Communications of the ACM - September 2016

108 Pages·2016·12.642 MB·English

by  Moshe Y. Vardi (Editor-in-Chief)

COMMUNICAT I ONS
CACM.ACM.ORG OF THEA CM 09/2016 VOL.59 NO.09
Automating
Data Citation
Academic Rankings
Considered Harmful
Keeping the Internet Open
Designing AI Systems that
Obey Our Laws and Values
Bad Software Architecture
Is a People Problem Association for
Computing Machinery
31st
IEEE
(cid:127) 2 0 1 7(cid:127)
INTERNATIONAL
Parallel May 29-June 2, 2017
and
Buena Vista Palace Hotel
Distributed Orlando, Florida USA
Processing www.ipdps.org
SYMPOSIUM
Orlando is home to a rich offering of indoor and outdoor attractions. Located a mile from Walt Disney World® and 4 miles from
Epcot, the Buena Vista Palace Hotel is a 5-minute walk from Downtown Disney with a complimentary shuttle to all Disney Theme
Parks and Water Parks. The sprawling Lake Buena Vista resort offers a full menu of amenities and family friendly activities as well
as ideal meeting space for IPDPS 2017.
IPDPS 2017 CALL FOR PAPERS GENERAL CHAIR
Authors are invited to submit manuscripts that present original unpublished Michela Taufer
research in all areas of parallel and distributed processing, including the development (University of Delaware, USA)
of experimental or commercial systems. Work focusing on emerging technologies
and interdisciplinary work covering multiple IPDPS areas are especially welcome. PROGRAM CHAIR
During submission, authors can indicate up to three subject areas that can come Marc Snir
from any track. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: (University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, USA)
(cid:127) Parallel and distributed algorithms, focusing on topics such as: numerical and PROGRAM VICE-CHAIRS
combinatorial parallel algorithms for analysis, machine learning and simulation;
(cid:127) Algorithms:
parallel algorithms for accelerators, neuromorphic architectures, and other
Pierre Fraigniaud (IRIF, France)
non-traditional systems; algorithms for cloud computing; power-aware parallel
algorithms; streaming algorithms; domain-specific parallel and distributed (cid:127) Applications:
algorithms; performance modeling and analysis of parallel and distributed Robert D. Moser (UT Austin, USA) )
algorithms; run-time algorithms and protocols for resource management, (cid:127) Architecture:
communication and synchronization on parallel and distributed systems.. Hillery Hunter (IBM Research, USA)
& Robert Senger (IBM Research, USA)
(cid:127) Applications of parallel and distributed computing, including computational and
(cid:127) Software:
data-enabled science and engineering, big data applications, parallel crowd
Pavan Balaji (Argonne National Lab, USA)
sourcing, large-scale social network analysis, management of big data, cloud and
grid computing, scientific, biological and medical applications, and mobile (cid:127) Multidisciplinary:
computing. Papers focusing on applications using novel commercial or research Torsten Hoefler (ETH Zurich, Switzerland)
architectures, big data approaches, or discussing scalability toward the exascale
level are encouraged. KEYNOTES & TECHNICAL SESSIONS
(cid:127) Parallel and distributed architectures, including architectures for
WORKSHOPS & PHD FORUM
instruction-level and thread-level parallelism; petascale and exascale systems
designs; novel big data architectures; special purpose architectures, including
COMMERCIAL PARTICIPATION
graphics processors, signal processors, network processors, media accelerators,
and other special purpose processors and accelerators; impact of technology on
Details at www.ipdps.org
architecture; network and interconnect architectures; parallel I/O and storage
systems; architecture of the memory hierarchy; power-efficient and green
computing architectures; dependable architectures; and performance modeling IMPORTANT DATES
and evaluation.
October 18, 2016 Submit Abstract
(cid:127) Parallel and distributed software, including parallel and multicore programming
October 23, 2016 Submit Paper
languages and compilers, runtime systems, operating systems, resource
Nov 28 – Dec 5, 2016 Review Feedback & Author Response
management including, middleware for supercomputers, grids, clouds, and data
January 8, 2017 Author Notification
centers, libraries, performance modeling and evaluation, parallel programming
paradigms, and programming environments and tools. Papers focusing on novel After January 8, 2017 Deadlines for Paper
Submissions to Most Workshops
software systems for big data and exascale systems are encouraged.
