Re: Quantum computing is a reality!
Posted: Tue Oct 29, 2019 1:48 am
trogluddite wrote:But where potential harms can be envisioned in advance, it is reasonable to debate them and to consider whether or how we should safeguard against them.
Basically the right thought. However, you can't debate or consider how to safeguard against something that doesn't exist. There is no quantum computer that decrypts code, and so we don't even know how it is realized. Therefore counter-measures aren't in sight and every talk would be just hypothetical.
For now, we should instead enjoy a whole new technique coming to life. And we are the generations that may witness it!
trogluddite wrote:Only those who have access to the technology will be able to do so, which will only be the rich and powerful to begin with.
This is your main argument, and I just don't understand where you get that from? This quantum machine is the very first. The very first computer wasn't even built without intentions, but with the sole purpose of decrypting the highest standard encryption code at that time, which was created with the enigma. A bad intention (albeit for a good cause). Yet, look at where we are now. If I told you in 1939, that everyonme in the world will own his own computer, you would have answered, that they are as big as a house and are extremely expensive and therefore only the rich and powerful will have access to it.
trogluddite wrote:Data mining on a massive scale is already being used for the purposes of attempting to manipulate people's opinions and rating their social capital.
Data mining is a totally different topic that's not enabled through quantum computing, but is a reality already. Btw., you are posting your password for this website via unsecured (non-encrypted) data communication. Literally everyone can read it. Shouldn't that be of more concern?
trogluddite wrote:One only has to look at interference in online freedoms in China and elsewhere to see how this can be used on a much wider scale for the identification and suppression of dissidents and human rights campaigners, for example. The Chinese state is already well on the way to constant government surveillance of social media to rate every citizen's conformity to political dogma - and the consequences for those who don't conform or who choose not to participate can be extremely unpleasant.
Again, this a reality that is not enabled by quantum computing. It is enabled by dictatorships, and those don't care about avaiulable tech - they reach their goals with whatever ways ARE available. Quantum computing neither changes nor helps fighting it. It's something to be fought in the minds of people. Only if you change the view of people towards other people, that's when you are able to fight such behaviour. Btw., this is true as well for monopolies. Their intention is money instead of power, but the rulebook is exactly the same.
I often hear this argument from people, who are talking about it in comments posted on Facebook or Twitter. Of course I can't take it serious, if they use the very same services, that they are pretending to fight against.trogluddite wrote:Hence campaigns to safeguard internet privacy and to resist pressure on corporations to include "back doors" into their encryption routines. Of course, outlawing such decryption also has it's negative aspects which we should debate as a society - for example, making it harder to identify predatory paedophiles' on-line activities.
To make this clear: privacy is absolutely necessary, be it on the internet or in the physical world. It's just so astounding, how selective this argument is used. For example, you are from England: London is covered in cameras, you can't take two steps without being filmed constantly. This state surveillance of "1984"-proportions is at least as terrifying as the attacks on internet privacy. Yet, all the people of England are fine with it.
When you think that a grey mass of rich people behind closed doors working on forcefully invading your internet privacy is the real danger, let me update you: The real danger is that the people are giving their valuable privacy to services voluntarily. Whenever Google offers a service (Maps, Translate, gmail, etc.) it is not about philanthropic free services for the good of all people. It is a bait to lure you in. Each time you use a service, you give up your privacy and donate informations about you. That's how data mining works. Not with fierce guys in a cult fighting you.
However, this has nothing to do with the invention of quantum computing. It won't change it, it won't help fighting it. It is a matter of either pure capitalism or dictatorships. Quantum computing doesn't make it worse. It adds another tool for both sides, that's all.
You may have missed it, but securing information using quantum technology is far ahead of Google and their Sycamore chip. For example, quantum physicist Anton Zeilinger from Vienna, Austria, started working on quantum secured networking already in the end-90's. Two things evolved from that. First, based on his groundwork, which is of course publicly available, China made their own research and, at the end of 2016 launched a satellite with quantum-secured communication. And Zeilinger himself established a 5 PCs network (note: standard PCs, not quantum computers), with fully quantum secured communication about a year ago. So don't think the "good" side wouldn't be prepared as well - without being rich and powerful.
trogluddite wrote:If that is "fear-mongering" then so be it; I prefer to call it the "precautionary principle"!
And I prefer the "scientific principle"!