[EliRivers]

There are encryption levels, practical to use, which require quantities like "all the energy in the universe" to brute force decrypt. Unless the NSA rewrites number theory (which is not impossible, I am forced to say, but it would be orders of magnitude more astonishing than anything we've ever seen them do) that should be pretty safe from brute-force decryption, leaving us only to worry about rubber hoses and leaving the password written on the fridge.

[dragonwriter]

> Unless the NSA rewrites number theory (which is not impossible, I am forced to say, but it would be orders of magnitude more astonishing than anything we've ever seen them do)

Not to minimize the magnitude of the acheivement here, but I do think the NSA exerts considerable effort to avoid being seen doing most of the things -- including the most astonishing things -- they do. Its a pretty key part of their mission.