It is incredible, even the most generous estimation of the NSA's capabilities before the Snowden disclosures now look conservative. This is the stuff conspiracy theories are made of.
I think that the intelligence agencies would rather have the vulnerabilities for their own use and roll the dice on being on the receiving end rather than buy up everything and close it, making it so they can't use it either.
Skype specifically refuted that rumor after it came out. That being said, based on everything that has come out in Snowden's documents and other reporting, I now believe all Skype communications are compromised.
"Depending on the strength of their encryption though, and the key used"
I trust that Apple is competent when it comes to encryption at this point. I agree that the statement was ambiguous as to whether the data was actually taken.
I highly doubt the hackers plan was to get email addresses and try to brute force from there... just doesn't make sense.
If you search Google, people are all the time receiving password reset emails going back years, even repeated ones.
Email addresses are in the clear all the time, and I've never heard of them being considered sensitive before. You should assume everyone has your email address.
Your post basically amounts to a conspiracy theory.
"It took them 3 days to tell us something happened. Obviously this means they would have kept it secret if it were at all possible."
It takes time to figure out what happened in a breach. That doesn't mean that Apple is some evil company trying to hide the fact that there was a breach.
No, they likely took the portal down as soon as they knew there was a breach. Highly unlikely they left it up while they investigated, and it takes time to figure out what happened and how much information was taken.
It is incredible, even the most generous estimation of the NSA's capabilities before the Snowden disclosures now look conservative. This is the stuff conspiracy theories are made of.