This is a really interesting question. Cryptography, I think, is
shrouded in uncertainty. History is riddled with instances where
the world 'knew' that their method of encryption was completely
secure, only to discover years later that wasn't the case.
Usually once they were in jail, or the war was over already. You
see.. Eve (the nickname we give to the person trying to evesdrop
in Cryptography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_and_Bob), is
at an advantage if she knows how to decrypt a message if Alice
and Bob don't know she can. Because they will continue to
communicate while she eves drops. While a little out of my
depth, people are well into the realms of Quantum Cryptography.
Which as Simon Singh explains in his book 'The Code Book', will
really blow most currently known encryption methods out of the
water. Even if we were to simplify this, hackers are now using
cloud architecture to increase computing power massively to
decrypt information. You only have to look at the competitions
held at conventions