Malware In Quantum Computing?

MattSparkes writes, "Today's quantum computers are not sophisticated enough to do anything malicious to your online bank account; the field is in its infancy. However, there are in theory more ways to attack quantum computers than classical ones. As quantum networking takes off, this is going to become a larger and more immediate problem." The Wikipedia article correctly identifies as an unsolved problem in physics the question of whether it is possible to construct a practical computer that performs calculations on qubits.

blue sky speculation

[Lurker2288]

Quantum malware will be a huge threat...as soon as we have the widespread adoption of quantum computers performing sensitive tasks. And people who understand how to program viruses for them. And quantum computers for the virus programmers.

Is this really even a story? We may as well be worrying about where to buy reliable crossbows once the atomic wars destroy civilization.

yes it is too early to think about it

[Quadraginta]

I'd like to point out, vice Larry Niven, that when teleportation and faster-than-light drives are invented they will make new types of crime possible.

Not only that, but when immortality becomes possible, just think of the new pressures on the Earth's resources. Yet I'm going to bet those irresponsible doctor and medical researcher types haven't thought at all about this as they try to cure cancer and so forth.

A layman's take on this article

[hellfire]

IANAPhysist. In fact, when the article began to spew forth quantum mechanics info, my eye began to develop a twitch and I started to drool.

However, I am a self proclaimed computer geek. The main benefit of quantum computers, as I understand it, is an exponential leap in computing power and storage of such systems. If I understand correctly, a qubit can be altered by it's environment and change it's state, thus ruining it's data. I fail to see how this differs from computers today. Run a magnet over a hard drive enough times and good by data. Hard drives fail and lose data all the time, but we have sophisticated data checking algorythms designed to catch this kind of thing so that it doesn't get out of hand. It looks like they are doing something similar here.

I don't understand how one creates a worm with this either. If you know qubit for qubit, what data you want to change, then perhaps, but that requires knowing the qubits ahead of time, doesn't it? Same way with bits today. People create worms due to vulnerabilities within the hardware and software that they can program in. I know of no viruses which rewrite data specifically on their knowledge of ones and zeros.

Could a worm try to attack the physical nature of a quantum computer and run the data by physically attacking it? I don't know in quantum computers, but maybe that's what they are saying. The article is sufficiently arcane that it's difficult to see if it's just an attempt at fear mongering among us lessers, by saying "ooooo quantum computers are vulnerable to worms!" or if there is any real value to this article.

A quantum to english translator is needed :)