The Race to Save Our Secrets From the Computers of the Future
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/22/us/politics/quantum-computing-encryption.html
Cryptome, New York
The perennial challenge of cryptography has been limitation on access to the best, with governments holding the winning hand and denying access to the public.
The government's ace in the hole has been and continues to be national security and associated official secrecy.
Included in this domination is the takeover by funding or law any private development in crypto which is superior to what is already held by officials.
What happens under this draconian control is that private initiatives are kept hidden from officials as long as possible rather than work in concert, and that is customarily a short period due to implantation of undecover agents in probable sources of innovation.
It is to be expected that as quantum computers advance in capabilities there will be government agents amply installed in the development operations. To be sure, there will be foreign agents implanted as well, in both the host nation and its foreign competitors.
"We must implant because they implant" will be the slogan, in advancing the traditional argument for spying, "we must do it because they do it."
This circularity is hypnotic and lucrative as the rationale for development of evermore warmaking tools and sales galore, in accord with Mr. Biden's recent proposal that has energized the US arms hegemon, as recounted in the NY Times today.
Recalls the US "Arsenal for Democracy" of WW2 which led to the newly born National Security State of 1947.
"Onward Christian Soldiers." Blah, blah.