this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2024
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There is a race to crack the most common encryption algorithms. The official estimation is that they are 30 years away from it (reduced from the original 100 years they provided only 5 years ago), so their progress is faster that they expected and this tech is now considered a weapon.
The country that gets there first will have a very valuable window of opportunity... It's a race.
Governments are also hoovering up encrypted files and storing them for later so when the time comes, they can go and decrypt everything.
Gov seized your hard drive and you feel safe knowing it's encrypted, better hope the forgot where they put it in 15 years.
Drives are usually encrypted with symmetric ciphers (usually AES) and these are reasonably secure against quantum attacks with a key big enough.
And with the vast majority of crimes you just need to wait until the statute of limitations, which in cryptography and quantum fields is quite short period.
There's no hiding secrets from the future.
With math you can try, but I bet that in the future they laugh at the half-assed schemes and algorithms amassed to enforce cryptographs in the past.
Not all encryption is vulnerable to quantum.
...another argument for aggressive statute of limitations for all non-violent crimes.