[gburt]

I'm having a hard time speculating about what phones are "encrypted cellphones" by this count. Are they counting iOS devices with a strong passcode or is there some other functionality they're specifically "having trouble" with? I find it hard to believe they're talking about Phantom and specific-application "cryptophones."

[sjy]

They’re talking about ordinary phones. Before full-disk encryption became common, it was usually trivial for law enforcement to access data on phones, laptops and other devices physically seized under a warrant. That’s often impossible now that data is encrypted at rest by default.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI–Apple_encryption_dispute

[gburt]

If that is the case, why are there only 2000? The conditions must be more complex than that. Unless 2000 is nearly every phone they touched in that time period?

[Andre_Wanglin]

If by "impossible" you mean they have to buy a GreyKey.[0]

[0]: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/03/greykey_iphon...