The Bleeding Edge: The Boxes of Pandora and Schrodinger

If you have not heard it already, the Schrodinger’s Cat thought experiment¹ is meant to help people understand just how strange things are on the quantum level of existence. From superposition to entanglement, when it comes to quantum mechanics, the scientific community is still scratching its collective head as to the “hows” and “whys” of interactions of particles on this level. Despite the inability to truly understand the science behind these phenomena, we have figured out a way to manipulate and bend these particles to our will and even perform calculations, thus creating a quantum computer and, depending on the processing power, gaining the coveted title of quantum supremacy—a term that boils down to the equivalence of “Anything you can do, I can do better” or, perhaps more accurately for our purposes, “We are closer than you to being able to break all traditional cryptographic algorithms.”

I have been hesitant to broach the subject of quantum computing when writing about emerging technologies. As a futurist, this may sound counterintuitive. When it comes to innovations that will truly revolutionize the IT industry, quantum computing is at the top of the list, but I do feel that it is a bit distracting from technologies that currently are being implemented. With that being said, it most certainly is a technology to watch for breakthroughs.

Inside the Box

Another famous physicist, Richard Feynman, is quoted as saying, “If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics.”² This thought rings very true here; even Einstein called quantum behavior “spooky.” But the quantum physics community is learning and discovering things every day that allow us to harness and utilize some of the interesting qualities and phenomena that occur on the quantum level. There are articles, courses and YouTube videos that explain these different phenomena and how they work to the best of our ability to currently understand them, so I will not go in detail here, but I urge readers to conduct some research of their own on this subject. Not only because it will help users understand the underlying technology, but also because it’s really cool, groundbreaking science. But here are some quick notes for you:

• Superposition creates the ability to perform calculations exponentially faster than traditional computing. It also allows for one calculation to result in multiple answers or even all possible answers.
• Entanglement allows for seemingly faster than lightspeed transmissions of data.

These two points are a vast oversimplification and only scratch the surface of quantum computing, but for the purposes of this column they will do for now.

Thanks to these aspects of quantum physics, the possibilities for data processing and transmission go up exponentially compared to even the fastest classical computing devices. This also opens up a whole new aspect of computing that could not be accomplished before, as scientists can take advantage of the way quantum computers work to perform chemical reaction modeling.³ Utilizing quantum entanglement, researchers at the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) were able to achieve “light-speed” secure data transmission of quantum bits (qubits).⁴ While both of these experiments were simplistic and can currently be achieved in some form by “classical” computers, they are baby steps toward the lofty goal of fully functional quantum computing and quantum Internet.

Opening the Box

While there are endless applications and possibilities for quantum computing, there are dangers in opening the proverbial box as well. Quantum computers are (or will be) very good at calculating extremely large prime numbers. This, of course, is a possible threat to most modern forms of encryption including Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA).⁵ This means that if a company, research institution or government were to achieve quantum supremacy by a certain number of qubits, it would have the power to decrypt most encrypted data on the planet. This would have far-reaching implications for financial, government and blockchain systems, and sensitive data. However, as Pandora released chaos in opening the box, she also released hope.⁶

The hope here is that we could simply move our current encryption needs to quantum systems. Blockchain, communications, and sensitive records and data of all types could be secured by quantum computing as well. This scenario is at least 5-10 years away from coming to fruition.

Eventually, cybersecurity, IT audit, governance and risk IT professionals will have to get savvy to quantum computing infrastructure, methods and regulations (when they come out), but right now, it takes a team of physicists, chemists and engineers to run a proof-of-concept prototype. Many experts in the field still believe that the current enterprises and governments claiming quantum supremacy have not truly reached something that is a viable product. There is still far to go in the discoveries and uses of this new technology, so the good news is that we have time to prepare. And, hopefully, when the box is opened, we will be ready for whatever lies underneath the lid.

EVENTUALLY, CYBERSECURITY, IT AUDIT, GOVERNANCE AND RISK IT PROFESSIONALS WILL HAVE TO GET SAVVY TO QUANTUM COMPUTING INFRASTRUCTURE, METHODS AND REGULATIONS.

Endnotes

¹ Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics (LASSP), Schroedinger’s Cat, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA, www.lassp.cornell.edu/ardlouis/dissipative/Schrcat.html
² Feynman, R.; The Character of Physical Law, The MIT Press, USA, 2017
³ Crane, L.; “Google Performed the First Quantum Simulation of a Chemical Reaction,” New Scientist, 27 August 2020, http://www.newscientist.com/article/2253089-google-performed-the-first-quantum-simulation-of-a-chemical-reaction/
⁴ TechEBlog, “NASA Scientists Managed to Achieve Quantum Teleportation Over 27 Miles for the First Time,” 22 December 2020, http://www.techeblog.com/nasa-quantum-teleportation-long-distance/
⁵ Emerging Technology From the arXivarchive, “How a Quantum Computer Could Break 2048-bit RSA Encryption in 8 Hours,” MIT Technology Review, 30 May 2019, http://www.technologyreview.com/2019/05/30/65724/how-a-quantum-computer-could-break-2048-bit-rsa-encryption-in-8-hours/
⁶ Britannica, Pandora, Greek Mythology, http://www.britannica.com/topic/Pandora-Greek-mythology

Dustin Brewer, CISM, CSX-P, CDPSE, CEH

Is ISACA’s senior director emerging technology and innovation, a role in which he explores and produces content for the ISACA^® community on the utilization benefits and possible threats to current infrastructure posed by emerging technologies. He has 17 years of experience in the IT field, beginning with networks, programming and hardware specialization. He excelled in cybersecurity while serving in the US military and, later, as an independent contractor and lead developer for defense contract agencies, he specialized in computer networking security, penetration testing, and training for various US Department of Defense (DoD) and commercial entities. Brewer can be reached at futures@yutb.net.