[LINK] Surveillance

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

> (Schmidt) acknowledged encryption can be broken and said Snowden's
> revelations showed the NSA has indeed done it, but, added: "With
> sufficiently long keys and changing the keys all the time, it turns
> out it's very, very difficult for the interloper of any kind to go in
> and do that." Google has recently increased the length and complexity
> of its encryption keys, Schmidt said, calling it a constant "game of
> cat and mouse" between the governments and Internet users. "In that
> race, I think (they) will lose, and that people would be empowered."


Though Google are strange bed-fellows, re surveillance I tend to agree.

In terms of surveillance and the future, it's very clear that there is
a vast difference between a lack of privacy and an active surveillance.

A modern technology-led lack of privacy MAY be bearable to some degree
BUT active, and for the majority of us unwarranted surveillance, isn't.

Google & Schmidt although probably in the vanguard in terms of privacy
invasion are most certainly against sweeping Governmental surveillance.  

And, he's optimistic we public will win. Perhaps Abbott will now agree?

And in terms of the future it seems that technology's trending towards
anti-surveillance, anti-1984. Consider, quantum computing and networks:  


"Researchers Create World’s Largest Quantum Cluster"

November 19, 2013 by StaffScience
<http://scitechdaily.com/researchers-create-worlds-largest-quantum-cluster>

In a newly published study, researchers detail the experimental generation 
and full characterization of an ultra-large-scale entangled state 
containing more than 10,000 entangled modes, which is an improvement by 3 
orders of magnitude over the largest entangled states created to date.

Recently ANU PhD student Seiji Armstrong has made a quantum leap towards 
next-generation computing.

Working with a team in Tokyo, Seiji has created the largest cluster of 
quantum systems ever – a milestone on the way to super-powerful, super-fast 
quantum computers.

“The more quantum systems you have in the cluster, the more powerful your 
quantum computer will be,” he says.

“Previously the world record was 14. But in our experiment we went to more 
than 10,000 at once.”

Each quantum system can encode a quantum ‘bit’ of information, like the 
binary system that a traditional computer uses, explains Seiji.

“In today’s computers you have ‘bits’ of information – a bit is a 0 or a 1. 
A quantum bit is similar but it can also exist in another state – instead 
of just a 0 or a 1 it can be in what’s called a ‘superposition’.”

That’s where it all starts to get a little complicated, but Seiji says it’s 
easier if you think of quantum bits as coins.

“Imagine you have a coin and heads is 0 and tails is 1. When you flip it in 
the air it’s as if the coin is both heads and tails at once. But, if you 
catch it and look at it, it will be either heads or tails.

“That’s sort of how quantum bits work: you don’t know what state they’re 
going to be in until you measure them.

“When you arrange these quantum bits in a cluster, it opens up all the 
different possibilities and gives you access to this huge computational 
power.”

Seiji says the potential applications of this research are endless.

“Eventually, we’ll be able to use these quantum clusters to build quantum 
communication networks with very fast but also very secure and very, very 
powerful transmission lines,” he says.

“In a normal computer, if you had 1,000 bits you might be able to solve a 
bunch of easy problems. In a quantum computer with 1,000 quantum bits you’d 
be able to solve way more difficult problems – problems that classical 
computers can’t solve.”

Other applications might be so far advanced we can’t even imagine them in 
today’s world.

“Even when traditional computers had become commonplace, no one really saw 
the internet coming. So who knows where this will lead?”

The research was done while Seiji was at the University of Tokyo as part of 
a Prime Minister’s Australia-Asia Award. Working with a group of experts 
headed by Professor Akira Furusawa was a pretty exceptional experience, he 
says.

“Everybody there had a unique skill and it was a really nice example of all 
these experts in their fields coming together. Everyone contributed to the 
experiment in a different way. It was really exciting stuff.”

Publication: Shota Yokoyama, et al., “Ultra-large-scale continuous-variable 
cluster states multiplexed in the time domain,” Nature Photonics, 2013; 
doi:10.1038/nphoton.2013.287

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