"A group led by a Princeton University computer security researcher has developed a simple method to steal encrypted information stored on computer hard disks," reports The New York Times.
It's pretty simple. Memory chips hold data for a short while after the power is turned off. Cool the chips and they hold it longer.
"Cool the chips in liquid nitrogen (-196 °C) and they hold their state for hours at least, without any power," Edward W. Felten, a Princeton computer scientist, wrote in a Web posting. "Just put the chips back into a machine and you can read out their contents."
