ACM RISKS Forum

The ACM RISKS Forum, moderated by CCPP Chair Peter Neumann, is an online dialogue on risks to the public in computers and related systems, and is heavily involved in issues such as human safety, privacy, ethics, and legal responsibility. The RISKS Forum activity involves many people around the world, some of whom are contributing to the CCPP effort through their RISKS submissions.

Inside Risks is a regular column appearing in Communications of the ACM, edited by Peter Neumann and consisting of articles by various contributors, some of whom are on the CCPP. An archive of the columns is available at http://www.CSL.sri.com/neumann/insiderisks.html.

Edited and distilled highlights from the columns appear bimonthly in ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes.

The purpose of the ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy (CCPP) is to:

1. Aid ACM in internationally relevant issues relating to computers and public policy
2. Help make ACM more visible worldwide.
   • The most visible project is the ACM Forum on Risks to the Public in Computers and Related Systems (RISKS Forum), established in 1985.  

There is some overlap with other ACM committees. (For example, Peter Neumann is an active member of both CCPP and USACM.) However, the charters of CCPP and USACM are quite different. Although there is some commonality of problem areas, CCPP considers the problems globally and in some cases universally, whereas USACM has an explicitly US-centric focus.

Each July, CCPP publishes its annual report detailing activities from the previous fiscal year.

• Peter G. Neumann, pneumannacm.org
• Steve Bellovin, smbcolumbia.cs.edu
• Peter J. Denning, pjdnps.edu
• Kevin Fu, kevinfuumich.edu
• Virgil Gligor, gligoreng.umd.edu
• Nancy Leveson, levesonmit.edu David Parnas, http://wapedia.mobi/en/David_Parnas
• Jerry Saltzer, saltzermit.edu
• Lauren Weinstein, laurenvortex.com