Emily Grumbling – författare

Recent disclosures about the bulk collection of domestic phone call records and other signals intelligence programs have stimulated widespread debate about the implications of such practices for the civil liberties and privacy of Americans. In the wake of these disclosures, many have identified a need for the intelligence community to engage more deeply with outside privacy experts and stakeholders.

At the request of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a workshop to address the privacy implications of emerging technologies, public and individual preferences and attitudes toward privacy, and ethical approaches to data collection and use. This report summarizes discussions between experts from academia and the private sector and from the intelligence community on private sector best practices and privacy research results.

In June 2016 the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened the Workshop on Encryption and Mechanisms for Authorized Government Access to Plaintext. Participants at this workshop discussed potential encryption strategies that would enable access to plaintext information by law enforcement or national security agencies with appropriate authority. Although the focus of the workshop was on technical issues, there was some consideration of the broader policy context, and discussion about the topics of encryption and authorized exceptional analysis frequently addressed open policy questions as well as technical issues. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

Quantum mechanics, the subfield of physics that describes the behavior of very small (quantum) particles, provides the basis for a new paradigm of computing. First proposed in the 1980s as a way to improve computational modeling of quantum systems, the field of quantum computing has recently garnered significant attention due to progress in building small-scale devices. However, significant technical advances will be required before a large-scale, practical quantum computer can be achieved.

Quantum Computing: Progress and Prospects provides an introduction to the field, including the unique characteristics and constraints of the technology, and assesses the feasibility and implications of creating a functional quantum computer capable of addressing real-world problems. This report considers hardware and software requirements, quantum algorithms, drivers of advances in quantum computing and quantum devices, benchmarks associated with relevant use cases, the time and resources required, and how to assess the probability of success.