What I'm taking away from this is: 1. re encryption: > Apparently before iOS8 only a subset of user data was being encrypted compared to what is being encrypt

What I'm taking away from this is: 1. re encryption: > Apparently before iOS8 only a subset of user data was being encrypted compared to what is being encrypted now. Which leaves my question unanswered: in that case the government could still unsolder the flash chip and access that data. Your link [1] mentions that this would include pictures and SMS messages, which is probably what they were after. 2. Custom firmware from Apple will help to access encrypted parts since it would allow to run the OS under the cracker's control, who then only needs to brute force the password and not the UID. According to [1] this is still slowed down to 12.5 attempts per seconds (80 ms) and newer iPhone hardware additionally contains hardware enforced rate or number of guesses limits. Edit: custom firmware would of course also help in case 1 in the sense that it makes it unnecessary to unsolder the flash. But my estimate for the effort needed to do the latter would be around USD 1000 if done exceptionally, perhaps USD 100 if done often enough. I wonder if Apple's unlocking service would be any cheaper. So perhaps the reason it's not being done is psychological (Apple complying is offloading the question whether it's OK), or the law, or worries about the constitution.