Yes, you did read that right: a former senior Apple engineer claims the US government turned an iPod into a secret geiger counter. Or, more exactly, a large US defence contractor turned an iPod to a secret apparatus which was likely a geiger counter -- and just four people at Apple ever understood about it.
The narrative is told by David Shayer, who's a credible resource, having played a pivotal role in the development of the iPod -- and can be backed by 'father of the iPod' Tony Fadell...
I had been the second software engineer employed for the iPod project as it started in 2001. Apple Marketing hadn't yet come up with the title iPod; the product was known by the code name P68. The very first software engineer afterwards became the manager of iPod Software, the guy who gave me this particular mission. I composed the iPod's file system and after the SQLite database that monitored each of the songs. As time passes, I worked almost every part of the iPod program, except the audio codecs that converted MP3 and AAC files into audio.
He recounted the story for TidBITS.
It was a grey day in late 2005. I had been sitting at my desk, writing code to another year's iPod. "I have a special assignment for you. Your boss doesn't know about it. You'll assist two engineers from the US Department of Energy build a distinctive iPod. Report only to me personally" They wanted to bring some custom hardware into an iPod and record data from this custom hardware into the iPod's disc in a means that could not be easily detected. But it still had to look and work like a standard iPod. They would do all the work. My job was to supply any aid they needed in Apple.
Just four people at Apple knew about this secret project. Me, the manager of iPod Software, the president of the iPod Division, and the senior vice president of Hardware.
Because Shayer's role was only to make sure that the Bechtel engineers had the resources and training they needed, he said it was never clear what the secret device was going to be.
The process seems like something directly from a spy film. Apple was not allowed to know what the government wanted the iPod to do, and the builders were not permitted to access Apple's servers or utilize any Apple hardware or software applications. Apple did not even provide them the iPods: Bechtel purchased these from retail outlets.
All Shayer knew for certain is some hardware would be added to the iPods to catch some data, which must remain secret, and the modifications to the iPods needed to be completely undetectable even if someone plugged one into a Mac or PC.
They'd added special hardware to the iPod, which created data they wanted to record covertly. They had been careful to ensure I never watched the hardware, and that I never did.
We discussed the best method to hide the data they listed. As a disk engineer, I proposed they make a separate partition on the disk to store their data. This way, even if someone plugged the modified iPod into a Mac or PC, iTunes would treat it as a normal iPod, and it might look like a normal iPod in the Mac Finder or Windows Explorer. They enjoyed that, along with also a hidden partition it was.
Next they wanted a very simple method to start and stop recording. We chose the deepest preferences menu path and inserted an innocuous-sounding menu towards the finish. I assisted them hook up this within the code, which was quite non-obvious. In all other respects, the apparatus functioned as a standard iPod.
A 5th-gen iPod was used as it had a sizable hard drive, so lots of space for information; the casing could be opened to put in the additional hardware without leaving any marks; and the OS wasn't digitally signed by Apple, which left it hackable.
Whilst Shayer never knew for sure what they were constructing, a highly secretive project for the Dept of Energy will provide a big hint, he considers, it was a key geiger counter.
My guess is that Paul and Matthew were building something similar to a stealth Geiger countertops. Something which DOE agents could use without furtively hiding it. Something that seemed innocuous, that played music, and functioned just like a standard iPod. You could walk around a city, casually listening to your own tunes, while recording evidence of radioactivity--scanning for smuggled or stolen uranium, for instance, or signs of a dirty bomb development program--with no possibility that the media or public would get wind of what was happening. Like all other digital gadgets, Geiger counters have gotten cheaper and smaller, and that I was amused to run across the Radiation Alert Monitor 200, which seems an awful lot like a classic iPod.
Tony Fadell says he has no doubt that the story is true.