Communications of the ACM
An edited collection of advanced computing news from Communications of the ACM, ACM TechNews, other ACM resources, and news sites around the Web.
From ACM TechNews
Security Researcher Successfully Jailbreaks Apple AirTag
German security researcher stacksmashing was able to break into, dump, and reflash the microcontroller of Apple's AirTag object-location product.
From ACM News
'A Damn Stupid Thing to Do'—the Origins of C
Today, C may be a lingua franca among programmers. This is its (abridged) history.
From ACM TechNews
FBI/DHS: Government Systems Face Threat From Zerologon Exploits
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Homeland Security have detected attackers exploiting a Windows vulnerability against state and local...
From ACM TechNews
One of This Year's Most Severe Windows Bugs Is Now Under Active Exploit
Microsoft warns a high-impact vulnerability that allows hackers to instantly take control of Windows' Active Directory is being actively exploited by malicious...
From ACM TechNews
Supply-Chain Attack Hits RubyGems Repository with 725 Malicious Packages
ReversingLabs researchers found more than 725 malicious packages in RubyGems, the official channel for distributing programs and code libraries for the Ruby programming...
From ACM News
Ethiopian Air Pilots Turned Off 737 MAX Anti-Stall System. Then It Turned On Again
The pilots of Ethiopia Airlines Flight 302 apparently followed the proper steps to shut down an errant flight control system as they struggled to regain control...
From ACM News
They Didn't Buy the DLC: Feature that Could've Prevented 737 Crashes Was Sold As an Option
The crashed Lion Air 737 MAX and the Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX aircraft had more in common than aircraft design and the apparently malfunctioning flight system...
From ACM News
ber Escapes Criminal Charges for 2018 Self-Driving Death in Arizona
A prosecutor in Arizona has decided not to press charges against Uber in the March 2018 death of Elaine Herzberg. One of Uber's self-driving cars crashed into Herzberg...
From ACM News
String of Ions May Out-Compute Best Quantum Computers
Usually, I reflexively delete press releases. This one was no different, but as the message vanished, the subject line registered—"IonQ… quantum computing."
From ACM News
Researchers, Scared by Their Own Work, Hold Back 'Deepfakes for Text' AI
OpenAI, a non-profit research company investigating "the path to safe artificial intelligence," has developed a machine learning system called Generative Pre-trained...
From ACM News
Bless the Overclockers: In the Data Center World, Liquid Cooling Is Becoming King
In Iron Man 2, there is a moment when Tony Stark is watching a decades-old film of his deceased father, who tells him "I'm limited by the technology of my time,...
From ACM Careers
How the Government Shutdown Is Flushing Away Federal Cyber-Talent
The US Federal government is in the midst of the longest gap in funding for many of its agencies in history. As the "shutdown" extends into a second month, the...
From ACM News
Imaging Ever Closer to the Event Horizon
While black holes themselves swallow any light beyond their event horizon, the area outside the event horizon tends to emit lots of light.
From ACM News
Machine Learning Can Offer New Tools, Fresh Insights for the Humanities
Truly revolutionary political transformations are naturally of great interest to historians, and the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century is widely...
From ACM News
Milky Way to Face a One-Two Punch of Galaxy Collisions
If our knowledge of galaxy structures was limited to the Milky Way, we'd get a lot of things wrong. The Milky Way, it turns out, is unusual.
From ACM News
How Computers Got Shockingly Good at Recognizing Images
Right now, I can open up Google Photos, type "beach," and see my photos from various beaches I've visited over the last decade.
From ACM News
All Hail the AI Overlord: Smart Cities and the AI Internet of Things
Cities generate lots of data. The exact amount depends on the size of the city and its sophistication and ambitions, but it's certainly more than mere humans can...
From ACM News
NASA's Next Mars Rover Will se AI to Be a Better Science Partner
NASA can't yet put a scientist on Mars. But in its next rover mission to the Red Planet, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is hoping to use artificial intelligence...
From ACM News
More Than an Auto-Pilot, AI Charts Its Course in Aviation
Ask anyone what they think of when the words "artificial intelligence" and aviation are combined, and it's likely the first things they'll mention are drones.
From ACM Opinion