But it only applies to estimation (like how well a population parameter can be estimated) in certain regimes, and not e.g. expected risk (like how well one can do at prediction), so I’m not sure how it would apply here.
Just speaking in terms of "quantum size" (and not computing power, which is not understood yet), it depends on the graph of possible entanglements among the qubits. If it were a complete graph (allowing arbitrary entanglement) then the size of the relevant Hilbert space would exactly double with each additional qubit (i.e. one would need twice as many complex numbers to describe any particular wave function in the space). But the D-Wave chips operate with a fixed topology that (I think) is far from fully-connected (e.g. the 128-bit chip used a "Chimera graph", which they describe in blog posts and publications). The growth would only be truly exponential with sufficient connectivity (e.g. a planar graph would mean sub-exponential growth).
It wasn't really shown to be faster; see http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1400. To focus on the "3600 times" issue, I suggest searching for the strings " Ising" and "CPLEX". Don't miss the extremely thorough discussion in the comments, which includes comments from Cathy McGeoch (the author of the "3600 times" work), Peter Shor (as in Shor's factoring algorithm), Scott Aaronson, Greg Kuperberg, and many others.
It's not able to do full quantum annealing; it's only able to use stoquastic Hamiltonians on a fixed topology. Even if truly quantum effects were present (which is unclear at the moment, see Smolin and Smith arxiv posts), it's not known to be a useful quantum computing model. So it's not just an issue of "optimizing output".
To clarify, there are public-key cryptosystems with no known quantum attacks, but it's not known how to build such systems based on problems that are known to be QMA-complete (or NP-complete).
> Currently, our best candidates for such trapdoor OWF's are based on lattice problems, like the Shortest Vector Problem (SVP) that I described earlier. Whereas factoring reduces to the abelian hidden subgroup problem, which is solvable in quantum polynomial time, SVP is only known to reduce to the dihedral hidden subgroup problem, which is not known to be solvable in quantum polynomial time despite a decade of effort.
> Inspired by this observation, and building on earlier work by Ajtai and Dwork, Oded Regev has recently proposed public-key cryptosystems that are provably secure against quantum eavesdroppers, assuming SVP is hard for quantum computers.
> 35. What influence, if any, did MIT exercise or could it have exercised in the plea negotiations? Did MIT really scuttle a plea bargain with no prison time?
> Answer: MIT played no role in any plea negotiations related to the Aaron Swartz case. For a description of these negotiations, please see the Report, section II.B.2 The federal prosecution. For a description of MIT’s position regarding the government’s prosecution, please see Part III MIT’s Response to the Prosecution. It is unclear whether MIT could have exercised influence on the plea bargain. Please see in particular section III.A.2 MIT is informed about the prosecution; and section III.C.3 MIT’s outside counsel speaks with the lead prosecutor.
What would it mean for MIT to "sign off" on a plea bargain? The prosecutor alone was pressing criminal charges; MIT was not pressing any civil charges and it was not involved in the proceedings.
Thanks for stepping up to argue MITs case. I understand you personally hold the view that MIT is not to blame for very much at all.
IANAL... I just notice that other people said that MIT could have put an immediate stop to the proceedings:
"Here are the facts: This report claims that MIT was “neutral” — but MIT’s lawyers gave prosecutors total access to witnesses and evidence, while refusing access to Aaron’s lawyers to the exact same witnesses and evidence. That’s not neutral. The fact is that all MIT had to do was say publicly, “We don’t want this prosecution to go forward” – and Steve Heymann and Carmen Ortiz would have had no case. We have an institution to contrast MIT with – JSTOR, who came out immediately and publicly against the prosecution. Aaron would be alive today if MIT had acted as JSTOR did. MIT had a moral imperative to do so."
What have I said that suggests "MIT is not to blame for very much at all"? My comments have dealt with factual issues; I don't see where I advanced any opinions on MIT's deserved level of blame.
The MIT report lays out facts (and not conclusions or judgements) for the express purpose of informing the debate. Many here would probably be interested in its contents if they weren't so busy expressing opinions about it.
It's not clear to me what Ms. Stinebrickner-Kauffman meant by her comment, since prosecution was entirely at the discretion of the DA (as with all criminal charges) and MIT (like JSTOR) had no involvement in the criminal charges. The report explains as much in careful detail and my poor paraphrasing is no substitute.
(Judging by tweet timestamps, Ms. Stinebrickner-Kauffman's statement may have been made about 18 minutes after the release of the report (8:31am @TarenSK vs 8:13am @MIT), so it's possible that the statement was not based on the entirety of the report's content. That is not based on precise knowledge of the report's actual time of release.)
