Communications of the ACM articles from February 1999

Communications of the ACM archives from February 1999

News Track.(News Briefs)
February 1, 1999... "Any store not open 24 hours will be noncompetitive. The idea that we collectively rush off to watch a TV program at 9 p.m. will be nothing less than goofy. It will make sense only for sporting events... and that's because people are...

Y2K COUNTDOWN.(Government Activity)
February 1, 1999... BOGUS CHIPS LURKING Minor Y2K problems to chew on: DEVICE POTENTIAL PROBLEMS Traffic Lights Intersections won't be in synch with each other Elevators Elevators may return to lobby and stay open Airplanes ...

The Next Generation of Business Data Processing.(Company Business and Marketing)
February 1, 1999... Business data processing has evolved over the last 50 years. The first influential electronic computer, the Eniac, was designed to do numeric calculations. But the ink was barely dry on their patent applications when project leaders J....

The Privacy Hoax.(privacy is dead in digital world)(Industry Trend or Event)
February 1, 1999... Privacy in the digital age is dead. At best, one of our most cherished rights as members of a free society is on life support, kept alive by cybercratic ramblings of an electronic fringe unable to come to grips with reality. In a police...

Computing in Lebanon.(Industry Trend or Event)
February 1, 1999... How a professor of computer science returned otter the country's civil war to help build the national Information Infrastructure--and her own career. I still find it difficult to suppress images of spring 1986. While the Lebanese civil...

Internet Privacy.(anonymity tools)(Technology Information)(Technical)
February 1, 1999... Privacy was a sensitive issue long before the advent of computers. Concerns have been magnified, however, by the existence and widespread use of large computer databases that make it easy to compile a dossier about an individual from many...

Anonymous Web Transactions with Crowds.(software anonymity engine)(Technology Information)(Technical)
February 1, 1999... An innovative way to become an invisible user is simply to get lost in the crowd. After all, anonymity loves company. Web server log files are riddled with information about the users who visit them. Obviously, a server can record the...

Onion Routing for Anonymous and Private Internet Connections.(general-purpose anonymity infrastructure)(Technology Information)(Technical)
February 1, 1999... One way to camouflage communication over a public network is to mingle connections from a variety of users and applications to make them difficult to distinguish. Preserving privacy means not only hiding the content of messages, but also...

Consistent, Yet Anonymous, Web Access with LPWA.(Lucent Personalized Web Assistant)(Company Business and Marketing)(Technical)
February 1, 1999... The lucent Personalized Web Assistant offers a single, effective method for adopting differing personae. The World-Wide Web has become an immensely popular and powerful medium in recent years. To attract more users, many Web sites offer...

The Platform for Privacy Preferences.(World-Wide Web Consortium's Platform for Privacy Preferences Project, Web site privacy)(Internet/Web/Online Service Information)
February 1, 1999... Web sites can bolster user confidence by clarifying their privacy practices upfront, allowing visitors to become active players in the decision-making process. Internet users are concerned about the privacy of information they supply to...

TRUSTe: An Online Privacy Seal Program.(Company Business and Marketing)
February 1, 1999... A trustmark displayed on a home page informs visitors of the security practices conducted at the site. According to a recent Business Week/Harris survey [1], privacy is the number one consumer issue facing the Internet--ahead of...

Internet Privacy Concerns Confirm the Case for Intervention.(Industry Trend or Event)
February 1, 1999... Public confidence in matters of online privacy seemingly lessens as the Internet grows. Indeed, there is mounting evidence the necessary remedy may be a protective framework that includes (gulp) legislative provisions. Cyberspace is...

Y2K COMPLIANCE AND THE DISTRIBUTED ENTERPRISE.(Industry Trend or Event)
February 1, 1999... It's not just mainframe-based applications: servers and workstations pose significant Y2K problem risks for organizations and individuals. Resolving the problem of Y2K compliance is a serious issue for the Distributed enterprise. As...

The Realities of Software Technology Payoffs.(Technology Information)
February 1, 1999... Too few studies, and the benefits don't match the claims. During the 1980s, a great deal of emphasis was placed on software productivity improvements. New technologies were explored and advocated that were claimed to give "orders of...

THE ROLE OF TRUST IN OUTSOURCED IS DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS.(Industry Trend or Event)
February 1, 1999... Don't lose sight of the structure of the relationship between client and vendor, and don't be a stranger. Katherine M. Hudson, the former kodak executive well known for outsourcing Kodak's IS activities to EDS a decade ago, once said,...

On Defining Computer Science Terminology.(Technology Information)
February 1, 1999... A general problem with computer science terminology is that some terms are often used for different concepts and that the same concepts are denoted by different terms. To a great extent, this is due to the rapid advances in computer science...

Robust Open-Source Software.(Technology Information)
February 1, 1999... Closed-source proprietary software, which is seemingly the lifeblood of computer system entrepreneurs, tends to have associated risks: * Unavailability of source code reduces on-site adaptability and repairability. * Inscrutability...