Something <i>much</i> worse is possible.<p>What if the NSA&#x2F;CIA&#x2F;whoever can <i>already</i> decrypt that phone if they want?  What if they&#x27;re very publicly showing limitations of their abilities that aren&#x27;t real, so that bad guys use it as a manual (&quot;follow these steps and the NSA can&#x27;t spy on us&quot;, except they actually can)?  What if they&#x27;re doing this so that bad guys (as defined by them) continue to use and trust vulnerable systems, rather than looking for secure alternatives?<p>If that scenario is right, if all this is just theater, then Apple will eventually win this fight, and along the way, there will be pretty clear guidelines established about what the NSA currently can and cannot break.  Only you can&#x27;t trust that what gets revealed is accurate...