Here is a personal opinion: Hal Abelson, founding director of both the Free Software Foundation (with RMS, GJS, and others) and Creative Commons (with Lawrence Lessig and others) and lead author of the MIT report, produced a thoughtful and thorough document and it should not be ignored.
> What have I said that suggests "MIT is not to blame for very much at all"? My comments have dealt with factual issues; I don't see where I advanced any opinions on MIT's deserved level of blame.
My comment should have been a question, let me put it explicitly: What is your personal opinion on MIT's deserved level of blame?
OK I have now read the entire report, up to and including the first appendix. My now informed opinion is that with the issue of this, umm, mild report, MIT have missed an opportunity to address the "one issue for reflection" identified in the report itself:
In closing, our review can suggest this lesson: MIT is respected for world-class work in
information technology, for promoting open access to online information, and for dealing
wisely with the risks of computer abuse. The world looks to MIT to be at the forefront of
these areas. Looking back on the Aaron Swartz case, the world didn’t see leadership. As
one person involved in the decisions put it: “MIT didn’t do anything wrong; but we
didn’t do ourselves proud.”
I really don't know since MIT has objected to FOIA requests in Aaron's case. A lot of details are missing. Personally I trust Aaron's lawyers more than MIT's administration.
If by "objected to FOIA requests" you mean "filed a motion, just like JSTOR, proposing the ability review and suggest redactions to the requested documents over a window of five days for the explicit purpose of ensuring the privacy and safety of its employees, especially in light of the threatening communications it has received". MIT never proposed preventing the documents from being released.
> MIT never proposed preventing the documents from being released. I'm not sure you're interested in the actual facts
Ok they blocked and prevented FOIA access to documents until Aug 23. What I posted wasn't inaccurate. If what I posted before weren't facts, maybe you should dispute them instead just making one generalized statement. I've been wrong before, and I don't mind being proven wrong.
> The report appears to find that MIT should not have changed its neutral stance, which is disappointing, and I'm skeptical.
The report does not have any findings about what MIT "should" have done, as it states many times, such as in the last paragraph of the Introduction section:
> It was not part of our charge in this review to draw conclusions, but rather to determine facts and to consider what can be learned from this tragedy. Part V accordingly poses questions, not answers.
and again in the 4th paragraph of Section V:
> The Review Panel was not asked to make recommendations in our report, but rather to suggest how MIT might learn from this history.
Your comment misrepresents the report's purpose as well as its content. I think the report deserves a more careful reading.
EDIT: Personally, I recommend reading the Conclusion section (p. 100) and searching for the string "neutral" in that section.
I'm skimming quickly for the gist, and certainly didn't intend to misrepresent its contents. That being said, I'm not going to change what I wrote; that quote presents a value judgment, one that I'm skeptical of, and since the broader report doesn't appear to admit to any responsibility for subsequent events, I think it's disappointing.
I have a lot of respect for the authors of the report, and I trust their integrity. But if judgement wasn't in their remit, then it was a poor remit.
Note also that MIT's president seems to believe that the report constitutes a free pass:
From studying this review of MIT's role, I am
confident that MIT's decisions were reasonable,
appropriate and made in good faith.
> The report does not have any findings about what MIT "should" have done
Well then what's the point of the report other than allowing MIT to wash its hands? Great timing on the release as well since it will likely be forgotten and hidden due to another big event today.
Simple. Delay it for a few days. I would imagine MIT's administration reads the news. Even if they publicly announced a deadline, which I don't think they did; it's not like they couldn't offer a good rationale for delaying the release of the findings. My opinion hasn't changed. Given the date of release and their objection to the FOIA requests, the only things MIT really wants is to have this event forgotten and to disavow any wrongdoing on their part.
The optimal thing for MIT would have been to release it after PFC Manning gets ~20 years (which is my prediction; not found guilty on aiding the enemy, but everything else). It's weird to do something slightly shifty (morning-of) but not optimally shifty.
I would argue that would make it too obvious. Besides while it may be more optimal to release it after the verdict, releasing it in the morning on the same day has essentially the same effect.
The USC group has a response to Smolin and Smith which explains how some quantitative features are still best explained by a simulated quantum annealer: http://arxiv.org/abs/1305.5837. So there's still some potential for evidence of quantum effects (though "maybe doing something nonclassical" is a far cry from all the marketing talk, especially since annealing with stoquastic Hamiltonions with a fixed topology is already a far cry from any known-to-be-useful quantum computing model).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cram%C3%A9r%E2%80%93Rao_bound
But it only applies to estimation (like how well a population parameter can be estimated) in certain regimes, and not e.g. expected risk (like how well one can do at prediction), so I’m not sure how it would apply here.