I Was Wrong about the Ethics Crisis
Anxiety about the ills brought on by computing has risen dramatically.
January 2025 - Vol. 68 No. 1
Features
Is It Math or CS? Or Is It Both?
Igor Markov's “Reevaluating Google’s Reinforcement Learning for IC Macro Placement” in the November 2024 Communications looks at two non-peer-reviewed papers and makes baseless allegations of scientific integrity issues, all already found to be without merit.
The LiteLoad project is working to quantify the impact of poor connectivity in rural areas near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, in Tennessee, as a testing ground.
Recent work has combined pseudorandom starting structures and random techniques that use the framework of finite geometry.
The landscape for AI copyright and patent law looks a lot like the landscape for AI: confusing, chaotic, and changing at lightspeed.
Addressing the Data Storage Crisis
The expense of HDD and SSD is pushing the development and consideration of alternate storage options.
Thinking of Algorithms as Institutions
Algorithms are not just lines of code; they are architectures that organize complex systems of interactions involving machines and humans.
Compliance Requirements in Research
An urgent issue to address is the proliferation of requirements from all federal and state agencies and private companies, which share an awareness for security but add different security requirements.
The Fine Line between Persuasion and Coercion
How the Supreme Court's decision in Murthy v. Missouri leaves platforms free to set their own content-moderation policies on controversial issues.
To insist that your strategy is right even when nearly all other firms have concluded the opposite smacks of hubris and inflexibility.
On Program Synthesis and Large Language Models
It is unreasonable to expect the generational powers of ChatGPT and similar software to provide a general tool for program synthesis.
‘Superpowers’ of Gender Equality Failing to Establish Gender Balance in IT
The low participation of women in IT suggests a gap between gender-equality policies and a lack of engagement to achieve these policy ideals.
Access to your production environment must be guarded jealously, even among your own team of developers.
The realization of a self-designing software system is faced with key challenges.
Considering Trauma in Accessible Design for Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
Research into making smart-device-based computing apps accessible to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities has revealed several design suggestions.
Improving CS Performance by Developing Spatial Skills
Research suggests that attention to the type of games and puzzles we play can improve performance in CS degree programs and beyond.
Technical Perspective: Tracing the Network Traffic Fingerprinting Techniques of OpenVPN
"OpenVPN is Open to VPN Fingerprinting," by Diwen Xue et al., investigates network traffic fingerprinting of a very popular privacy technique—OpenVPN.
OpenVPN Is Open to VPN Fingerprinting
In this paper, we explore the implications of deep packet inspection for VPN detection and blocking.
Technical Perspective: Can AI Keep Accessible Communication in the Picture?
Recent research explores how AI can use photos to support communication, especially for people with communication impairments.
A mobile application can generate situation-specific communication boards automatically from photographs.
