Sneakers was better.
I haven't revisited it since Snowden happened, but I really ought to.
If you haven't rewatched it in a while, it's worth watching again.
It is a little bit relevant in a post that is replying to another post that says nothing in Sneakers is impossible.
Heck, even having it try to decrypt the packet(s) in a distributed manner with $ALL_THE_KEYS that might have already been collected via nefarious means, and then return the key + plaintext that is most likely, certainly seems possible if the box was created by someone with the resources of the NSA.
I would be extremely surprised if someone were not already working on (or had not already created) something very much like that.
It has to be a breakthrough in factoring large numbers very quickly, like what quantum computers are promised to be. So maybe possible after all, I guess. It's also very clearly a device, not an algorithm, so probably not a Von Neumann machine.
Not all, just protocols used in the west. From the script:
"Your codes are entirely different from ours. We never had any luck in breaking them so Lord knows, I wanted that box..."
Imagine heartbleed implemented on a RPi in a box.
And if nothing else, it's a science-fiction thought experiment: what effect would such a box have?
Considering the current cryptographic protocols we use, a quantum computer would serve rather effectively as such a box. Then again, considering the positioning of cryptography at the time ("export-grade crypto", anyone?), so would a special-purpose ASIC designed to brute-force keys.
If you do that, the whole thing makes a lot more sense.
Robert Redford, Sydney Poitier, Ben Kingsley, River Phoenix, James Earl Jones, Dan Aykroyd... probably more, but that's 3 Oscar winners, and a fourth with a nomination in there alone...
Don't forget Ben Kingsley, another Oscar winner.