The answers to these questions has some pretty deceitful phrasing....
>First, the government would have us write an entirely new operating system for their use.
Only "new" in the sense of not being exactly the same as the current one. Implies much more work than we know to be the case.
>Law enforcement agents around the country have already said they have hundreds of iPhones they want Apple to unlock if the FBI wins this case. In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks.
The master key analogy falls apart because the order specifically calls for making a version that only works on a targeted phone. At best it would be the equivalent of Apple being asked to make many individual keys. Unless, of course, they want to make a version of iOS with the exploit that would work on any iPhone.
> Of course, Apple would do our best to protect that key, but in a world where all of our data is under constant threat, it would be relentlessly attacked by hackers and cybercriminals. A
This is implying hackers could do anything with a version of iOS that is made to only work on one phone. You could absolutely release the update file that the FBI is asking for and have no risk of compromising anything because (again) this is for a specific phone.
>Has Apple unlocked iPhones for law enforcement in the past? >No.
(The answer then proceeds to say "Actually yes we have, just not past iOS 8)
>For devices running the iPhone operating systems prior to iOS 8 and under a lawful court order, we have extracted data from an iPhone.
>We feel strongly that if we were to do what the government has asked of us — to create a backdoor to our products
Using a backdoor already existing in your product...
>One of the strongest suggestions we offered was that they pair the phone to a previously joined network, which would allow them to back up the phone and get the data they are now asking for. Unfortunately, we learned that while the attacker’s iPhone was in FBI custody the Apple ID password associated with the phone was changed. Changing this password meant the phone could no longer access iCloud services.
Seriously FBI?
I know this letter isn't for me. I want to be on Apple's side based off of how they present the case. But if you look at the court order, off of the fact that the FBI got a warrant for a specific device, off of the fact that they're asking for an unlock of a specific phone, off of the fact that its technically feasible to do this without compromising all iPhones thanks to digital signage...
My impression is that Apple's position is that its technically infeasible to make this exploit, which isn't really true.
There's the other "but with this, we'll have to do a bunch of phones" argument... is there a term for being overburdened with writs from the court? What's the constitutional protection against that? That feels like the only valid defence at this point for them (from a legal standpoint)