US government built secret iPod with Apple’s help, former engineer says

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An Apple engineer who helped launch the iPod said he helped the US government build a secret version of the device that could covertly collect data.

David Shayer, the second software engineer hired for the iPod project in 2001, said he first learned of the project in 2005, when he received an office visit from his boss’s boss.

“He cut to the chase,” Shayer recounts in a post published on Monday by TidBITS, an online newsletter covering all things Apple. “‘I have a special assignment for you. Your boss doesn’t know about it. You’ll help two engineers from the US Department of Energy build a special iPod. Report only to me.’”

Custom hardware, custom OS

Shayer said that over the next few months, he regularly helped the two men, who he identified only as engineers Paul and Matthew working for Bechtel (their purported redacted business cards are pictured above). There were mundane tasks, such as Shayer shuttling them from the lobby into the ultra secure quarters where iPod development took place.

And there were the not-so-mundane responsibilities of helping two outsiders to take Apple-provided source code and compile it into the operating system that ran what was quickly becoming perhaps the world’s most iconic music playing device. Among other things, Shayer helped the men find their way around the Windows-based developer tools Apple used at the time to build software for ARM chips.

Shayer said that Apple didn’t allow the engineers access

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