Tech proposal for GM approval:
If people like Ray Kurzweil, Peter Diamandis, etc. are right about the accelerating acceleration of digital tech, then it seems likely that by game-time quantum computers would exist. Quantum computers (as I understand it) would be able to easily break the kind of public key encryption we use today. Proposed solution: the Quantum One-Time Pad ("Quotip"). This is a quantum mechanical version of the one-time pad. Each user gets a device containing a set of particles that are entangled with the set of particles in the other user's device. When one user sends a text message (video, etc. would use up too many particles too quickly), their device 'observes' some of its particles, determining the state of the particles in the other person's device, while encrypting their message based on the 'observed' states of their own device's particles. The recipient is then able to use the resulting states of the particles in their device to decrypt the message. These devices would only have so many uses before all of their particles had been 'observed,' and would need to be 'wiped' and 're-entangled' (probably requiring specialized equipment at the right sort of tech store) before they could be used again. Each pair of communicating users would need a pair of Quotips.
If approved, I will have Briar Rose suggest they acquire some and use them, unless one of the other characters she's talking with would be better suited to make the suggestion (i.e., if Quotips are illegal devices that have to be purchased from underworld suppliers, GM's option).
