One day soon, In a research laboratory near Santa Barbara or Seattle or a secret installation in the Chinese mountains, it will begin: the sudden unlocking of the secrets of the world. Your secrets.
Cybersecurity analysts today call Q – The day someone builds a quantum computer that can break the most used encryption forms. These mathematical problems have maintained the safety of intimate data of humanity for decades, but on Q, everything could become vulnerable, for everyone: emails, text messages, anonymous publications, location stories, Bitcoin portfolios, police reports, hospital files, electric power plants, the whole global financial system.
“We play in a way in Russian roulette”, explains Michele Mosca, who co-author the last report of “chronology of the quantum threat” of the Global Risk InstituteWho considers how long we have left. “YOU probably Win if you only play once, but it’s not a good game to play. “When Mosca and his colleagues interviewed cybersecurity experts last year, forecasts are thinking: one in three chance Already Arrived in secret? Some people I spoke to estimated 15%, that of the same thing you would get a revolver cylinder turn.
The corporate AI wars may have made the headlines in recent years, but the quantum arms race has also held up. Where today’s AI pushes the limits of conventional computers – the type that works on 0 and 1 – Quantum technology represents a completely different form of IT. By exploiting the frightening mechanics of the subatomic world, it can work on 0, 1 or anything between the two. This makes quantum computers quite terrible, for example, data storage, but potentially very good, for example, by finding the recipe for new futuristic equipment (or your email password). The classic machine is doomed to a stages calculation life: try a set of ingredients, fail, turn off everything, try again. But quantum computers can explore many potential recipes simultaneously.
Thus, of course, the giants of technology such as Google, Huawei, IBM and Microsoft continued the myriad of positive applications of Quantum – not only for the science of materials but also communications, the development of drugs and market analysis. China plowed large resources State -supported effortsAnd the United States and the European Union have promised millions of funds to support local quantum industries. Of course, the one who wins the race will not only have the next big engine of innovation in the world. They will also have the largest coding machine in history. It is therefore normal to ask: what type of Q-Day Humanity will he get-and is there something we can do to prepare?
If you had a universal choice, you could tell everyone – or you could keep it hidden in your pocket as long as possible. From the point of view of a typical person, maybe Q-Day would not be recognizable as Q-Day at all. Maybe it would look like a series of strange and apparently unconnected news spread over the months or years. The London energy network falls on election day, plunging the city into darkness. An American submarine on a secret mission surfaced to find itself surrounded by enemy ships. Embarrassing equipment is starting to appear online in increasing quantities: classified intelligence cables, presidential coverage, billionaire cock photos. In this scenario, it could be decades before we can pin exactly when Q-Day occurs.
Again, maybe the universal picklock holder prefers the result of the disaster film: everything, everywhere, at the same time. Destroy the grid. Disable the missile silos. Remove the banking system. Open all the doors and let the secrets go out.
