The entire matter is now becoming pressing, and further revolutionary experimental breakthroughs announced just this summer have brought things to a head. Is there a danger that in the rush to perfect wholesale quantum computing, America might neglect the vital question of infrastructure security on this front? Could quantum computer techniques even be used in the form of a weapon, to launch unstoppable cyberwarfare virus attacks against conventional digital computers -- especially during the critical transition phase when most platforms at home and around the world still rely on conventional technology? Is our society on the verge of repeating the blunder from the dawn of the Internet Age, when security considerations were ignored in favor of pure engineering advances -- enabling endless viruses, worms, spam, identity theft, and serious privacy concerns?

As hard as quantum physics is for laymen to comfortably understand, controlling the emerging threat of "quantum hacking" could be even more demanding -- but is essential. Fortunately, an overview of some important public policy issues seems achievable even without a heavy background in the field. Please press on, gentle reader, and hopefully some good understanding will come to you.

The military opportunities and threats of quantum computing are unavoidably intertwined with certain fascinating aspects of how quantum physics works. Put differently, if you like Star Trek then you'll love this even more, because this stuff is real.

Reading the best secret codes: It turns out that an individual light photon (indivisible, sub-microscopic packet of energy) can exist in a vast number of superimposed states all at once. As a result, quantum computers differ drastically from current digital computers, where the fundamental unit of information is the familiar "discrete 0 or 1." This enables a new type of parallel processing on a truly mind-boggling scale.

Certain computational-intensive tasks -- including military code-breaking -- which would take literally millions of years with the latest supercomputers, could instead be solved in mere seconds on a full-blown quantum computer. Such a device, if perfected in secret, could compromise every encryption scheme in existence. But the idea of it is already public. Research on codes immune to fast quantum-computer decryption had better keep pace! Otherwise industrial, diplomatic, and warfighting activity might be reduced to a "new Dark Ages," in which every player's mail gets read by competitors and enemies, like it or not.

Super-hacking via quantum teleportation: Another intriguing -- and frightening? -- feature of quantum physics is the ability to transfer key characteristics of one photon or atom to a partner even across vast distances, and instantaneously. Einstein himself, in the 1930s, called this "spooky action at a distance." The process, which truly exists, is called quantum teleportation. If the name conjures up images from the classic TV series starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, you're catching on.

Though human beings won't be beaming themselves around during the lifetime of anyone reading this essay, critical information and data definitely soon will be transmitted from point to point in a manner totally eclipsing even the most sophisticated fiber optic and satellite-based networks of today. This is because quantum teleportation relies on a process called entanglement, in which two particles become and remain intimately linked even if they then move light-years apart. A change, triggered intentionally by a "systems operator," in the properties of one entangled particle, always causes an instant and identical change in its partner. Wow! Special steps are needed to make sure the transfer of practical information obeys the speed limit set by Einstein -- the speed of light -- but no connection of any sort is needed for the change to happen other than the entanglement itself. This sure sounds rather wonderful, and bizarre. It's a basic property of the universe we live in. Why is quantum teleportation a potential cyber-warfare threat? Because all conventional computer programs and data nets work by moving around, and examining, hordes of electrons (electricity) and photons (fiber optics). And every known modem, router, and anti-virus software application a) resides within this framework of moving photons and electrons, and b) is subject to infiltration by what might be perceived as harmless noise. Noise means seemingly random "stray" packets of non-information that fall below a pre-set detection/validation threshold.

The problem here is that an aggressor's quantum computer, harnessing quantum teleportation, could send into a targeted system a small random stream of particles, each entangled to a partner that "stays behind the aggressor's lines," and this stream would easily get through all security filters as noise. Next, after this initial penetration, the partners to those entangled particles, retained in the custody of the aggressor, could be manipulated to become an extremely damaging program bit-string. This would cause the particles that have been snuck into the target to also change immediately from meaningless noise into a deadly virus program. Woops! The quantum computer in the hands of the clever aggressor has gotten past every one of the defender's conventional safety precautions, and obliterated the defender's entire information superhighway in one decisive blow!

Since the dawn of time, nations and armies have competed for the best in new technology. During our present unsettling era of network-centric warfare, weapons of mass destruction, and unmanned aerial and undersea combat vehicles, this arms race for scientific supremacy reveals no signs of slowing down. We mustn't repeat mistakes from earlier in the development of electronic and optical data processing protocols: Issues of national security -- including the possible weaponization of new computer tools for both offense and defense -- deserve serious attention side by side with the emerging pure science, and the great commercial engineering applications, now in the offing in the exciting realm of quantum computation.

JoeBuff.Com / Joe Buff Inc. Joe Buff, President Dutchess County, New York E-Mail readermail@JoeBuff.Com