From Christian Einfeldt of the Digital Tipping Point, in a debate on the dangers of transhuman technologies, including quantum computing:

“Most of these issues can be resolved by assuring the right to fork the code and wise management of commit privileges over the code. If a trusted community has commit privileges, then we know what the code can do or not do, and we can stop abuses of power. That community needs access to the source code. As long as the source code is Free as in free speech, then it becomes difficult for anyone to exert totalitarian control using Free Open Source Software. An example of Free Open Source Software is Linux and another example is Mozilla Firefox.

Likewise, the right to fork the code means that it will always be possible to take a project off in a better direction, if someone in the project is misusing their power.

Mesh networks, as opposed to centralized networks, will also limit abuses of power, which is why we need a truly Free, truly distributed Internet, with as much of the last mile as possible run over mesh networks. Dictators need choke points. When the Internet is comprised of highly distributed mesh networks, choke points are harder to obtain.

Finally, we need to make industrial encryption easier to use. All of us value putting our snail mail letters into envelopes; we need the same thing to become common practice in cyberspace.

One huge threat to freedom is quantum computing that either falls into the hands of terrorists or a Big Brother government. Quatum computing uses changes in the state of very small bits of matter in places of zeros and ones. Because quantum computing takes place on such a tiny level, it is incredibly fast, and incredibly powerful. If a Big Brother government or a terrorist network gets a hold of that power and equal power is not distributed amongst an enlightened society, then we could be in trouble, because quantum computing could change our notions of privacy even more radically than is currently conceivable. Quantum computing is so powerful that supercomputers could be deployed in very small, highly mobile devices, and swarms of these devices would a considerable weapon. The only counter-balance for bad swarms are many good swarms run by good people.

Imagine a future in which a device the size, weight, and mobility of a hummingbird carries the computing power of a current-day Google server. It would be possible to assign a distributed swarm of these hummingbirds to track anyone and everyone with the power of quantum computing. Even without Artificial Intelligence (AI), it would be possible for such a swarm to follow a target on land, sea, space, and underground. We very much need to know who is controlling the code that goes into these devices, because they will arrive, and are already here in proto-type form, as shown in the movie, Eagle Eye, in which the US military uses a hand-launched toy-like airplane to spy on Middle East terrorists. The plane is controlled remotely, and permits the US military to get very close-up surveillance of their target.

http://www.movie2b.com/download-movie/eagle-eye-212256.html

It is in the interest of our democracy for us to each understand a bit about and for each of us to care a lot about Free Open Source Software. As long as the tools of quantum computing are evenly distributed, it will be difficult for any one group to gain a long-term advantage over a democratic society.

One small thing that each of us can do is to just read this Wikipedia article on the life of Richard Stallman, and think of how the ideas presented there affect our lives:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman

A really easy and entertaining short story read that covers the topic is here, the right to read, a story about a lover who risks it all to let his girlfriend read his college text books:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html”