February 2016 - Vol. 59 No. 2

Features

Opinion Feb 1 2016

The Moral Hazard of Complexity-Theoretic Assumptions

In November 2015, the computing world was abuzz with the news that László Babai proved the Graph-Isomorphism Problem. If Babai’s result holds under scrutiny, it is likely to become one of the most celebrated results in theoretical computer science of the past several decades.

Moshe Y. Vardi

Computing Applications

Opinion Feb 1 2016

Apps and the Web

There are trade-offs to be found between a native mode implementation of an application and a browser-based implementation.

Vinton G. Cerf

Computing Applications

Opinion Letters to the Editor Feb 1 2016

Expect ‘Ungoverned Actors’ to Use AI-Supported Weapons, Too

Both sides of the Point/Counterpoint "The Case for Banning Killer Robots" (Dec. 2015) over lethal autonomous weapons systems seemed to agree the argument concerns weapons "…that once activated, would be able to select and engage targets without further human involvement."

CACM Staff

Computing Profession

BLOG@CACM Feb 1 2016

Drumming Up Support For AP CS Principles

Mark Guzdial issues a "call to action" to encourage high schools to offer, and students to take, the Advanced Placement course in Computer Science Principles.

Mark Guzdial

Computing Profession

News Feb 1 2016

Self-Repair Techniques Point to Robots That Design Themselves

Robots are being taught to brainstorm alternatives when damaged.

Chris Edwards

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

News Feb 1 2016

How a Supervillain (or a Hacker in His Basement) Could Destroy the Internet

Network experts share their greatest fears about attacks and accidents that could destroy the Internet.

Logan Kugler

Computing Profession

News Feb 1 2016

In Privacy Law, It’s the U.S. vs. the World

Snowden revelations force changes, but Facebook (and others) resist.

Tom Geller

Computing Profession

News Feb 1 2016

ACM Inducts Fellows

ACM has recognized 42 of its members for significant contributions to the development and application of computing, in areas ranging from data management and spoken-language processing to robotics and cryptography.

CACM Staff

Computing Profession

Opinion Economic and business dimensions Feb 1 2016

Revealing the API Ecosystem and Enterprise Strategy via Visual Analytics

Seeking better understanding of digital transformation.

Peter C. Evans and Rahul C. Basole

Computing Applications

Revealing the API Ecosystem and Enterprise Strategy via Visual Analytics, illustration

Opinion Privacy and security Feb 1 2016

Privacy Research Directions

What must we learn in order to support privacy requirements as technology advances?

Carl Landwehr

Computing Profession

Privacy Research Directions, illustration

Opinion Education Feb 1 2016

Broadening Access to Computing Education State By State

Influencing computer science education at the state level.

Rick Adrion, Renee Fall, Barbara Ericson, and Mark Guzdial

Computing Profession

Broadening Access to Computing Education State by State, illustration

Opinion Kode Vicious Feb 1 2016

Code Hoarding

Committing to commits, and the beauty of summarizing graphs.

George V. Neville-Neil

Computing Profession

Opinion Viewpoint Feb 1 2016

Lessons from the Tech Transfer Trenches

Moving from the research realm to real-world business application.

Satish Chandra, Suresh Thummalapenta, and Saurabh Sinha

Computing Profession

Lessons from the Tech Transfer Trenches, illustration

Opinion Viewpoint Feb 1 2016

Having a Conversation About Bulk Surveillance

Considering a controversial subject that extends far beyond the collection of phone metadata.

Herbert Lin

Computing Profession

Practice Feb 1 2016

Schema.org: Evolution of Structured Data on the Web

Big data makes common schemas even more necessary.

R. V. Guha, Dan Brickley, and Steve Macbeth

Computing Applications

Practice Feb 1 2016

The Verification of a Distributed System

A practitioner's guide to increasing confidence in system correctness.

Caitie McCaffrey

Computing Applications

The Verification of a Distributed System, illustration

Practice Feb 1 2016

Accountability in Algorithmic Decision Making

A view from computational journalism.

Nicholas Diakopoulos

Computing Applications

Accountability in Algorithmic Decision Making, illustration

Research and Advances Contributed articles Feb 1 2016

YFCC100M: The New Data in Multimedia Research

This publicly available curated dataset of almost 100 million photos and videos is free and legal for all.

Computing Applications

YFCC100M: The New Data in Multimedia Research, illustration

Research and Advances Turing Lecture Feb 1 2016

The Land Sharks Are on the Squawk Box

It turns out riding across America is more than a handy metaphor for building system software.

Michael Stonebraker

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Contributed articles Feb 1 2016

Phonetic Analytics Technology and Big Data: Real-World Cases

Data from phone interactions can help address customers' complaints, and predict their future purchasing behavior.

J.P. Shim, J. Koh, S. Fister, and H. Y. Seo

Computing Applications

Phonetic Analytics Technology and Big Data, illustration

Research and Advances Review articles Feb 1 2016

The Beckman Report on Database Research

Database researchers paint big data as a defining challenge. To make the most of the enormous opportunities at hand will require focusing on five research areas.

Computing Applications

The Beckman Report on Database Research, illustration

Research and Advances Research highlights Feb 1 2016

Technical Perspective: Catching Lies (and Mistakes) in Offloaded Computation

The system described in "Pinocchio: Nearly Practical Verifiable Computation" refines an important theoretical advance by Gennaro et al. Together, these two works represent a dramatic improvement in speed, generality, and functionality.

Michael Mitzenmacher and Justin Thaler

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Research highlights Feb 1 2016

Pinocchio: Nearly Practical Verifiable Computation

We introduce Pinocchio, a built system for efficiently verifying general computations while relying only on cryptographic assumptions.

Bryan Parno, Jon Howell, Craig Gentry, and Mariana Raykova

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Research highlights Feb 1 2016

Technical Perspective: Program Synthesis Using Stochastic Techniques

The authors of "Stochastic Program Optimization" have developed a stochastic search technique and applied it to program optimization.

Sumit Gulwani

Computing Applications

Research and Advances Research highlights Feb 1 2016

Stochastic Program Optimization

By encoding constraints of transformation correctness as terms in a cost function, and using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampler to explore the space of all possible code sequences, we are able to generate aggressively optimized versions of a given target code sequence.

Eric Schkufza, Rahul Sharma, and Alex Aiken

Computing Applications

Stochastic Program Optimization, illustration

Opinion Last byte Feb 1 2016

Future Tense: Chatterbox

A social network can sometimes make more of us than we ought to be.

Ken MacLeod

Computing Applications

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