They can definitely exploit cryptography because devices have hardware backdoors. Some people might have backdoorless devices, but with such a small anonymity set, they end up equally unable to hide. However, this is supposed to be anti-terrorist stuff, the authorities aren't supposed to use it to collect taxes. So for now, they pretend we have privacy, and Monero's cryptography serves to force them to pretend. We're also making progress waking people up and showing them how they're lied to by the authorities. Look at my Nintendo 64 wallet proposal and the work a dev has done on it, I'm pretty sure it's going to be the first real E2EE messaging app available to the public. That's funded by the Monero community. Maybe they're trying to get out ahead of that and keep it looking like consumer devices have real privacy, which also helps prop up manipulated tech stocks like Apple that rely on device "privacy" as a selling point.

meh pretty fair article all in all but yeah, I'd rather they didn't write anything at all. I don't think there are ulterior motives