[aSplash0fDerp]

If we go down the list of compromised protocols, hardware and firmwares/applications in use online (not including the people), how long before those in the know conclude that the Internet is an untrusted medium for secure communications?

I don't think we'll see homing pigeons make a comeback, but using autonomous vehicle couriers for analog/digital communications (drones, but more likely sdc's) and sacrificing the convenience of real-time communications for 100% integrity is not beyond the scope of reason or wants. If a message (or payload) is intercepted, it's physically impeded and much easier to track/detect. The number of layers of security to lockdown or destroy the contents is also at the sender/receivers discretion.

Depending on how cumbersome they choose to make 8k videos, VR worlds and/or new fangled AI/ML datasets for personal/business use, we're limited to 6720 GB transfers per day over 1GB lines, so data outgrowing the Internets transfer speeds is a plausible scenario that may facilitate a use case for local and long-haul direct autonomous data couriers that will blend in with the other autonomous delivery/pickup traffic.