IN COOPERATION WITH:
SPONSORED BY:
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IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Computer Architecture
Technical Committee on Parallel Processing IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Distributed Processing
Archivio APT Trento, Monte Bondone, Valle dei Laghi - foto M. Rensi;MUSE Archivio Muse - foto Hufton_Crow; fototonina.com
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MIDDLEWARE CONFERENCE
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TRENTO, ITALY
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE This annual conference is the premier event for innovations
and recent advances in middleware systems, focusing on the
GENERAL CHAIR
design, implementation, deployment and evaluation of distributed
Gian Pietro Picco, University of Trento, Italy
system platforms and architectures for computing, storage, and
PROGRAM CHAIRS
communication environments.
Sonia Ben Mokhtar, LIRIS-CNRS, France
Dejan Milojicic, Hewlett Packard Labs, USA HIGHLIGHTS
WORKSHOPS AND TUTORIAL CHAIRS
(cid:127) A high-quality single-track technical program
Anirüddhā Gokhālé, Vanderbilt University, USA
Guillaume Pierre, IRISA, Université de Rennes, France (cid:127) An industry track emphasizing real-world experiences
POSTER AND DEMO CHAIRS (cid:127) Posters and demonstrations
Paolo Costa, Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK
(cid:127) A doctoral symposium for young researchers
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COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM
Departments News Viewpoints
5 Editor’s Letter 20 Law and Technology
Academic Rankings No Easy Answers in the Fight
Considered Harmful! Over iPhone Decryption
By Moshe Y. Vardi A look at the legal background and
future possibilities for an issue that
7 Cerf’s Up is likely to reoccur.
Keeping the Internet Open By Felix Wu
By Vinton G. Cerf
23 The Profession of IT
8 Letters to the Editor Software Quality
Election Auditing and Verifiability Software users are looking more and
more for software that delights.
25 Calendar By Peter J. Denning
14
98 Careers 26 Broadening Participation
“For All” in “Computer Science
11 Reconciling Quantum Physics For All”
Last Byte with Math Seeking to expand inclusiveness in
Mathematicians explore computer science education.
104 Q&A the root of many problems in By Richard E. Ladner and Maya Israel
Hello, Underworld developing a proof for
Stefan Savage’s innovative the Kadison-Singer problem. 29 Viewpoint
research has focused on By Chris Edwards Designing AI Systems that
strengthening the security, privacy, Obey Our Laws and Values
and reliability of networks. 14 GPUs Reshape Computing Calling for research on
By Leah Hoffmann Graphical processing units automatic oversight for
have emerged as a major powerhouse artificial intelligence systems.
in the computing world, By Amitai Etzioni and Oren Etzioni
unleashing huge advancements
in deep learning and AI. 32 Viewpoint
By Samuel Greengard Helping Conference Attendees Better
Understand Research Presentations
17 The Edge of the Uncanny Sharing lessons learned from
Scientists are learning more a lecture program for making
about what makes robots technical material more accessible
and chatbots engaging. to conference attendees.
By Gregory Mone By Ethan Katz-Bassett et al.
35 Viewpoint
A New Look at the Semantic Web
Seeking to make Web data “smarter”
by utilizing a new kind of semantics.
By Abraham Bernstein, James Hendler, A
DI
and Natalya Noy NVI
M/
O
GEFORCE.C
OF
Association for Computing Machinery OURTESY
Advancing Computing as a Science & Profession AGE C
M
I
2 COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM | SEPTEMBER 2016 | VOL. 59 | NO. 9
09/2016
VOL. 59 NO. 09
Practice Contributed Articles Review Articles
68 Learning Executable
Semantic Parsers for Natural
Language Understanding
Semantic parsing is a rich fusion of
the logical and the statistical worlds.
