Matt Hancock, be warned. It is not just fellow MPs and ghost writers who might leak your WhatsApp messages. You should start fretting about foreign intelligence agencies too.
Quantum computers that can crack internet encryption may be closer than we think, security experts say. If so, that means that anything sent securely today might be stored to be decrypted when such systems arrive — possibly within a decade.
Last week IBM announced its intention to build a “100,000 qubit” quantum computer by 2033, in partnership with the universities of Chicago and Tokyo. If successful, it would mean that the long-anticipated technology could at last start to become useful, for good and ill.
Jay Gambetta, the vice-president of quantum at IBM, said: “The potential of having
