What do you think the present-day cryptological equivalent of the Enigma machine and its decryption is? I’m most interested in examples of consequence (e.g. saving lives by shortening war) rather than comparisons of technical achievement.
Since there are no major wars running, if someone did break something significant they would save it for later.
Even enigma would have been mostly good enough, if the allies had taken a few weeks to decrypt each message.
In peace time learning old secrets is comparatively more useful.
IDK if the allies would have had a list of gay Germans from encrypted data they collected decades prior they could have used that data for extortion. Even if it took decades of progress, they'd have had ample time. The question is, does collecting data now put you into a better position than not having such collections. And the answer is maybe to yes. Even if it's just maybe it's probably worth the investment for the DoD.
For an interesting Paperclip-like connection to the founding of the BND, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Scherhorn#Aftermath
“EncroChat was a Europe-based communications network and service provider allegedly used by organized crime members to plan criminal activities. Police infiltrated the network between at least March and June 2020 during a Europe-wide investigation. An unidentified source associated with EncroChat announced on the night of 12–13 June 2020 that the company would cease operations because of the police operation.
The service had around 60,000 subscribers at the time of its closure. At least 800 arrests have been made across Europe as of 7 July 2020”