If you've kept up with all of the revelations from the Edward Snowden leak, it may seem that the National Security Agency already has all of the surveillance tools and access it could ever need. But according to a new leak from the ex-NSA contractor, published first by The Washington Post, the NSA is working on the mother of all digital spying tools: a quantum computer.
The leaked top-secret documents, according to the report, mention a black-budgeted research program that costs nearly $80 million called "Penetrating Hard Targets." The project, according to the documents, involves classified contracts at a laboratory in College Park, Maryland, with the goal of building "a cryptologically useful quantum computer" that can "break strong encryption."
All indications are that the agency hasn't been successful in its attempt yet, but the goal is fitting for the NSA. Quantum computing, long theorized by the scientific community, is currently more science fiction than fact. But if a practical, working quantum computer were to be created, absolutely all bets are off for even the strongest modern encryption and security techniques - especially if the only one belonged to the U.S. spy agency.
Quantum computing is based on a principal in particle physics called quantum superposition, meaning that, at the infinitesimal, fundamental (and unintuitive) level of physical existence, a particle can probabilistically exist in all states at once. Translated into computing's fundamental level - the bit (that is, those little ones and zeros upon which programing is based) - a quantum computer can take advantage of quantum bits or qubits, which exist in both states. While the most expensive supercomputer can calculate bits at lightning speed, quantum computing changes the basic rules of operation, in theory vast outmatching any conventional computer's processing power.
So basically, a working quantum computer that can be scaled and used in a practical manner (scientists have created rudimentary quantum computers in the lab) could use its weird version of "brute force" to process any algorithm - and in turn crack any encryption - made by mere mortal computers that read ones and zeros one at a time.
And it could do it quickly: as the Washington Post mentions, technically any computer could eventually crack a standard 1,024-bit encryption key, but it would take thousands of years. Not so with a quantum computer.
So if the NSA has constantly surprised the world with the scale, sophistication, and sometimes-guileful nature of its surveillance programs, how are we to know that the NSA hasn't successfully turned such a seemingly sci-fi concept into reality?
For one, the leaked documents mention the early stages the NSA's program is still in, as it seeks to "conduct basic research in quantum physics and architecture/engineering studies to determine if, and how" such a computer could be built. At this stage, the document lists an objective to "demonstrate dynamic decoupling and complete control on two semiconductor qubits," which means testing on a scale so tiny it's not useful at all.
The second reason to be confident the NSA hasn't succeeded yet is that the agency wouldn't need nearly any of the other programs detailed last year by the Snowden leak if it had one.