I understand what you&#x27;re saying, and I agree. But I think it might be a little disingenuous to use Osama Bin Laden&#x27;s crypto practices as an example. I believe this is the more interesting story of what really happened with Bin Laden?<p>&gt;Pakistan secretly captures Bin Laden by bribing tribesmen. The US finds out by bribing Pakistani officials. Further bribes with foreign aid money get other Pakistani officials to issue a stand down order. The SEALS swoop in unopposed but somehow still lose a helicopter. They kill a captive Bin Laden as part of a deal to avoid exposing Saudi support for Al Qaeda. The media gets fed a cover story about the compound being a command center. Some doctor guy becomes a scapegoat and vaccination programs are derailed in all of Pakistan. The CIA fabricates documents from the compound and flirts with claiming credit for &quot;enhanced interrogation&quot; technique in the matter.<p>If you don&#x27;t like that story then sure by all means stick with Story A: The CIA does brilliant investigative work. The commander-in-chief makes a gutsy call. The SEALs storm in and kill the bad guy in a firefight. He is buried at sea with full rituals. The 2012 presidential campaign starts a few days afterwards.<p>If you support Story A, then this would certainly make sense:<p>&gt;It&#x27;s like they simply forgot about the biggest reason it took so long to find Osama bin Laden: he was so security-concerned that he used couriers and relays (which, counter to the broad narrative about the terrorist shift to security, actually cannot be decrypted)<p>##EDIT<p>Claims comes from a previous HN article about the Killing of Bin Laden: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=9520984" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=9520984</a>