It was a combination of an algorithmic improvement and ASIC hardware, to attack and recover encryption keys from vulnerable schemes in minutes, rather than bill

It was a combination of an algorithmic improvement and ASIC hardware, to attack and recover encryption keys from vulnerable schemes in minutes, rather than billions of years. The algorithm might have also required a hardware instruction not typically provided by commercially available chips. As a MacGuffin, it is still entirely plausible. But the actual use of any such magic box would never be visually exciting enough for Hollywood. "Ok, so I ssh in to the box, feed it the hash, let it run for 450 hours, and then we get the result and spend Satoshi's Bitcoins into accounts we control." "Does anything blow up?" "No." "Blinky lights at FBI headquarters?" "No." "Car chases?" "No." "Break in to a secured building?" "No." "So who's going to watch this movie?" "How about we just get some laser pointers and some cats while we wait?"