In today's New York Times, there is a story about how a group led by a Princeton University security researcher Edward Felton has found a rather simple way to access information on encrypted devices: freeze the device's memory chip.

As the Times reported, Felton wrote on his blog that, "Interestingly, if you cool the DRAM chips, for example by spraying inverted cans of â''canned airâ'' dusting spray on them, the chips will retain their contents for much longer. At these temperatures (around -50 °C) you can remove the chips from the computer and let them sit on the table for ten minutes or more, without appreciable loss of data. Cool the chips in liquid nitrogen (-196 °C) and they hold their state for hours at least, without any power. Just put the chips back into a machine and you can read out their contents."

You can go to the group's website for a technical paper and the blog for discussions about the limitations of the technique.

Also today in ComputerWorld, there is a story about two researchers, David Hulton and Steve Muller, who claim they have found an expensive way to break the encryption on GSM phones, allowing calls to be easily listened to. They claim that by using about $1,000 worth of field-programmable gate array-aided computer equipment and a frequency scanner, they can crack a GSM phone's security in about 30 minutes. Spend $100,000, and you can crack it in 30 seconds is the claim.