Our threat-models and business-models don't have the benefit of being law. They must rise and fall according to the realities of the real world that they conte

Our threat-models and business-models don't have the benefit of being law. They must rise and fall according to the realities of the real world that they contend with. A digital signature does not inherently mean much. It just (pseudo-)guarantees that a holder of a copy of the private key signed the data. Taking that to mean anything else, such as that a signed update was freely designed by Apple with only pure intentions, or even that Apple is the only holder of the private key, is nothing but our own wishful thinking. This court order has hopefully shattered our naivete. The real-world now says that you can't trust that a third-party's private keys are not controlled by governments. It was extremely unrealistic for Apple to include the government as an adversary in their threat-model, claim to protect against it, but then leave this opening. >Second, assisting which government? Any? All? Some? What's the metric? When it comes to questions of legality, the simple answer is that the company has to abide by the laws of all of the countries that it operates in. If they don't want to, or if they can't because two countries have conflicting legal demands, they have no choice but to leave that country. This cannot be any other way. See my other responses in this thread for a more detailed discussion of this "but what if China did this" issue, if that's the argument that you're alluding to here. When it comes to questions of only morality, it's up to the individual people in a company to advocate for the right course of action. Only their own conscience, and the free judgments of their peers, can guide them.