DEA "Leak" RE: How its impossible to decrypt/read communiques sent via Apple's iPhone Messaging service is Bullshit

It feels good to be right sometimes. The MINUTE I saw all the hoopla about the DEA having a memo leaked, veritably INVITING people who would like to keep their messages secret from the DEA should use Apple's Messaging service, installed directly on their iPhone, I thought to myself: Wow, does this ever smell like complete bullshit. 

Unfortunately, now that its basically been shown that, while the technological explanation given for why this is true may be sound, the whole of the message being widely disseminated to the public is still complete and total bullshit. 

First off, here is the supposed accidental leak that has the whole web jizzing in their pantaloons:

However, as you can see if you go to the Intellihub Article which I prefer to title as: "Bullshit officially called on DEA's leaked memo" which can be found at this link right here: http://intellihub.com/2013/04/05/dea-accused-of-leaking-misleading-info-falsely-implying-that-it-cant-read-apple-imessages, then you will see that things are not exactly as they would first appear. Here is an excerpt of the article for your convenience: 

In reading over this, however, a number of people quickly called bullshit. While Apple boasts of “end-to-end encryption” it’s pretty clear that Apple itself holds the key — because if you boot up a brand new iOS device, you automatically get access to your old messages. 

That means that (a) Apple is storing those messages in the cloud and (b) it can decrypt them if it needs to. As Julian Sanchez discusses in trying to get to the bottom of this, the memo really only suggests that law enforcement can’t get those messages by going to the mobile operators.

 It says nothing about the ability to get those same messages by going to Apple directly. And, in fact, in many ways iMessages may be even more prone to surveillance, since SMS messages are only stored on mobile operators’ servers for a brief time, whereas iMessages appear to be stored by Apple indefinitely.

That leads Sanchez to wonder if there might be some sort of ulterior motive behind the “leaking” of this document, done in a way to falsely imply that iMessages are actually impervious to government snooping. He comes up with two plausible theories: (1) that this is part of the feds’ longstanding effort to convince lawmakers to make it mandatory that all communications systems have backdoors for wiretapping and (2) that it’s an attempt to convince criminals that iMessages are safe, so they start using them falsely believing their messages are protected.

I brought this to my the attention of a friend who had been claiming precisely what all the news outlets are reporting, which is that this information that is referenced in the initial DEA link is still very likely factual and thusly, he was calling bullshit on my call of bullshit. To wit, what I said to him is as follows: 

It is very possible that the technological aspects being reported are accurate. But knowing how readily most operators hand over that information without a subpoena, I am prone to believe Apple would not take a heroic stance and refuse to do so without a subpoena, and furthermore, being that apple doesappear to indefinitely store a decryptable form of yer messages, the DEA can take their sweet time GETTING a subpoena and still gain access to your messages, even when your mobile operator has long gotten rid of them. That would normally not be possible, due to the fact that the US has no data retention requirements on the books like European operators do, and thusly, only maintain a temporary copy of your message for a very short time.

Lastly, any impression falsely provided, courtesy of the press, regarding that mode of communication being so solid it stymies any chance at the DEA ever trying to read them, is patently, by definition, bullshit. The technology may be accurate, but the fact is that they do not need to decrypt your intercepted communication. They have a 3rd Party--In this case Apple, (who has never really taken a stand against privacy of your incrimination that I am aware of). and who holds the entire message and the key to its encryption on their servers for an indefinite period of time. This, to me, is kind of like claiming they cannot, without exception, read your mail correspondence if you use the USPS, and you also write your message in Pig Latin. But in doing so, their goal is to mislead you, because what they fail to tell you is that they dont need to do that anyway, because they already have one of your pig latin translating relatives secretly planted as a mole in your own household who secretly keeps photocopies of all of your correspondence, and will provide them a plain english translation, upon request-- either with or possibly without so little as a court order to do so. Who knows?

What seems clear to me, is this: If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is. This nearly always holds up, as a universal law of human nature. Use your instincts people. Don't trust the DEA's direct correspondence with the public, and don't trust the DEA's pretend inner monologue,supposedly leaked for the public to see.