&gt; The argument here is that once Apple creates that second key the effort required to steal it is significantly lowered. You can&#x27;t steal something that doesn&#x27;t exist yet.<p>The key exists. If someone were to steal it, they could sign any version of iOS they want.<p>I think the resources required to successfully steal Apple&#x27;s private key for signing updates, which is presumably locked down very robustly, is an order of magnitude greater than the resources required to modify iOS to remove the erase and timeout features. The latter is very difficult especially without the source code, but it&#x27;s hard for me to believe that it&#x27;s harder than stealing Apple&#x27;s key.