It’s like a Harry Houdini story. A drive is “super-encrypted” and put into a safe, hidden in a large ship sunk hundreds of feet under water. Can Harry get the data? The Italians say yes, and they’re apparently very concerned.

Italian prosecutors fear that would-be thieves might try to reach the wreckage in order to loot expensive jewelry and other valuable objects onboard, including intelligence data, CNN reported, citing unnamed sources. The authorities are reportedly concerned that two super-encrypted hard drives in the sunken yacht’s watertight safes could fall into the wrong hands.

Let’s set aside the fact that “super-encrypted” doesn’t mean anything. It’s interesting that the drives being harder to get to now, as opposed to when they were above water, makes them more vulnerable than before. To be fair, divers can come from anywhere and slip around unobserved (let alone submarines). I suppose this worries the Italians the most that there is no clear boundary underwater.

If the most important control was simply observing access (ostensibly the main difference being in an obfuscated remote shipwreck), then it seems the obvious answer here is to put a hidden camera on that safe. But then the simpler question is maybe why not float that safe out to where it can be more easily observed?

Still can’t believe someone called anything “super-encrypted”. And on that note, when I read criptato in Italian I always think of a crispy potato. Can encryption be crispy?