Re: Crypto-busting test case
"If an encrypted computer (I'm going to assume that means "encrypted data on the hard drive" in this case) is a ["]problem with a solution["][my statement], what is the point of encrypting any computer...?"
The point is to prevent data being stolen with a machine. If you were to rob me in the street today, you'd get my computer, but not the data on it. You could try some passwords, but it wouldn't get you in, and the security of my data would be intact. That's because it's not worth a ton of money to you. $190 million in bitcoin, on the contrary, is worth quite a bit to people, including to the people who run this company who could face some negligence cases if they don't get access to the thing. That makes it possible to invest some more resources into brute forcing passwords. For example, if the encryption is done using bitlocker on Windows, the passwords aren't super-secure*. It would be possible to brute force the possibilities of the default code if you had the inclination. For $190 million, the inclination is there more than for the random files I happen to have, and it is thus more likely to be attempted by this company than it is by a street thief who already has the main source of value, the hardware of my laptop.
*The default password for bitlocker is a 6-digit numeric pin. This machine could use a different system and/or a more secure password. This system could in fact not be encrypted at all. However, automatically typing in all combinations of digits is doable if you are willing to spend a couple of weeks on it, and other methods of trying to crack the password are doable too.