>> this is the chip that holds all the data for the iphone 5c, ed the encrypted form. >> reporter: so you've got that off the phone. why not just read it? >> ah, well, because encryption is not so simple to retrieve. n reporter: a company the f.b.i. has not identified found a way around apple's encryption. the effort at drivesavers shows what they had to overcome. try wrong password too many times, and the phone wipes its memory clean. >> in the case of the 5c, you only have 10 attempts before the the iphone gets erased. >> reporter: to make sure the chip doesn't get erased, they copy it, then put it in a device that simulates an iphone but lets them reset the chip's password counter to zero after every 10 attempts. wouldn't that take forever? n it all depends on how fast lou are able to pull the data off, make that copy, do your 10 attempts. >> reporter: drivesavers hasn't yet defeated apple's password protection, but over the past 30