By Percy Liang
Research Highlights
78 Technical Perspective
The Dawn of Computational
Light Transport
By Kyros Kutulakos
44 58
79 Imaging the Propagation
38 Introducing Research for Practice 50 Why Data Citation Is a of Light through Scenes
Expert-curated guides to Computational Problem at Picosecond Resolution
the best of CS research. Using database views to specify By Andreas Velten, Di Wu,
By Peter Bailis, Simon Peter, citable units is the key to Belen Masia, Adrian Jarabo,
Justine Sherry generating citations to data. Christopher Barsi, Chinmaya Joshi,
By Peter Buneman, Susan Davidson, Everett Lawson, Moungi Bawendi,
42 Bad Software Architecture and James Frew Diego Gutierrez, and Ramesh Raskar
Is a People Problem
When people don’t work well Watch the author discuss
together they make bad decisions. Watch the author discuss his work in this exclusive
her work in this exclusive Communications video.
By Kate Matsudaira Communications video. http://cacm.acm.org/videos/
http://cacm.acm.org/videos/ imaging-the-propagation-
why-data-citation-is-a- of-light-through-scenes-at-
44 10 Optimizations on Linear Search computational-problem picosecond-resolution
The operations side of the story.
By Thomas A. Limoncelli 58 Dynamic Presentation Consistency 87 Technical Perspective
Issues in Smartphone Mapping Apps Jupiter Rising
Articles’ development led by Smartphone mapping apps By Andrew W. Moore
queue.acm.org routinely fail to follow centuries-old
mapmaking dynamic consistency 88 Jupiter Rising: A Decade
principles and practices. of Clos Topologies and
By Hanan Samet, Sarana Nutanong, Centralized Control in
and Brendan C. Fruin Google’s Datacenter Network
By Arjun Singh, Joon Ong,
Amit Agarwal, Glen Anderson,
Ashby Armistead, Roy Bannon,
About the Cover:
Information once found Seb Boving, Gaurav Desai,
only in publications is
Bob Felderman, Paulie Germano,
now housed just as often
in complex datasets and Anand Kanagala, Hong Liu,
M databases. The ability
HUTTERSTOCK.CO ahTtinosah tscicsh ioft emren us vodsaenitmgnrtaithteitao’ semln d ciana oalnf vuocnetirterhma rost a rtioostin.ro ysn JEUaenirfisdfc hPH Airöm oTlvzainolnes Vd,t aS,a Jth,a eJdpsiamohtne W nS iaSmntumdaeorrnte,rs ,,
M S explores why data citation
AGERY FRO iphsro oawb c ltoeomm gp eaunntedar tapiotreen sadela nttas
M citations automatically. Cover illustration by Yippiehey.
I
SEPTEMBER 2016 | VOL. 59 | NO. 9 | COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM 3
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4 COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM | SEPTEMBER 2016 | VOL. 59 | NO. 9
editor’s letter
DOI:10.1145/2980760 Moshe Y. Vardi
Academic Rankings
But the academic value of such a judge-
ment is dubious. Furthermore, com-
Considered Harmful!
mercial ranking organizations tweak
their mappings regularly in order to
create movement in the rankings.
ACADEMIC RANKINGS HAVE a up with a score for the over 100 ranked After all, if you are in the business of
huge presence in academia. programs. Obviously, very little con- selling ranking information, than you
College rankings by U.S. templation went into my scores. In need movement in the rankings for
News and World Report (US- fact, my answers have clearly been in- the business to be viable. Using such
NWR) help undergradu- fluenced by prior-year rankings. It is a rankings for academic decision mak-
ate students find the “perfect school.” well-known “secret” that rankings of ing is letting third-party business in-
Graduate-program rankings by USNWR graduate programs of universities of terests influence our academic values.
are often the most significant decision- outstanding reputation are buoyed by Thus, to the question “Should CRA
making factor for prospective gradu- the halo effect of their parent institu- get involved in creating a ranking?”
