Originally posted by adravesFurthermore, an AES 256 compressed file that you don't know the password for is useless (it is military grade encryption....don't expect to crack it in your lifetime).
Although AES is still a very secure encryption please expect it to be broken in your lifetime. I've already heard several times in the past sentences like 'don't worry, this is safe as it can't be broken' and a few month/years later it's a default option to decrypt files using these encryptions.
At the moment AES apears to be pretty safe but that doesn't mean that it'n not easy to break the code tomorrow or maybe already now in a secret lab. Just have a look at this to see that breaking AES just got a bit easier:
AES Cryptanalysis
You never know if any enryption has a backdoor hidden or a strange mathematical weakness just waiting to be discovered. For example those (safe forever) md5 checksums are laughable today with the correct hard/software.

