Law enforcement officials have known about such operations for years, but cracking down on them is a challenge because of their low-profile, their ability to blend into residential neighborhoods and their locations in predominantly Asian-American communities.

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That could make cracking the market for so-called prepaid phones a challenge for Apple, limiting its ability to wage a war for market share with other handset makers.

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This ability would allow a quantum computer to do the mathematical heavy-lifting required for, say, cracking secret codes, while even the fastest and most advanced supercomputers plod along on the same problem.

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