ate students. The Academic Ranking tions’ reputations. Such reputational my answer is “absolutely not.” I do not
of World Universities (known also as rankings have no academic value believe that “sensible rankings” can
the “Shanghai Ranking”) is one that at- whatsoever, I believe, though they be defined. The U.S. National Research
tracts much attention from university clearly play a major role in academic Council’s attempt in 2010 to come up
presidents and governing boards. New decision making. with an evidence-based ranking map-
academic rankings, of many different But the problem is deeper than the ping is widely considered a notorious
forms and flavors, have been popping current flawed methodology of US- failure. Furthermore, I believe the CRA
up regularly over the last few years. NWR’s ranking of graduate programs. should pass a resolution encouraging
Yet, there is also deep dissatisfaction Academic rankings, in general, provide its members to stop participating in
in the academic community with the highly misleading ways to inform aca- the USNWR surveys and discouraging
methodology of such rankings and with demic decision making by individu- students from using these rankings
the outsize role that commercial entities als. An academic program or unit is a for their own decision making. In-
play in the ranking business. The recent highly complex entity with numerous stead, CRA should help well-informed
biennial meeting of the Computing Re- attributes. An academic decision is typ- academic decision making by creating
search Association (CRA) dedicated a ically a multi-objective optimization a data portal providing public access
session to this topic (see http://cra.org/ problem, in which the objective func- to relevant information about gradu-
events/snowbird-2016/#agenda), assert- tion is highly personal. A unidimen- ate programs. Such information can
ing that “Many members of our commu- sional ranking provides a seductively be gathered from an extended version
nity currently feel the need for an au- easy objective function to optimize. of the highly respected Taulbee Survey
thoritative ranking of CS departments Yet such decision making ignores the that CRA has been running for over
in North America” and asking “Should complex interplay between individual 40 years, as well as from various open
CRA be involved in creating a ranking?” preferences and programs’ unique pat- sources. CRA could also provide an API
The rationale for that idea is the com- terns of strengths and weaknesses. De- to enable users to construct their own
puting-research community will be cision making by ranking is decision ranking based on the data provided.
better served by helping to create some making by lazy minds, I believe. Academic rankings are harmful,
“sensible rankings.” Furthermore, academic rankings I believe. We have a responsibility to
The methodology currently used have adverse effects on academia. better inform the public, by ceasing
by USNWR to rank computer-science Such rankings are generally computed to “play the ranking games” and by
graduate program is highly question- by devising a mapping from the com- providing the public with relevant in-
able. This ranking is based solely on plex space of program attributes to a formation. The only way to do that is
“reputational standing” in which de- unidimensional space. Clearly, many by asserting the collective voice of the
partment chairs and graduate direc- such mappings exist. Each ranking is computing-research community.
tors are asked to rank each graduate based on a specific “methodology,” Follow me on Facebook, Google+,
program on a 1–5 scale. Having par- that is, a specific ranking mapping. and Twitter.
ticipated in such reputational sur- The choice of mapping is completely
veys for many years, I can testify that arbitrary and reflects some “judge- Moshe Y. Vardi, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
I spent about a second or two coming ment” by the ranking organization. Copyright held by author.
SEPTEMBER 2016 | VOL. 59 | NO. 9 | COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM 5
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cerf’s up
DOI:10.1145/2980762 Vinton G. Cerf
Keeping the Internet Open
The Internet has always been open, or so it
for individuals, corporations, and even
has been for much of its existence. Open to nations, if we are to keep the Internet
open and to avoid catastrophic closing
new ideas, new protocols, new applications,
of its boundless shores.
