A Giant Leap for Quantum Computing

Today’s computers are the product of a digital revolution. When we talk about computing, we talk about an environment of ones and zeroes that add up to all the programs, graphics and communications that we use. Often we tease, it’s just ones and zeroes but that small concept has enormous implications.

In the early days of computers, there was a competition between analog and digital computing for a practical, supportable, calculating machine. Actually, analog computers go back to ancient times and were used to calculate the position of stars and planets. Probably the most familiar example of an analog computer is a slide rule. But as analog slide rules were replaced by digital calculators so were analog computers replaced by its digital competitor. Analog computers are powerful because they have multiple states and are not constrained by just ones and zeroes. They can solve very complex equations. But in that power is a complicated framework not easy to mass produce. Transistors and later solid state and integrated circuit technology made the digital computer ubiquitous.

The digital computer has a new competitor in the quantum computer. Quantum computing is not really new, the concept has been around since the 1970s, but it is a complicated structure based on quantum mechanics. Most of the work in quantum computing has been theoretical because the technology was not available to take the idea from a dream to reality.

The recent announcement that Lockheed Martin will purchase a quantum computer from D-Wave Systems is a giant leap for this emerging technology. Experts are already speculating on the quantum gains in computing speed as exponential and tens of thousands of times as fast as the fastest digital computer. It is an exciting time to be a technology aficionado. It is a time when anything is possible and the universe has no limits.

It's a jungle out there - be smart online

Recently, I posted a job on craigslist for a senior systems and network engineer. Although craigslist is a popular site, I have never used it and had some concerns about posting on a site that has received so much bad press. After researching, I decided to post our job and have been very happy with the response. But it's a jungle out there and I knew to expect some scam artists to use the ad to try an attack.
Then today, I received an email from updates-craigslist: Updates!New Terms - Accept: June 29, 2011 with the following message:

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craigslist
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Dear Customer,
We need your help resolving an issue with your account. To give us time to work together on this, we've temporarily limited what you can do with your account until the issue is resolved.
We noticed some unusual activity .
How you can help?
You must reverify your account and take the time to accept and read our terms: log in here
It's usually pretty easy to take care of things like this.
Ad: # 318-277-551-175
We understand it may be frustrating not to have full access to your account. We want to work with you to get your account back to normal as quickly as possible.
Thanks,
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Copyright ©2011 Inc. All rights reserved. CL #73445897433\

It's a scam and has all the characteristics (without typos) of a phishing attempt. It tries to get you to login with their fake link and get you to input your account information. Once your username/password was obtained, the phishers would take over your account and get as much information as they could about you. They can't do much on craigslist except make some inappropriate postings under your name, but they could use the username/password to break into other accounts like Twitter, Facebook or bank accounts.

So as a reminder, don't fall for email scams. When in doubt - don't click, reply or forward. Use strong passwords and make sure you have a good spam filter and malware protection.