Intelligence community e-mail reveals "a new Pearl Harbor" type of thinking

[Egnever]

6. Yes they conceded they could do it

It isnt really cracking the phone and that is not what the government is asking for.

The government is asking them to disable the lockout feature of the phone. Currently if you enter an incorrect password on an iphone there is a longer and longer delay between subsequent failed entries and a total wipe of the phone after too many incorrect entries.

What the government is asking for and apple has admitted is possible is for apple to modify the firmware on the phone to eliminate the delay between incorrect entries and the wipe after too many failed attempts.

That would allow the government to go through all the possible password combinations over time until they unlocked the phone.

What is not possible is for apple to break the encryption. It can not be done. Encryption could be weakened with a universal key but that could only happen with new phones and could not be done to already existing phones. The government is not asking for that. At least not in this case.