[khalilravanna]

I think the point is that Apple no longer has "backdoor" keys for encryption any longer so that they have no keys to give the government when they come knocking. I'm basing this conclusion off a quote from the article: "While the government insists that there will be no requirement for companies to install backdoor", as well as an interview with Tim Cook off 60 Minutes where he stated they won't be going the backdoor route anymore. I believe there are more quotes available from him if you google "apple encryption backdoor".

[throwaway7767]

Apple can certainly read iMessage conversations and provide that data to goverments. They don't have the private keys, but they run the directory server that distributes the public keys used to encrypt to. So they can very easily provide you with the wrong public key for your recipient, decrypt that data and store/forward, and then re-encrypt on their end with the correct key and forward to the actual recipient.

"Secure" communications systems that rely on a trusted central third party to vouch for keys are no more secure than allowing that same third-party to implement key escrow.