A former Apple software engineer has revealed that back in 2005, Apple helped the U.S. government to build a "top secret" iPod with hidden sensors inside, the BBC reports.
Engineer David Shayer emphasized that this was not a collaborative effort, as he was not permitted to actually see the hardware under construction. Rather, Apple donated its resources to U.S. defense contractors who worked out of Apple offices for months. Only four Apple employees even knew about the project, and all four have subsequently left the company.
Shayer related that the Department of Energy wanted to build an iPod that looked normal but secretly recorded data. "They wanted to add some custom hardware to an iPod and record data from this custom hardware to the iPod's disk in a way that couldn't be easily detected," he wrote. "But it still had to look and work like a normal iPod."
Shayer never learned exactly what the government contractors built, but he guessed it was "something like a stealth Geiger counter" to measure radiation.
Tony Fadell, the former vice-president of Apple's iPod division, confirmed the veracity of Shayer's story, tweeting that the story was "absolutely spot on" and "real without a doubt."
"Crazy super cool technology the government was working on then… I can only imagine what is cooking these days," he added.