and new technology. But not everyone or As the Internet infrastructure be-
comes increasingly vital to the global
economy and well-being of Internauts
every regime sees the bounty of free- exploitable software are necessary and everywhere, nations will need new
dom of expression and invention. await invention or use. practices to respond to perceived na-
Some see an open wound into which Nor can the users of the Internet es- tional security threats. Cyber-hotlines,
every source of pestilence pours. cape some responsibility. Their poor like those created in the tense days of
Threatened by sunlight, authoritarian choices of passwords and naïve clicking the Cold War, may prove essential to
governments seek to shutter freedom on phishing email messages, with their avoid offensive cyber or even military
of access to this creative infrastructure. virus-laden content, open pathways for responses to cyber-attacks subject to
They point to the worst content, the those with harmful intent. We have an misattribution of origin. Misunder-
harmful malware and the cyber-attacks obligation to teach safe network usage standings between nations or even
that damage the users of the Internet to and practices to all who look for positive between domestic citizens and law en-
justify their policies and rhetoric. And, utility in this global network of networks. forcement can visit untold harm on ev-
in this, they are not entirely wrong. In a society of laws, the freedom we enjoy eryone and lasting damage to freedom
There is malware and there are serious comes in part from protection against in its many dimensions. Just as DNA
cyber-attacks and weaknesses. Some the harmful actions of law-breakers. We analysis has proven to be a powerful, if
regimes, while speaking out against rely, in part, on enforcement of the law not always perfect, tool for truth, a cy-
these challenges, even contribute to to maintain the safety that we, and our ber-counterpart may be needed to aid
them by sanctioning or launching their fellow Internauts, wish to enjoy. But in in the identification of criminal actors
own attacks. some societies, laws that limit freedom pursuing their aims along domestic or
Those who maintain, operate, and of expression, peaceful assembly, and transnational courses.
evolve the Internet have an obligation to access to information stifle the ben- What we should not and must not
find ways to protect its users from these efits that derive from freedom, and tolerate is the arbitrary shutting down
very threats. Those who offer and who mock the very openness that lies at of pathways that can and do link to-
benefit from the cornucopia of applica- the heart of the Internet. Irrational re- gether our increasingly global societ-
tions the Internet can support have an sponses to real and perceived potential ies. Discovery of diverse cultural, liter-
opportunity to contribute to the safety, harms lead to unenforceable legal re- ary, and historical heritage, and their
security, privacy, and reliability of the In- gimes and do more damage than good. digital preservation should animate our
ternet upon which so many now depend Readers of this column should feel purpose in keeping the Internet open.
and so many more wish to have access. some measure of responsibility to Online facilitation of commerce of all
To those who have spoken for and fashion new and apply known means kinds has enhanced our lives. Every per-
who espouse an open and welcoming to increase the safety and security of son on the planet should have the free-
Internet now falls the task of keeping the Internet while fostering the evolu- dom to access and to contribute to the
it that way. To do so will require more tion of new and increasingly useful ap- increasing utility of the Internet. Four
than words and argument. Substantive plications. In some very direct sense, decades have passed since its invention
improvements in the Internet’s resil- computer science and engineering and we still have work ahead to assure
ience and resistance to attack are need- house the knowledge and methods its utility for many decades to come un-
ed. Firewalls and passwords are not needed to achieve these goals. Designs til it, too, is replaced by something even
enough. Strong authentication, cryptog- and practices that resist cyber-attacks better and more beneficial.
raphy, and attack-resistant operating of all kinds are needed. But this chal-
systems, browsers, and other applica- lenge will not be successfully met Vinton G. Cerf is vice president and Chief Internet Evangelist
tions are needed. Better programming solely with technology. Transnational at Google. He served as ACM president from 2012–2014.
environments that produce less buggy, standards of behavior will be needed Copyright held by author.
SEPTEMBER 2016 | VOL. 59 | NO. 9 | COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM 7
letters to the editor
DOI:10.1145/2977335
Election Auditing and Verifiability
OVERALL, THE INSIDE RISKS Such methods may thus be useful not tage by impersonating an AI. For in-
Viewpoint “The Risks of only for election audits but elsewhere. stance, in a world where autonomous
Self-Auditing Systems” by J oseph Kiniry, Portland, OR, and vehicles are allowed smaller following
Rebecca T. Mercuri and Pe- Ronald L. Rivest, Cambridge, MA distances and prompt extra caution
ter G. Neumann (June 2016) from nearby human drivers, a human
was excellent, and we applaud its call could install an “I am autonomous”
for auditing systems by independent Authors Respond: identity device in order to tailgate and
entities to ensure correctness and trust- We cannot fully elucidate here the flaws in weave through traffic with impunity,
worthiness. However, with respect to each of the many proposed cryptographically having won unearned trust from other
voting, it said, “Some research has been verifiable voting subsystems. Their drivers and vehicles.
