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
Appeals Court Oks Warrantless Wiretapping
The federal government may spy on Americans' communications without warrants and without fear of being sued, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in a decision...
From ACM Opinion
How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking
In the space of one hour, my entire digital life was destroyed.
From ACM News
Does Cybercrime Really Cost $1 Trillion?
Gen. Keith Alexander is the director of the National Security Agency and oversees U.S. Cyber Command, which means he leads the government's effort to protect America...
From ACM Opinion
Russia's Top Cyber Sleuth Foils S Spies, Helps Kremlin Pals
It's early February in Cancun, Mexico. A group of 60 or so financial analysts, reporters, diplomats, and cybersecurity specialists shake off the previous night's...
From ACM TechNews
Study: Twitter Analysis Can Be Used to Detect Psychopathy
Researchers at Florida Atlantic University, the Online Privacy Foundation, and Kaggle recently invited computer scientists to develop models that can identify psychopathy...
From ACM News
Gps Hijacking Catches Feds, Drone Makers Off Guard
On June 19, when University of Texas researchers successfully hijacked a drone by "spoofing" it— giving it bad GPS coordinates–they showed the Department of Homeland...
From ACM News
Newest U.s. Counterterrorism Strategy: Trolling
In the decade since 9/11, the U.S. government has used a wide variety of tactics against terrorists.
From ACM News
Mahdi, the Messiah, Found Infecting Systems in Iran, Israel
Who knew that when the Messiah arrived to herald the Day of Judgment he'd first root through computers to steal documents and record conversations?
From ACM TechNews
New Patent Office Fighting Tech Giants For Talent
Silicon Valley is one of four areas that will soon have a regional U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and the challenge will be how to attract and retain qualified...
From ACM News
Google Shaman Explains Mysteries of 'compute Engine'
Google started work on the Google Compute Engine over a year and a half ago, and it was all Peter Magnusson could do to keep his mouth shut.
From ACM News
'leap Second' Bug Wreaks Havoc Across Web
Reddit, Mozilla, Gawker, and possibly many other web outfits experienced brief technical problems on Saturday evening, when software underpinning their online operations...
From ACM Careers
.s. Needs Another 600 Humans to Fly Its Robot Planes
The Pentagon doesn't have nearly enough people to operate its growing fleet of flying robots. Right now, the U.S. Air Force is short nearly 600 drone pilots and...
From ACM Opinion
Berners-Lee: World Finally Realizes Web Belongs To No One
Sir Tim Berners-Lee is the reason you're reading this story in a web browser, complete with hypertext like this and an internet address that looks like this: ...
From ACM Opinion
Craig Venter Wants to Solve the World's Energy Crisis
There is one version of Craig Venter's life story where he would’ve been a dutiful scientist at the National Institutes of Health, a respected yet anonymous researcher...
From ACM News
High Court to Hear Warrantless Eavesdropping Challenge
The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether to halt a legal challenge to a once-secret warrantless surveillance program targeting Americans' communications...
From ACM Opinion
Meet the Man Who Invented the Instructions For the Internet
Steve Crocker was there when the Internet was born.
From ACM News
Onstar Files Patents For Minority Report-Style Billboards
Two weeks ago, a patent filing by General Motors was uncovered that proposed using data collected from its OnStar service to tailor public advertisements to individual...
From ACM News