Communications of the ACM
Stop Saying Driverless Cars Will Help Old People
And maybe start including them in research instead of just assuming we know what they want.
From ACM Opinion
Colonizing Mars Means Contaminating Mars, and Never Knowing for Sure If It Had Its Own Native Life
The closest place in the universe where extraterrestrial life might exist is Mars, and human beings are poised to attempt to colonize this planetary neighbor within...
From ACM Opinion
Even a Few Bots Can Shift Public Opinion in Big Ways
Nearly two-thirds of the social media bots with political activity on Twitter before the 2016 U.S. presidential election supported Donald Trump.
From ACM Opinion
My Thoughts Are My Password, Because My Brain Reactions Are nique
Your brain is an inexhaustible source of secure passwords—but you might not have to remember anything. Passwords and PINs with letters and numbers are relatively...
From ACM Opinion
Blockchains Won't Fix Internet Voting Security, and Could Make It Worse
Looking to modernize voting practices, speed waiting times at the polls, increase voter turnout and generally make voting more convenient, many government officials—and...
From ACM Opinion
Why We're Training the Next Generation of Lawyers in Big Data
Artificial intelligence is transforming the traditional delivery of legal services.
From ACM Opinion
Why the Russians Might Hack the Boy Scouts Next
In the two years since Russia made headlines for targeting an American political organization–the Democratic National Committee–and undermining Hillary Clinton's...
From ACM Opinion
Detecting 'DeepFake' Videos in the Blink of an Eye
A new form of misinformation is poised to spread through online communities as the 2018 midterm election campaigns heat up. Called "deepfakes" after the pseudonymous...
From ACM Opinion
Programmers Need Ethics When Designing the Technologies that Influence People's Lives
Computing professionals are on the front lines of almost every aspect of the modern world.
From ACM Opinion
Weaponized Information Seeks a New Target in Cyberspace: Users' Minds
The Russian attacks on the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the country's continuing election-related hacking have happened across all three dimensions of cyberspace—physical...
From ACM Opinion
Supreme Court Struggles to Define 'Searches' as Technology Changes
What the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution means when it protects citizens against an unreasonable search by government agents isn't entirely clear.
From ACM Opinion
Disrupting Pro-ISIS Online 'Ecosystems' Could Help Thwart Real-World Terrorism
Supporters of the Islamic State, or ISIS, around the world gather online, becoming members of virtual communities in much the same way any of us might join online...
From ACM Opinion
Nazis Pressed Ham Radio Hobbyists to Serve the Third Reich, but Surviving Came at a Price
When people have free and unfettered choices of activities, they both entertain and express themselves through their pastimes—whether stamp or coin collecting,...
From ACM Opinion
It's Not My Fault, My Brain Implant Made Me Do It
Mr. B loves Johnny Cash, except when he doesn't. Mr. X has watched his doctors morph into Italian chefs right before his eyes.
From ACM Opinion
How Cambridge Analytica's Facebook Targeting Model Really Worked, According to the Person Who Built It
The researcher whose work is at the center of the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data analysis and political advertising uproar has revealed that his method worked...
From ACM Opinion
Cambridge Analytica Scandal: Legitimate Researchers sing Facebook Data Could Be Collateral Damage
The scandal that has erupted around Cambridge Analytica's alleged harvesting of 50m Facebook profiles assembled from data provided by a UK-based academic and his...
From ACM Opinion
sing Blockchain to Secure the 'Internet of Things'
The world is full of connected devices—and more are coming. In 2017, there were an estimated 8.4 billion internet-enabled thermostats, cameras, streetlights and...
From ACM Opinion
Steam Not Stem: Why Scientists Need Arts training
From biotech to climate change, advances in technology raise significant moral questions. To engage responsibly, our next generation of scientists need training...
From ACM Opinion
Could Intelligent Machines of the Future Own the Rights to Their Own creations?
Intellectual property may be the legal term for creations, including literary or artistic, but there is something inherently human about it as well.
From ACM Opinion
Real Security Requires Strong Encryption–even If Investigators Get Blocked
The FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice have been fighting against easy, widespread public access to encryption technologies for 25 years.
From ACM Opinion
How the Chinese Cyberthreat Has evolved
With more than half of its 1.4 billion people online, the world's most populous country is home to a slew of cyberspies and hackers.12