Communications of the ACM articles from February 2001

Communications of the ACM archives from February 2001

Editorial Pointers.(Editorial)
February 1, 2001... DESPITE the new systems, safeguards, and laws introduced each year promising to protect our digital domain, none have managed to have the needed strength to win the war against hackers. Attacks are escalating; and the casualties (business,...

News Track.(News Briefs)
February 1, 2001... CRASH-FREE CONSORTIUM NASA, Carnegie Mellon, and a dozen leading technology firms have formed the High Dependability Computing Consortium with the goal of creating crash-free software. The group signed a three-year agreement to attack the...

FORUM.(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2001... How Can the Web Advance Western Democracies? I AGREE WITH HAL BERGHEL'S thesis ("Digital Politics 2000," Nov. 2000, p. 17) that the major presidential candidates' Web sites did nothing to advance the state of democracy. The column raises a...

Who Are We?(Industry Trend or Event)
February 1, 2001... This new column calls for information technology to be defined as a profession rather than a discipline and invites computer scientists to cross the chasm. To most of the hundred millions of computer users round the world, the inner...

Name is the Game.(Industry Trend or Event)
February 1, 2001... A rose by any other name may be just what the company needs in this manic era of corporate image adjustments. What's in a name? If it's a company name, the answer could be lots of zeroes. Megamerger mania continues in the...

To Opt-In or Opt-Out? It Depends on the Question.(Industry Trend or Event)
February 1, 2001... Permission marketing requires consumers' consent before a Web site can track them with cookies, or send them marketing email, or sell their data to another company. Yet a study by Cyber Dialogue found that 69% of U.S. Internet users did not...

SECURING NETWORK SOFTWARE APPLICATIONS.(Internet/Web/Online Service Information)
February 1, 2001... ASK A SCHOOL-AGE child about Melissa, and instead of hearing about the "red-haired girl in Mrs. Stiefel's class," the most likely answer would point to the Microsoft Word macro virus that wreaked havoc around the world in March 1999. The impact...

TRUST (AND MISTRUST) IN SECURE APPLICATIONS.(Industry Trend or Event)
February 1, 2001... Exploring and considering trust assumptions during every stage of software development. TRUST AND TRUSTWORTHINESS are the foundations of security. Homeowners trust lock manufacturers to create quality locks to protect their homes. Some...

SECURITY MODELS FOR WEB-BASED APPLICATIONS.(Internet/Web/Online Service Information)
February 1, 2001... Using traditional and emerging access control approached to develop secure applications far the Web. THE RAPID PROLIFERATION of the Internet and the cost-effective growth of its key enabling technologies are revolutionizing information...

THE PRIVACY PRACTICES OF WEB BROWSER EXTENSIONS.(Internet/Web/Online Service Information)
February 1, 2001... Whatever they are, the full terms of privacy these products offer are seldom made clear. DO TODAY'S COMMERCIAL free-of-charge software downloads show appropriate respect for the privacy of the computer user? We believe the answer to this...

SOFTWARE SECURITY AND PRIVACY RISKS IN MOBILE E-COMMERCE.(Company Business and Marketing)
February 1, 2001... Examining the risks in wireless computing that will likely influence the emerging m-commerce market. MOST CURRENT E-COMMERCE transactions are conducted by users in fixed locations using workstations and personal computers. Soon, we expect...

AN OPERATING SYSTEM APPROACH TO SECURING E-SERVICES.(Product Information)
February 1, 2001... Implementing Trusted Linux, an ideal platform for e-services application hosting. As MORE AND more services turn electronic and are exposed to the public world of the Internet, many will become attractive and lucrative targets to would-be...

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY FOR AN INFORMATION AGE.(Industry Trend or Event)
February 1, 2001... How to balance the public interest, traditional legal principles, and the emerging digital reality. Intellectual property law has suffused the consciousness of computing professionals for the past decade or so. Back in the late 1980s and...

COPYRIGHTABLE FUNCTIONS AND PATENTABLE SPEECH.(Industry Trend or Event)
February 1, 2001... Defying the legal categories of patent, copyright, and protected speech, and barring a new category all its own, software may be destined for further awkward accommodation in established law. Computer software is characterized by features...

THE DIGITAL DILEMMA.(Industry Trend or Event)
February 1, 2001... How intellectual property laws might embrace the apparently paradoxical goals of motivating individual creation and preserving the ultimate benefits of that creation for the common good. The combination of technologies making up the...

THE BATTLE OVER THE INSTITUTIONAL ECOSYSTEM IN THE DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT.(Industry Trend or Event)
February 1, 2001... How U.S. law, by adding exclusive private rights to information, favors traditional industrial production of information products and discourages the emerging culture of Net-based peer production. The 1990s saw a series of technological...

THE COLLISION OF TRADEMARKS. DOMAIN NAMES, AND DUE PROCESS IN CYBERSPACE.(Internet/Web/Online Service Information)
February 1, 2001... The increasingly uneasy coexistence between the Internet's domain-name system and established trademark law raises questions about whether the Internet's regulations are technically expert or democratic and fair. The domain-name system...

IS VIRTUAL TRESPASS AN APT ANALOGY?(Government Activity)
February 1, 2001... Despite the appeal of equating virtual and real property rights, providing relatively open Web access is likely to yield a more vibrant Internet. Legal doctrine often evolves both more slowly than the conduct and the technology it is...

What to Know About Risks.(Column)
February 1, 2001... In this column, we assert that deeper knowledge of fundamental principles of computer technology and their implications will be increasingly essential in the future for a wide spectrum of individuals and groups, each with its own particular...