I'm not a security person, but my understanding is that all security systems are known to fail and thus come with a lifetime. Real safes aren't uncrackable, but uncrackable under 15 minutes of duress.
Crypto seems a little different since exponential complexity pushes those lifetimes out to what people often assume is infnite. A demonstration of a 4 year lifetime of a 768-bit under moderately powerful attack makes it clear that it isn't different and that its lifetime is now scarily short.
It's a lot like what I assume the introduction of power tools might have done to safe cracking. What previously was a 30 minute safe becomes a 30 second safe once the people you want to keep out can drill.
Crypto seems a little different since exponential complexity pushes those lifetimes out to what people often assume is infnite. A demonstration of a 4 year lifetime of a 768-bit under moderately powerful attack makes it clear that it isn't different and that its lifetime is now scarily short.
It's a lot like what I assume the introduction of power tools might have done to safe cracking. What previously was a 30 minute safe becomes a 30 second safe once the people you want to keep out can drill.