It appears that Apple can now help us with access to our data. Capturing it and putting it on a USB for those who want it, is a feature that is no long unique to just the thieves.
Here's an article that explains how Apple can also access our data for us, or those officials that want it. Pretty neat.
http://www.examiner.com/article/apple-can-and-will-bypass-your-password-if-necessary?cid=rss
Sorry, but this has been discussed to death on MacRumors and slashdot.org as well, with some very informative posts (plus the usual garbage), and the blogger that you are quoting is an absolutely clueless **** who doesn't have a clue what he is talking about. He doesn't explain anything, he has read articles that were published elsewhere and his "explanation" is just an incorrect interpretation of what is actually happening.
Fact is: If you protect your data with a four digit passcode, then it isn't safe if law enforcement agencies want it.
But in order to get to your data, they'll need to first confiscate your phone, second get a search warrant that allows them to get the data on your phone (most definitely needed; even in case of an arrest where the police is allowed to search you _and_ open your belongings and look inside they are not allowed to look at data on your phone anymore according to recent court decisions, which lead to a conviction for 50 years jail being overturned), and with a search warrant in place, you can't complain that they perform a search.
However, even Apple, even in possession of your phone, cannot just access your data: They have to try out every possible passcode that you might have used. Which is simple for four digit passcodes (10,000 possible codes), but if you use a strong password, like eight truly random digits and characters, it is impossible to crack. It is made harder by the fact that the iOS device itself is part of the encryption, so they cannot employ some supercomputer to try out all the keys, but it must be done on the iOS device itself. And as an anti-hacker measure, the encryption method is designed so that trying any key takes about a tenth of a second.
