May 2023 - Vol. 66 No. 5

Features

Opinion Departments May 1 2023

The ACM 4.0 Initiative aims to lay the foundations of ACM for the next 25 years on issues of service to society and to ACM members, ACM membership, ACM finances, and internal processes.

Moshe Y. Vardi

Computing Profession

Careers Career Paths in Computing May 1 2023

A Career Built on Using Technology to Help Others

Everyone deserves the access and opportunity to have a good and fulfilling life. Technologies can only contribute toward this goal when they are designed from an understanding of what makes a life good for the people concerned.

Jules Maitland

Computing Profession

BLOG@CACM May 1 2023

Securing Data for Business Telephones

Cybersecurity consultant Alex Tray looks at potential security issues, and solutions, for business telephone systems.

Alex Tray

Architecture and Hardware

News May 1 2023

AlphaFold Spreads through Protein Science

Based on machine learning, DeepMind's code now lies at the heart of a variety of protein-structure tools and workflows. It may ultimately be replaced by models that are bigger but faster.

Chris Edwards

Architecture and Hardware

AlphaFold-predicted structure of estrogen receptor protein, seen binding to DNA

News May 1 2023

Locking Down Secure Open Source Software

Can even secure open source software ever be considered truly safe?

Neil Savage

Computing Applications

html open and close tags on a lock, illustration

News May 1 2023

Women in Computer Science Are Making Strides

Computer science is still not a level playing field for those women who majored in it and choose to pursue it as a career.

Esther Shein

Computing Profession

Opinion Law and Technology May 1 2023

Do the Right Thing

Exploring the intersection of legal compliance and ethical judgment.

Kendra Albert and James Grimmelmann

Architecture and Hardware

faceless figure wearing a hoodie in front of a laptop computer, illustration

Opinion Security May 1 2023

Updates, Threats, and Risk Management

Revisiting a recent column considering security updates.

Steve Lipner and John Pescatore

Computing Applications

alert icon in a pop-up window on a laptop computer, illustration

Opinion Education May 1 2023

Putting a Teaspoon of Programming into Other Subjects

Using teaspoon languages to integrate programming across myriad academic disciplines.

Computing Profession

Opinion Viewpoint May 1 2023

Ethics as a Participatory and Iterative Process

Facilitating ethical reflection, inquiry, and deliberation.

Marc Steen

Computing Applications

compass with text labels for its four points marked V, C, D, and R

Opinion Viewpoint May 1 2023

Please Report Your Compute

Seeking consistent means of measure.

Jaime Sevilla, Anson Ho, and Tamay Besiroglu

Computing Applications

the word 'FLOP' on a graph-like background, illustration

Careers Viewpoint May 1 2023

Long-Term Mentoring for Computer Science Researchers

Reaching out across computer science research communities.

Computing Profession

two women in discussion in front of computer displays

Opinion Viewpoint May 1 2023

NSF on Chien’s Grand Challenge for Sustainability

This Viewpoint focuses on ways the computing community can contribute broadly to environmental sustainability and identifies NSF Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering research programs supporting these efforts.

Nina Amla, Dilma Da Silva, Michael Littman, and Manish Parashar

Computing Profession

hand with a tree in its palm extends from the green screen of a laptop computer, illustration

Practice May 1 2023

Reinventing Backend Subsetting at Google

Designing an algorithm with reduced connection churn that could replace deterministic subsetting.

Peter Ward, Paul Wankadia, and Kavita Guliani

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Practice May 1 2023

Research for Practice: The Fun in Fuzzing

The debugging technique comes into its own.

Stefan Nagy

Computing Applications

three flat targets with either a dart or swordfish in bullseye, illustration

Research and Advances Contributed Articles May 1 2023

From Code Complexity Metrics to Program Comprehension

Understanding code depends not only on the code but also on the brain.

Dror G. Feitelson

Computing Applications

two programmers stand in front of a window filled with computer code

Research and Advances Contributed Articles May 1 2023

Development Use Cases for Semantics-Driven Modeling Languages

Choosing underlying semantic theories and definition techniques must closely follow intended use cases for the modeling language.

Manfred Broy and Bernhard Rumpe

Computing Applications

circuit board layout with text labels, illustration

Research and Advances Review Articles May 1 2023

Unlocking the Potential of Fully Homomorphic Encryption

Exploring the transformational potential of FHE and the path toward adoption of its "stack."

Shruthi Gorantala, Rob Springer, and Bryant Gipson

Security and Privacy

initials F, H, and E on slot machine reels, illustration

Research and Advances Review Articles May 1 2023

Disentangling Hype from Practicality: On Realistically Achieving Quantum Advantage

What are the promising applications to realize quantum advantage?

Torsten Hoefler, Thomas Häner, and Matthias Troyer

Architecture and Hardware

color lines in abstract drawing, illustration

Research Highlights May 1 2023

Technical Perspective: Finding Connections between One-Way Functions and Kolmogorov Complexity

"Toward Basing Cryptography on the Hardness of EXP," by Yanyi Liu and Rafael Pass, establishes surprisingly tight bidirectional connections between one-way functions and the cross-domain notion of Kolmogorov complexity.

Gil Segev

Systems and Networking

one-way and don't-walk signage on a city street corner

Research Highlights May 1 2023

Toward Basing Cryptography on the Hardness of EXP

We show that the only "gap" toward getting (infinitely-often) OWFs from the assumption that EXP ≠ BPP is the seemingly "minor" technical gap between two-sided error and errorless average-case hardness of the MKtP problem.

Yanyi Liu and Rafael Pass

Systems and Networking

Opinion Last Byte May 1 2023

ChatGPT, Can You Tell Me a Story?

An exercise in challenging the true creativity of generative AI.

Ralph Raiola

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

generated image of nerdy sci-fi writer using AI tools to write stories

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