Still More Thrills to Come

I enjoy science-fiction elements in my thrillers, especially as they’re applied by Greg Bear, Michael Marshall (Smith), and Richard Morgan. So I was interested to read this alarming report at the PC World Web site about the threats we might face in the future when science fiction meets science fact:

The writers envisioned a near future where quantum computing, and its foundations in parallel states, could mean attacks coming from parallel worlds. Theories dealing with quantum computing would suggest parallel universes exist, said Greg Bear, author of more than 30 science-fiction and fantasy books.

“Let’s get really paranoid now,” said Bear, during a roundtable at the Gartner IT Security Summit near Washington, D.C. “Consider you could be hacked by people not of your universe.”

Perhaps a more likely scenario is that quantum computing, with its theoretical ability to work on a million computations at once, could destroy current encryption methods, said Robert Sawyer, a futurist and sci-fi author. “Does that mean that the notion of secure communication, secure transactions, is going to crumble around us in the next one to two decades?” he said.

Bear agreed, suggesting quantum computing might usher in a world beyond security. “You’ll have to assume someone out there is going to understand what you’re doing, or have access to what you’re doing,” he said.

The whole article can be found here.