Another function of these probes could be crypto time capsules. For instance, years ago Google implemented an internal policy of deleting all company email aft

Another function of these probes could be crypto time capsules. For instance, years ago Google implemented an internal policy of deleting all company email after something like 90 days. This included all the ancient ones, which would have been invaluable to historians one day. A sad destruction of a trove of history. With a space probe flying out of the solar system, they could've encrypted all the old mail with a public key whose pair was on the probe, and then 100 years from now, the probe could be programmed to transmit the private key back to earth.