Re:In what sense is quantum computing a science?
by K0balt on Friday December 09, 2022 @08:09AM
(#33920814)
The NSA does it’s work through the same companies that are known leaders in the field. If you are working on something with national security implications, the NSA or its counterpart in other countries will knock on your door and put your people and your organization under the burden of secrecy and cooperation as a condition of your continuing research and in some cases existence.
That is how the NSC/MIC works, it’s mostly outsourced. The government per se does very little research with some notable exceptions.
I'm unconvinced of this. Any government agency (say the NSA) is a tiny subset of the whole world, and can't be expected to outdo it.
Especially if they have some disadvantages like, say, not being able to hire people who've ever smoked pot.
>It is far too important to be able to manage the implications of any significant breakthroughs
But that's what keeping breakthrough tech secret would do - prevent managing the implications. Keeping it secret means not sharing it with allies. That means if someone else discovers the same thing or steals it via espionage, now your adversary has it and your allies don't.