Quantum C...ryptography

We keep hearing about Data breach news from a variety of companies: Target stores, Anthem, Yahoo, eBay, equifax, JP Morgan Chase and Verisign to mention a few. Our current passwords, in a quantum computer world, would be the easiest things to hack with a quantum mini computer using only a handful of photons. I compare the race to the quantum computer to the space race or the research to achieve a nuclear weapon during World War II. But, why the race? Because a quantum computer would perform mathematical algorithms exponentially faster than today's binary computers. This processing power, in the wrong hands, would allow someone to crack our nuclear arsenal security system or hack all the passwords of all users from any bank. Quantum computers are less effective against symmetric algorithms than against currently widely used public key algorithms.

The National Security Agency issued a document called: "Commercial National Security Algorithm Suite and Quantum Computing FAQ" on January 2016, where it basically states the Quantum Computing Threat. If one really thinks about it, nothing would be safe: our bitcoin and bank account would be vulnerable, any large corporation secrets could be accessed as well, I mean the only way to be safe would be to erase yourself from the web, close your bank accounts and store your cash at home (if cryptocurrencies haven't taken over that is).

Google, IBM, the NSA are going after a quantum computer as well as MIT. Quantum cryptography uses photons (the basic unit of rays of light) to send secret messages between two computers instead of what we do now, which is in bits (1s and 0s). The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle tells us that it's "impossible" to copy or intercept these photons without altering them and alerting the recipient. Let's imagine we achieve all of this, now the problem will be Infrastructure and China has already rolled its sleeves as they have plans to build a 1200 mile quantum connection between Beijing and Shanghai (https://phys.org/news/2017-08-china-world-quantum-network.html). The project is called Jinan, the world's first unhackable computer network. Europe is also heavily investing in quantum technologies and has issued a 2016 Quantum Manifesto.
The U.S. "may" not be able to win this race as we are lagging behind and most breakthroughs come from the private sector: IBM, Google, INTEL, but the U.S. Army seems to be making a few breakthroughs of their own as they announced that they could teleport quantum data wirelessly or via fiber optics.
One thing is for certain, we will see the rise of quantum computers in our lifetime which is exciting to know!