It has been six months since the Justice Department backed off on demands that Apple help the F.B.I. break the security of a locked iPhone.

But the government has not given up the fight with the tech industry. Open Whisper Systems, a maker of a widely used encryption app called Signal, received a subpoena in the first half of the year for subscriber information and other details associated with two phone numbers that came up in a federal grand jury investigation in Virginia.

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“The Justice Department is pushing the envelope,” said Jennifer Granick, director of civil liberties at the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society. Big companies like Apple and Microsoft have the wherewithal to push back, she said. But smaller companies may cave, rather than risk an expensive fight.

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The government did not make that request of Open Whisper Systems. “They need to pick those cases carefully,” Ms. Granick said. “They are only picking cases where they think they’re going to have the people on their side.”

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