As far as I'm concerned, you're both "conspiracy nuts". Do you speculate that the moon landings didn't really happen as well? I speculate that no one is anywhere near creating a large scale, practical quantum computer. At best, I'd say they're at the level of the pre-ENIAC computers. Another 10 years, maybe we'll have the quantum computing equivalent of ENIAC (e.g. you have to hand program it for each calculation, it will be massive in size, requiring cooling and power that are insane, and various portions of the device frequently fail and need to be replaced/fixed). In fifty years, when I'm a freaking old man, perhaps I'll be reminiscing about how "back when I was young, we had 256-bit encryption and thought it wouldn't get cracked in our lifetime!"
Call me a 'conspiracy nut' if you will. But, I think the difference between me and a typical conspiracy nut is that although I believe in what
you might call 'nutty' stuff, those things truly don't bother me, nor do they give me a negative perspective on the world, nor am I easily influenced by the opinions of others. E.g. "OMG! A YouTube video on aliens! This means it must be true!" I form my own assumptions, thanks. I'd like to remind you that the only reason that you believe in quantum computing is because you've read or heard about it, not because you actually understand exactly how it works, and not because you've ever seen one. Great evidence -- word of mouth. "OMG a 128 qubit quantum computer! That means it must be the most powerful quantum computer in existence! They even said so!" Give me a break. You're guessing as much as I am.
As far as the moon goes, I believe we went there. But, I do find it highly 'interesting' that we haven't been back there since.
Here's something else that's 'nutty' that I believe in. I believe in evolution, but I do not believe humans evolved from primates. Humans appear to be a unique case that defies the logic of evolutionary theory. Call me 'stupid' or 'retarded' or 'nutty.' I truly don't give a shit.
So, by all means, call me a nut. See if I care. I think you're closed-minded and making more nutty assumptions than I am. Do you care? No? I guess we're at an impasse then. I just find it quite ironic that the stranger we find reality to be, the more likely most people are to assume that they know it all.
Let me put it this way, what's more likely:
The USA government has quantum computers and are breaking any mainstream encryption whenever they feel like it. Meanwhile, no other country has come close (because we rock here in the US and are WAY better at this stuff -- never mind that DES was based off a dumbed-down Lucifer cipher that was mostly created in South Africa by IBM employees, IIRC). And the only people who have done anything with quantum computing and published something about it are doing stuff like factoring 15 into 3 * 5. So the US gov't is basically several orders of magnitude ahead of anyone else. Also, quantum computing would require some seriously advanced manufacturing and other technology, and most of the manufacturing is no longer even done in the US (e.g. cars, motors, injection molded plastic, motherboards, etc. are nearly all done somewhere else where it's cheaper, to the point where the US basically has no real ability to do the necessary work on their own). There are a ton of other things that would also have to be in place for a real QC to exist, but let's just stop for now.
OR: no one is anywhere near having created a fully functional quantum computer that can be used for actual work like cracking 256-bit, 128-bit, 2048-bit, etc. encryption. Everything being done right now is at a very theoretical level, with a few attempts at practical applications that haven't really been too useful so far.
I do not say that it's absolutely impossible for a super secret quantum computer to exist somewhere that is so classified that the only people that know about it have said nothing (and of course none of the espionage groups from other countries know about it). However, I do think that such a scenario is HIGHLY unlikely. You would have thousands (or more) people working on the creation of this secret quantum computer, or at least the various parts of it, and either everything is so compartmentalized that only a very select few know about the real purpose of the design, or everyone is being very good about not talking. The Manhattan Project was the biggest "secrete success" of the US in many ways, and yet the Soviets and most other advanced nations basically had everything they needed to know within a few years. Quantum computing has the potential to be bigger than the Manhattan Project.
It's just like the moon landings. For those to have been faked is technically possible, but the number of people involved that would have to have kept their mouths shut is ludicrous. Of course, I've also got a brother who works in the aerospace industry who told me that everything he knows/does in that area suggests that the moon landings were indeed real. Oh, and there are reflectors set up on the moon that scientists aim lasers at to test distance and some other stuff. So why haven't we gone back? Because it turns out the moon is a pretty darn boring place. The dirt on the surface is largely worthless, and the cost to get to the moon is prohibitive. I think we'll eventually go to the moon again, but not for a while yet. A manned voyage to Mars would be much more interesting, IMO.