Short retention according to who? That server only? No copies to the NSA? I’m a trust but verify kind of guy and with just the word of Apple I assume somebody is keeping the data and using it in some way.
Agree with such skepticism but what are you replying to there? My comment was saying that it cached the cert check for a bizarrely short time (necessitating frequent network calls), not that the logs were retained for only a short time, which I agree is a bad defense.