October 1991 - Vol. 34 No. 10
Features
As everyone knows, the computer industry is passing through a period of great change. I was speaking recently to a senior executive in one of the large companies vigorously working to meet the developing situation. The question he posed was: “Could it have been predicted?”
Over the past two years, I have written seven “Legally Speaking” columns and one feature article for Communications about legal issues affecting computing professionals. These writings have covered an array of legal topics including: criminal and civil liability for hackers who breach computer security systems; first amendment issues arising in computing or electronic publishing markets; intellectual property issues, such as patent protection for computer program algorithms; copyright protection for look and feel of user interfaces; what the user interface design field thinks about such protection, and various theories by which a firm might claim to own interface specification information for software systems.
An ACM response: the scope and directions of Computer Science
The National Research Council's Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) chartered a two-year study on the scope and directions of computer science. As part of this study, ACM was asked to provide input on three important questions, the answers to which could have significant impact on the future direction of our discipline and profession.
The column, “Benchmarks for LAN Performance Evaluation,” by Larry Press (Aug. 1988, pp. 1014-1017) presented a technique for quickly benchmarking the performance of LANs in an office environment. Our interest was peaked since office automation is growing in importance. As a result, an empirical analysis of the Press benchmark programs was conducted. The results indicated that these benchmarking programs were appropriate for the benchmarking of LANs in an office environment.
A national debate on encryption exportability
Traditionally, cryptography has been an exclusively military technology controlled by the National Security Agency (NSA). Therefore, U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITARS) requires licenses for all export of modern cryptographic methods. Some methods, such as the Data Encryption Standard (DES), are easily obtained for export to the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM) countries, but not Soviet block countries, or most Third World nations.
