Communications of the ACM
Blinding the Watchman
Internet constellations could thwart killer asteroid discovery algorithms.
From ACM NewsAn 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
Armies of Expensive Lawyers, Replaced by Cheaper Software
When five television studios became entangled in a Justice Department antitrust lawsuit against CBS, the cost was immense. As part of the obscure task of "discovery"—providing...
From ACM Opinion
Google Schools Its Algorithm
To humans, computer intelligence is a puzzle, as if the machines have split personalities. They can be so remarkably smart at times, yet so bafflingly dumb at...
From ACM News
Moonlighting Within Microsoft, in Pursuit of New Apps
If you have a smartphone, you probably have apps on it to check the news, play games, help with shopping or further a hobby like travel or bird-watching. But...
From ACM News
U.S. Sets 21st-Century Goal: Building a Better Patent Office
President Obama, who emphasizes American innovation, says modernizing the federal Patent and Trademark Office is crucial to "winning the future." So at a time when...
From ACM News
New Hacking Tools Pose Bigger Threats to Wi-Fi sers
You may think the only people capable of snooping on your Internet activity are government intelligence agents or possibly a talented teenage hacker holed up...
From ACM News
Facebook Officials Keep Quiet on Its Role in Revolts
With Facebook playing a starring role in the revolts that toppled governments in Tunisia and Egypt, you might think the company’s top executives would use this...
From ACM News
The Dirty Little Secrets of Search
Pretend for a moment that you are Google’s search engine. Someone types the word “dresses” and hits enter. What will be the very first result?
From ACM News
Wary of Egypt nrest, China Censors Web
In another era, China’s leaders might have been content to let discussion of the protests in Egypt float around among private citizens, then fizzle out.
From ACM News
Dealing With Assange and the Secrets He Spilled
This past June, Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian, phoned me and asked, mysteriously, whether I had any idea how to arrange a secure communication....
From ACM TechNews
1986 Privacy Law Is Outrun By the Web
Rising use of the Internet has overtaken the main statute governing communication privacy, according to many Web companies and consumer proponents, who say they...
From ACM News
The New Speed of Money, Reshaping Markets
A substantial part of all stock trading in the United States takes place in a warehouse in a nondescript business park just off the New Jersey Turnpike.
From ACM News
Computers That See You and Keep Watch Over You
Hundreds of correctional officers from prisons across America descended last spring on a shuttered penitentiary in West Virginia for annual training exercises...
From ACM News
U.s. Tries to Build Case For Conspiracy By Wikileaks
Federal prosecutors, seeking to build a case against the WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange for his role in a huge dissemination of classified government documents...
From ACM News
Panel Set to Study Safety of Electronic Patient Data
Almost two years ago, President Obama pledged $19 billion in stimulus incentives to help convert the nation’s doctors and hospitals to using a paperless system...
From ACM News
With Video Everywhere, Stark Evidence Is on Trial
In a world that is always on camera, the centuries-old courtroom experience is becoming a lot more complicated.
From ACM News
Cyberattacks Are Retaliation for Pressure on WikiLeaks
A small army of activist hackers orchestrated a broad campaign of cyberattacks on Wednesday in support of the beleaguered antisecrecy organization WikiLeaks,...
From ACM News
Cables Discuss Vast Hacking by a China That Fears the Web
As China ratcheted up the pressure on Google to censor its Internet searches last year, the American Embassy sent a secret cable to Washington detailing why top...
From ACM News
WikiLeaks Struggles to Stay Online After Cyberattacks
An American provider of Internet domain names withdrew its service to the WikiLeaks Web site late Thursday after a barrage of attacks by hackers threatened to...
From ACM News
War Machines: Recruiting Robots For Combat
War would be a lot safer, the Army says, if only more of it were fought by robots.
From ACM News