I waited and waited...

In the rigor of a mind trained to know, the dull sense of living in waiting is lost on us. We stride to resolve while sometimes the jewel of being rests in the space of a long step.

• Do we despair in the face of the unknown?
• Can we do something about it?
• Where does anticipation lead us?

— Gibberish. #recognize

Yet, this time around, I felt like a toddler learning a new language, from Qubits to Q this and that. One Q to rule them all and it was all about Quantum. And, for the first time in a long, long time, I almost understood nothing.

And “nothing” was exciting. You see, I was waiting for the despair to kick in the face of the unknown jargon I have been bombarded with, but to my surprise, I was left waiting.

And in the space of anticipation, where I was barely grasping the edge of understanding, I met a familiar friend, the bearer of uncertain times in full display.

— Doom and gloom. #understand

The experts concluded we have between eight and twelve years before all the security measures we have relied on so far will be broken. This means all data will be easily decrypted and no longer safe. Not a single bit will be spared.

To combat the latter, one of the strategies shared by one of our highest departments of security in the U.S. is to recognize all the points of failure we currently have and map them out so that when a quantum-ready algorithm is ready, we can deploy it effectively to secure all of them.

When would that be exactly? We don’t know. What would it be? We have no clue either. What we know is the dire outcome that will unfold if we are not prepared. And as such, the race is on.

— In its infancy. #accept

While I recognize the challenge, what fascinated me the most was not the technology nor the presumed dire outcomes it could yield but the anticipation itself.

There was something magical in seeing how we are approaching a domain still in its infancy. Where the standards do not exist yet, and the conversation traverses so many disciplines and domains in merely moving from one room to another.

From the highly technical and deep into the weeds of systems engineering, physics, and math to the surface discussions on way-above layers of abstraction in software languages and others.

And the breadth on its own is such a beautiful place to be. I have had missed it. While in the space of anticipation, despair could unfold, what if, on the off-chance, we end up with a coherent superposition of wonder at the same time?

I left waiting, but with an exhilaration I barely could contain and, more than anything, recognizing fellow travelers who have met the unknown with the same affinity I have.

Until next time,
Carlo