A more serious problem with the story is if they had any kind of advanced (or magical) brute force or mathematical path against some standard encryption scheme

A more serious problem with the story is if they had any kind of advanced (or magical) brute force or mathematical path against some standard encryption scheme - they would not waste that major secret on some random 18yo joker. (Although in the background, fuckups are always possible and they did send a fighter jet initially so there was some pressure to follow through. Still not enough to risk a major secret.)