Taking the private key from Apple with a warrant, national security letter, subpoena, or other methods is <i>much easier</i> than creating a custom version of iOS.<p>It is foolish to assume that the FBI would stop at this special version of iOS, especially given how they have been arguing and fighting to break encryption for over <i>two decades</i>.<p>edit, on icebraining&#x27;s interpretation:<p>That&#x27;s exactly right - once the difficult part about targeting an individual phone is finished, it&#x27;s easy to take the iOS signing key and target any device you want.