This is complete and utter bullshit. Firstly it’s a dishonest response since we were talking about how the code worked. But let’s put that aside and consider i

This is complete and utter bullshit. Firstly it’s a dishonest response since we were talking about how the code worked. But let’s put that aside and consider it anyway. If the code literally returned true, the second hash would have no effect at preventing collisions for any user at any time. As you say, for this to be the case, Apple would need to be lying. A subpoena wouldn’t be issued without cause, would only impact specific individuals, and would have no impact on the general protections provided by the secondary hash at preventing the adversarial attacks proposed. Nothing about this is even close to functionally equivalent to ‘return true’.