devoted to end-to-end cryptographic complexity and that of the surrounding A similar situation could arise with
verification that would allow voters to systems environments undemocratically the advent of bots that act as interme-
demonstrate their choices were cor- shifts the confirmation of correct diaries between humans and online
rectly recorded and accurately counted. implementation to a scant few intellectually services, including, say, banks. As bots
However, this concept (as with Internet elite citizens, if even accomplishable within become more trusted, a human-in-the-
voting) enables possibilities of vote an election cycle. However, all of these middle attack could compromise every-
buying and selling.” This statement is methods have vulnerabilities similar to the one’s private data.
incorrect. Volkswagen emission system; that is, stealth At perhaps the outer reaches of tech-
While Internet voting (like any code can be triggered situationally, appearing no-legal tension, we could even imag-
remote-voting method) is indeed vul- correct externally while internally shifting ine the advent of identity theft where
nerable to vote buying and selling, vote tallies in favor of certain candidates over the individual is an AI, lovingly brought
end-to-end verifiable voting is not. others. We have previously discussed the to life by a Google or an Amazon, and
Poll-site-based end-to-end verifiable incompleteness of cryptographic solutions the thief to be punished is a human
voting systems use cryptographic meth- embedded in untrustworthy infrastructures, impersonator. Is this the route through
ods to ensure voters can verify their own potentially enabling ballot contents to be which AIs might someday become le-
votes are correctly recorded and tallied manipulated or detected via vote-selling gal persons? In a world where the U.S.
while (paradoxically) not enabling tags (such as write-in candidates or other Supreme Court has already extended
them to demonstrate how they voted triggers). The mathematics of close elections constitutional free speech rights to cor-
to anyone else. also requires that a very high percentage of porations, this scenario seems quite
Mercuri and Neumann also said, ballots (over 95%) be independently checked plausible.
“[end-to-end verifiability] raises serious against the digital record, which is not likely Mark Grossman, Palo Alto, CA
questions of the correctness of the cryp- to occur, leaving the results unverified.
tographic algorithms and their imple- Rebecca T. Mercuri, Hamilton, NJ, and
mentation.” This sentence is potentially Peter G. Neumann, Menlo Park, CA Author Responds:
misleading, as it suggests confidence in Grossman makes a valid point. Just as we
the correctness of the election outcome do not wants bots to be intentionally or
requires confidence in the correctness of Unintended Consequences unintentionally mistaken for human—as I
the implementation of the cryptographic of Trusting AIs suggested in my Viewpoint—we also do not
algorithms. But end-to-verifiable voting Toby Walsh’s Viewpoint “Turing’s Red want the reverse. The autonomous-only lane
systems are designed to be “fail safe”; if Flag” (July 2016) raised very good points on the highway should not have humans in it
the cryptographic algorithms in the vot- about the safety of increasingly human- pretending to be, say, the equivalent of more-
ing system are implemented incorrectly, like AI and proposed some common- capable autonomous drivers.
the audit will indeed fail. Poor crypto im- sense law to anticipate potential risks. Toby Walsh, Berlin, Germany
plementations in the voting system will It is wise to discuss such protections
not allow an audit to approve an incor- before the technology itself is perfect-
rect election outcome. ed. Too often the law trails the tech- More to Asimov’s First Law
Finally, we note that end-to-end veri- nology, as with the Digital Millennium In his Viewpoint (July 2016), Toby Walsh
fiable election methods are a special Copyright Act in response—perhaps a argued for some sort of preliminary in-
case of “verifiable computation,” where- decade late—to illegal file sharing. dication in cases in which a human is in-
by a program can produce not only a Walsh primarily addressed the po- teracting with a robot. I suggest he check
correct result but also a “proof” that it tential threat of autonomous systems Isaac Asimov’s classic science fiction
is the correct result for the given inputs. being mistaken for humans, but what novels Caves of Steel (1953) and The Na-
Of course, the inputs need to be agreed about the reverse? Humans could gain ked Sun (1957) for an earlier treatment
upon before such a proof makes sense. an unfair or even a dangerous advan- of the topic. In the latter work especially,
8 COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM | SEPTEMBER 2016 | VOL. 59 | NO. 9