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 News
The Space-Based Quantum Cryptography Race
One of the great benefits of quantum communication is the ability to send messages from one point in space to another with perfect security.
From ACM TechNews
How to Make Smart Watches Not Worth Stealing
A prototype device can identify someone by measuring the electrical resistance of tissues within the person's wrist.
From ACM TechNews
Statistical Tricks Extract Sensitive Data From Encrypted Communications
Private information can be obtained from encrypted communications using a technique known as traffic analysis to find patterns in the data stream.
From ACM Opinion
How the .s. Could Escalate Its Name-and-Shame Campaign Against China's Espionage
Earlier this week the U.S. Department of Justice indicted five Chinese military officers for industrial espionage, accusing them of leading attacks on the computers...
From ACM News
Do We Need Asimov's Laws?
In 1942, the science fiction author Isaac Asimov published a short story called Runaround in which he introduced three laws that governed the behaviour of robots...
From ACM TechNews
World's First Covert Communications System With Camouflage Guaranteed
Researchers say they have developed a method to camouflage messages in a way that is mathematically guaranteed.
From ACM TechNews
How Anybody Can Measure Your Computer's Wi-Fi Fingerprint
Computer security experts have discovered a method of uniquely identifying a computer by the way it accesses Wi-Fi resources.
From ACM News
Increasingly, Robots of All Sizes Are Human Workmates
Most industrial robots are far less friendly than the Roomba robot vacuum cleaner, which is safe enough to be a surprisingly popular means of feline transportation...
From ACM News
10 Breakthrough Technologies 2014
Technology news is full of incremental developments, but few of them are true milestones.
From ACM Opinion
Three Questions For Eugene Kaspersky
The Moscow-based computer security firm Kaspersky Lab has analyzed major new kinds of malware, including Stuxnet, which four years ago was revealed to have damaged...
From ACM TechNews
Microsoft Builds a Digital 'monkey' to Hunt Fraudulent Ads
Researchers have developed technology, known as a digital monkey, that can detect and counter fraudulent advertisements on a large scale.
From ACM News
Pay with Your Fingerprint
Anyone with an iPhone 5 can use its fingerprint reader to unlock the device and pay for apps or music in Apple's iTunes store.
From ACM News
Spinoffs from Spyland
It takes more than a little tradecraft to spin off a startup from the National Security Agency.
From ACM News
Facebook Creates Software That Matches Faces Almost as Well as You Do
Asked whether two unfamiliar photos of faces show the same person, a human being will get it right 97.53 percent of the time.
From ACM News
Mathematical Proof Reveals How To Make The Internet More Earthquake-Proof
One of the common myths about the Internet is that it was originally designed during the Cold War to survive nuclear attack.
From ACM News
Marginally seful
Bitcoin, a purely digital currency, is backed by no commodity and governed by no central bank, but it exists because a small number of humans have chosen to believe...
From ACM TechNews
'honey Encryption' Will Bamboozle Attackers With Fake Secrets
Researchers have developed an approach to cryptography that makes it difficult for hackers to determine when they have correctly deciphered a password.
From ACM News
'honey Encryption' Will Bamboozle Attackers with Fake Secrets
Ari Juels, an independent researcher who was previously chief scientist at computer security company RSA, thinks something important is missing from the cryptography...
From ACM TechNews
Not Ok, Glass
PlaceAvoider is software that uses computer-vision techniques to identify potentially confidential or embarrassing pictures taken with new devices such as Google...
From ACM News