David Shayer, who was an iPod Software Engineer – the 2nd one they hired for the iPod project when it started in 2001 – back in the day:
It was a gray day in late 2005. I was sitting at my desk, writing code for the next year’s iPod. Without knocking, the director of iPod Software — my boss’s boss — abruptly entered and closed the door behind him. He cut to the chase. “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.”
You can of course already guess the two engineers didn’t work for the US Department of Energy itself, but worked for a US Defense Contractor …
The Case of the Top Secret iPod →
Via Kottke