The End of Encryption?

An anonymous reader writes "The encryption algorithms that make virtually all electronic commerce possible work only because certain mathematical problems are very, very hard to solve. But some mathematicians are trying to prove that there's really no difference between 'hard' and 'not hard' problems--known in the math biz as P and NP. In an article on TechnologyReview.com, Simson Garfinkel spells out the real-world consequences of this mathematical conundrum."