapters due to inactivity Members interested in revitalizing their chapters should contact Lauren Ryan, Local Activities Coordinator, at local_activities@acm.org. ACM will terminate the chapters listed below after 90 days unless interested volunteers express a desire to reactivate their chapter by updating their bylaws and preparing acceptable revitalization […]

CACM Staff

Computing Applications

Opinion Technology strategy and management Feb 1 2007

What Road Ahead For Microsoft the Company?

Mapping the critical decisions involved in building the next version of the software company.

Michael A. Cusumano

Computing Applications

Opinion Legally speaking Feb 1 2007

Patent Reform Through the Courts

Although some reforms can happen only through legislation, some key reforms may be achievable through the courts.

Pamela Samuelson

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Feb 1 2007

Spam and the Ongoing Battle For the Inbox

Even as spammers and phishers try evermore sophisticated techniques to get past filters and into users' mailboxes, anti-spam researchers have managed to stay several steps ahead, so far.

Joshua Goodman, Gordon V. Cormack, and David Heckerman

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances Feb 1 2007

Enabling the 21st Century Health Care Information Technology Revolution

The U.S. government's vision of the health care information infrastructure is possible using technologies that support the sharing of medical e-records while maintaining patient privacy.

Rakesh Agrawal, Tyrone Grandison, Christopher Johnson, and Jerry Kiernan

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Feb 1 2007

Intranet Model and Metrics

Measuring intranet overall value contributions based on a corporation's critical business requirements.

Grant A. Jacoby and Luqi

Computing Applications

Practice Feb 1 2007

Electronic Markets Hypothesis Redux: Where Are We Now?

A popular theory on IT's impact fails to consider the rich, dynamic, relationship-filled environment in which IT operates.

Bonnie C. Glassberg

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Research and Advances Feb 1 2007

Compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003

Studying the application of the CAN-SPAM Act and its effect on controlling unsolicited email messages.

Galen A. Grimes

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Feb 1 2007

Dynamic Personalization of Web Sites Without User Intervention

A novel online recommender system builds profiling models and offers suggestions without the user taking the lead.

Ranieri Baraglia and Fabrizio Silvestri

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Research and Advances Feb 1 2007

Encouraging Participation in Virtual Communities

Leaders of robust, sustainable virtual communities find ways tostrengthen their members' sense of social identity and motivate their participation in the community's activities.

Joon Koh, Young-Gul Kim, Brian Butler, and Gee-Woo Bock

Architecture and Hardware

Research and Advances Feb 1 2007

Web Content Adaptation For Mobile Handheld Devices

Creative technologies can help overcome the limitations of mobile handheld devices while maximizing their strengths.

Dongsong Zhang

Architecture and Hardware

News SIGs Announce Candidates for Election Feb 1 2007

SIGs Announce Candidates For Election

In accordance with ACM Bylaw 6, the following SIGs will hold elections in 2007: SIGARCH, SIGCOMM, SIGCSE, SIGDOC, SIGEVO, SIGGRAPH, SIGIR, SIGITE, SIGMM, SIGSAM, and SIGWEB. ACM Policy and Procedures require that those SIGs holding elections notify their membership of candidates for elected offices. Below is a list of SIGs that have submitted their slate […]

CACM Staff

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Feb 1 2007

An Integrated Approach to Federated Identity and Privilege Management in Open Systems

Online partnerships depend on federations of not only user identities but also of user entitlements across organizational boundaries.

Rafae Bhatti, Elisa Bertino, and Arif Ghafoor

Architecture and Hardware

Practice Feb 1 2007

The Impact of Offshore Outsourcing on IT Workers in Developed Countries

Examining the global implications of outsourcing for IT workers.

Benjamin <zmn>B. Shao and Julie Smith David

Computing Applications

Opinion Technical opinion Feb 1 2007

IT Security: In Search of the Holy Grail

Approaching IT security as an engineering and management problem.

Rolf Oppliger

Computing Applications

Opinion Hot links Feb 1 2007

Top 10 Downloads from ACM’s Digital Library

Communications of the ACM Volume 50, Number 2 (2007), Pages 99-100 Hot links: Top 10 downloads from ACM’s digital library Diane Crawford Table of Contents Tables Back to Top Tables Table. The Top 10 Most Popular Papers from ACM’s Refereed Journals and Conference Proceedings Downloaded in November 2006 Table. The 10 Most Popular Courses at […]

Computing Applications

Opinion Inside risks Feb 1 2007

Widespread Network Failures

Networking problems offer many potential lessons that must be assimilated by researchers, developers, and operators of highly distributed systems such as computer networks and electric power distribution. In this column, I briefly revisit some widespread outages and other extreme network behavior, and explore ever-increasing needs for trustworthy distributed control. The 1980 four-hour ARPANET collapse (a […]

Peter G. Neumann

Computing Applications

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