the biggest irony is when these agencies are investigating real incidents (not carrying out proof of concept experiments) decrypting messages isn’t even that relevant as there’s other hard evidence like packages of drugs or chemicals, firearms/explosives residue; and the inciident has been carried out by real humans in physical locations with a motivation to do so which can ususally be traced through old fashioned detective work. The presence of encrypted messages/software on a computer may be part of the evidence but only a small part.
BTW what I was told in the 1980s is the spy agencies only bothered people if they got involved in the dealing of kilos of hard drugs and/or certain political actions in certain countries and most young people were at very little risk of being pulled up by them; but it wasn’t that difficult to get sucked in to this sort of malarkey whilst trying to make money even if the dealer wasn’t religious or polltical. They were (and to some extent are) very paranoid about LSD type substances but the actual reality was because of flawed experiments in the USA but also (more common in UK) and misuse/diversion by their own staff some of whom took their own lives or had to leave their services under health grounds (which is a few thousands worth of public money down the drain each time that happened).
