Apple helped build a ‘top secret’ iPod for the US government



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A pair of hands hold two black and white iPod video models - one plays a movie, the other musicImage copyright
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Legend

The Secret Project began in 2005 when the iPod with Video was released

Apple helped the US government build a “top secret” iPod with sensors hidden inside, a former employee has revealed.

Only four people at the company were aware of the project, according to former Apple software engineer David Shayer.

Two men from a defense contractor arrived at Apple in 2005 on behalf of the US Department of Energy, he said.

They wanted help building an iPod that looked and worked like a normal iPod, but had secretly recorded data using additional hardware hidden inside.

Apple had helped engineers create a customized version of iPod software to house the secret device, Shayer said.

“They made sure I never saw the material,” he wrote in a long post for the Apple Tidbits newsletter.

“And I never did.”

He said the two engineers, from defense contractor Bechtel, had worked in an office in Apple’s buildings for months.

“They wanted to add custom hardware to an iPod and save the data from that custom hardware to the iPod drive in a way that couldn’t be easily detected,” he wrote.

“But it still had to look and function like a normal iPod.”

The pair had received a copy of the iPod system’s source code on DVD and purchased their own devices at stores to experiment, Shayer said.

“It was not a collaboration with Bechtel with a contract and a payment,” he wrote.

“It was Apple doing a favor under the table for the Department of Energy.”

Nuclear power

Mr Shayer never knew exactly what the two engineers were building but suspected “something like a stealth Geiger counter” to measure radiation without being noticed.

The Ministry of Energy is, among other functions, responsible for nuclear energy.

The story was supported by other Apple employees of the time.

Tony Fadell, the former vice president of the iPod division, tweeted that the story was “absolutely perfect” and “real without a doubt.”

“Super cool technology the government was working on at the time … I can only imagine what’s coming up these days,” he added.

Apple has yet to respond to a request for confirmation of the story.

The company has made privacy a key point in the marketing of its iPhones, which has led to disagreements with the US Department of Justice.

But the high level of secrecy – and the fact that the four people who had heard of it had since left Apple all – meant, Shayer said: “PR officials would honestly tell you that Apple has no record of it. of such a project. “

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