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
How Hacked Water Heaters Could Trigger Mass Blackouts
When the cybersecurity industry warns about the nightmare of hackers causing blackouts, the scenario they describe typically entails an elite team of hackers ...
From ACM News
This Bomb-Simulating S Supercomputer Broke a World Record
Brad Settlemyer had a supercomputing solution in search of a problem.
From ACM News
The Big Problem with Big Data? Without Theory, It's Just Garbage
"The idea that big data will enable more control of behavior may be a lot of hype."
From ACM Careers
Shadow Politics: Meet the Digital Sleuth Exposing Fake News
When we met in early March, Jonathan Albright was still shrugging off a sleepless weekend.
From ACM News
The Unexpected Fallout of Iran's Telegram Ban
Seven weeks after Iran's conservative-led judiciary banned the secure communications app Telegram inside the country, Iranians are still reeling from the change...
From ACM News
Tech Firms Move to Put Ethical Guard Rails Around AI
One day last summer, Microsoft's director of artificial intelligence research, Eric Horvitz, activated the Autopilot function of his Tesla sedan.
From ACM News
House Democrats Release 3,500 Russia-Linked Facebook Ads
On Thursday, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee published more than 3,500 Facebook and Instagram ads linked to the Russian propaganda group Internet...
From ACM News
Cracking the Crypto War
On December 2, 2015, a man named Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, opened fire on employees of the Department of Public Health in San Bernardino,...
From ACM TechNews
Most Links to Popular Sites on Twitter Come From Bots
Sixty-six percent of links to popular sites shared on Twitter stem from automated accounts, including legitimate accounts from organizations that schedule tweets...
From ACM TechNews
A 200-Year-Old Idea Offers a New Way to Trace Stolen Bitcoins
Researchers are using an 1816 legal precedent to track down stolen bitcoins.
From ACM News
The Next NSA Chief Is More sed to Cyberwar Than Spy Games
After sailing through two friendly Senate hearings—one so uncontroversial that only six senators tops bothered to even show up at any given point in the hour—Lieutenant...
From ACM News
Emmanuel Macron Talks About France's AI Strategy
The French government will spend €1.5 billion ($1.85 billion) over five years to support research in artificial intelligence, encourage startups, and collect data...
From ACM News
Facebook's New Data Restrictions Will Handcuff Even Honest Researchers
Last week, when news broke (again) that Cambridge Analytica had allegedly misused 50 million Facebook users' data, it immediately raised a difficult question: When...
From ACM News
Europe's New Privacy Law Will Change the Web, and More
Consumers have long wondered just what Google and Facebook know about them, and who else can access their personal data. But internet giants have little incentive...
From ACM News
The Decentralized Internet Is Here, With Some Glitches
I usually write in Google's online word processor Google Docs, even when noting the company's shortcomings.
From ACM News
Spoof, Jam, Destroy: Why We Need a Backup for GPS
Earth got a warning shot on January 25, 2016. On that day, Air Force engineers were scheduled to kill off a GPS satellite named SVN-23—the oldest in the navigation...
From ACM News
Microsoft's Supreme Court Case Has Big Implications For Data
Five years ago, US law enforcement served Microsoft a search warrant for emails as part of a US drug trafficking investigation. In response, Microsoft handed over...
From ACM News
Inside the Two Years that Shook Facebook, and the World
One day in late February of 2016, Mark Zuckerberg sent a memo to all of Facebook's employees to address some troubling behavior in the ranks.
From ACM News
Mind the Gap: This Researcher Steals Data With Noise, Light, and Magnets
The field of cybersecurity is obsessed with preventing and detecting breaches, finding every possible strategy to keep hackers from infiltrating your digital inner...
From ACM Careers