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'Hacker-proof' system? You be the judge

Euro defense company develops "hacker-proof" encryption.

Mark Rutherford
The military establishment's ever increasing reliance on technology and whiz-bang gadgetry impacts us as consumers, investors, taxpayers and ultimately as the defended. Our mission here is to bring some of these products and concepts to your attention based on carefully selected criteria such as importance to national security, originality, collateral damage to the treasury and adaptability to yard maintenance-but not necessarily in that order. E-mail him at markr@milapp.com. Disclosure.
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Mark Rutherford
EADS

Aerospace giant European Aeronautic Defence and Space has introduced a "hacker-proof" encryption technology that it claims will revolutionize Internet security and bring "cryptography into the 21st century."

The system, called "Ectocryp," was developed for military and business applications by researchers and engineers at EADS' Defence and Security Systems division in Newport, South Wales. The team relied on technology developed by the U.K.'s Government Communications Headquarters, sister agency to the NSA and formerly known as Government Code and Cypher School, of German Enigma fame.

The system owes its success to the "lightning speed with which the 'keys' needed to enter the computer systems can be scrambled and reformatted," reports the Telegraph. "Just when a hacker thinks he or she has broken the code, the code changes." (See related video.) The system is the first "Top Secret, Eyes Only" High Assurance Internet Protocol Encryptor (PDF) device in the U.K., according to the company.

How secure is it? Send your most excellent and sensitive Ectocryped data around the globe, and "all the computer technology in the world cannot break it," EADS sales manager Gordon Duncan boasted to the Telegraph.

Note to hackers of the Peeps Liberation Army: The gauntlet is officially down.