Originally Posted by bpratt
I'm not saying don't worry about crypto strength, I take that seriously too, but focus on the weakest links in the chain before getting too freaked out about the strength of your crypto.
I understand your argument, and generally agree with it, but secretly sniffing/recording network traffic requires a lot lower level of commitment on the attacker's part than a smash-and-grab.
And it wouldn't necessarily yield the same benefits. It's probably not going to get you passwords, it won't get you the contents of communications that weren't saved on the computer, and the smart guy would have anything sensitive on his computer encrypted anyway (of course the key would have to have been kept separately).