Scientists have connected up the world's first computer network protected by "quantum cryptography," a supposedly unbreakable system that functions off a scheme based on the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. For us non-science folk, that means that you can't grab information transmitted through the network without disturbing it somehow, making it easy to detect when somebody's trying to listen in on exchanges.

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3M's new Mobile ID Reader scans MRZ and RF chip data from passports and visas and immediately checks them against local or international watch lists by using wifi or GSM/GPRS EDGE networks. It seems like a great tool to further make you feel like you're living in some scary dystopian sci-fi novel, especially when you hear that dastardly monopolist Bill Gates got his little-loved Windows Mobile 6 OS onto the device.

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About a year ago we brought you the first retail terabyte HDD, the Deskstar 7K1000, and now Hitachi has released the Deskstar 7K1000.B. And Hitachi's worked quite hard on it: With a 32MB buffer and a three-disk layout, it's apparently the "world's most power-efficient 1TB drive" and consumes about 43% less power when idling. And for those of you who think "bleh" to the power savings, it also has built-in encryption, which Hitachi says doesn't impact on read/write speeds at all. Out soon for US$279, which puts it in competition with the Samsung HD103UJ. [Hitachi and BoingBoing Gadgets]

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Scientists at Princeton have discovered a way to grab otherwise-protected data encryption keys from memory on a computer that's just been powered down. This is pretty scary stuff, since the keys—which are well protected when the computer is on—are the one thing that keeps super-tight encryption from cracking.

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Skype's encryption codes are proving a problem for German police, who say that their officers are unable to monitor suspect conversations. One of the country's top cops admitted yesterday that the combination of VoIP technology and Germany's strict anti-surveillance laws — a reaction to the Stasi's exploits during the Cold War — is making it harder to keep tabs on criminal and terrorist activity in the country.

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Designed to be the world's most secure flash drive, the IronKey employs military-grade AES hardware-based encryption using its IronKey Cryptochip. The encryption keys are stored on the drive itself and your password is required in conjunction with the keys to access and decrypt files. If you forget your password, you may be in trouble; after ten consecutive failed password attempts, the IronKey self-destructs (internally) and erases everything on the drive using "flash-trash" technology that physically overwrites every byte, making the data completely unrecoverable.

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