It was a typical gray day in late 2005. I was sitting at my workplace writing code for the next version of the iPod. Suddenly, without knocking, the director of iPod software, my boss's boss, rushed in and closed the door. He got straight to the point: “I have a special assignment for you. Your boss doesn't know about this. You will be helping two engineers from the US Department of Energy build a unique iPod. You report only to me. "
The next day I got a call from the front desk and said that two men were waiting in the lobby. I went down to meet them. They were Paul and Matthew, engineers who wanted to build their own iPod. I would like to say that they came in dark glasses and looked into the reflections of the windows to make sure they were not being followed, but no, they were just the most ordinary thirty-year-old engineers. I let them in, and we went to the conference room.
They did not work for the Department of Energy, they worked for the Bechtel division, a major defense contractor for the Ministry. They wanted to add their own equipment to the iPod and burn the data to disk. Moreover, they wanted to disguise everything so that from the outside it would appear that this is an ordinary iPod.
They did all the work, my job was to provide them with the help they needed from Apple.
I learned that an official from the Department of Energy had contacted the senior vice president of hardware and asked for help building modified iPods. The senior vice president sent an inquiry to the vice president of the iPod division, who passed it on to the iPod software director, and he came to me. My boss was told that I was working on a special project and that questions were inappropriate here.
Background
I was the second programmer hired for the iPod project when it came out in 2001. At that time, Apple's marketing did not come up with the name iPod, and the product was codenamed P68. The first programmer later became director of software development for the iPod, it was he who came to me with this assignment. I wrote a file system for the iPod and later a SQLite database that kept track of all the songs. Over time, I worked on almost every part of the iPod's operating system except for audio codecs, which turned MP3 and AAC into sound.
(These audio codecs were written by two graduate engineers from Berkeley and Stanford. When they weren't arguing with each other about which university was better, they were writing math-filled code that I was afraid to touch. You wouldn't let a regular engineer mess with this code. as well as not letting a bike mechanic fix the gearbox of a Porsche. From time to time they played poker and I went with them. The only reason I didn’t lose all my money was because one of them was enjoying vodka.)
Compiling the operating system iPod from source, booting to a device, testing and debugging is a complex process. When a new engineer comes to us, we give him a week to deal with him before starting to give assignments.
The iPod operating system is independent and not based on other Apple operating systems, such as the classic Mac OS or Darwin, whose Unix kernel powers macOS, iOS, iPadOS, WatchOS, and tvOS. The original iPod hardware relies on a hardware platform that Apple bought from Portal Player. Portal Player provided low-level aspects of the iPod OS, such as power management, disk drivers, and a real-time kernel (licensed by Quadros). Apple also bought high-end parts of the iPod OS from Pixo. Pixo was founded a few years earlier by a former Apple engineer with the goal of writing a universal operating system for mobile phones and selling it to companies like Nokia and Ericsson. Pixo code gets along well with GUI and Unicode text (which is very important for localization),manages memory and handles events. Of course, over time, Apple engineers have modified this code, rewriting most of it.
The iPod OS is written in C ++. Since this OS does not support third-party applications, there was no public documentation of how the OS works.
Finally, the iPod development team ran on Windows. Apple didn't have tools for ARM development back then, because that was before the iPhone. The development team used tools from ARM Ltd, and they only worked on Windows and Linux.
My job was to coordinate the work of Paul and Matthew to launch an operating system that they had never worked with before.
Fast start
I booked an empty office for Paul and Matthew in our building. Asked IS&T (Apple's IT department) to configure the office network so that they can only connect to the Internet and not have access to Apple's internal network. Apple's Wi-Fi is always "outside" the internal network. Even if you connect to Wi-Fi inside the building, you still need a VPN to get to the internal network. It was not a contract and payment collaboration between Apple and Bechtel, Apple was helping the DOE unofficially. And access in such conditions was limited.
Needless to say, Paul and Matthew had no access to the source server. I gave them a copy of the current DVD version of the code and explained that the disc cannot leave the building. Moreover, they were allowed to store a modified version of the iPod OS, but not the modified source.
Apple did not provide them with any hardware or software tools. I gave them the technical specifications for Windows computers, which they need along with an ARM compiler and a JTAG debugger. They also bought several dozen iPods for the job.
As with all Apple buildings, everyone had to present a badge before entering in order to open the door and enter the building. Each floor had another door and a badge reader, so only people with security clearance would enter.
Every day, Paul and Matthew called me from the lobby as they didn't have a badge. I let them in as guests and accompanied them to their office. I ended up getting vendor passes for them, as if they wanted to sell coffee or chips to Apple. This way I no longer had to accompany them every day. I am a programmer, not a nanny.
Our best people
Paul and Matthew were smart - the best , perhaps - and with a little help they figured it out quickly enough. I showed them how to set up development tools, build an operating system from source, and how to load it onto an iPod. We've made some small GUI changes so they can see exactly which build they're running. I also showed you how to work with the JTAG hardware debugger, which was picky enough. And they plunged into their work.
By examining the operating system, they explained what they wanted to do, at least in general terms. They added special equipment to the iPod that generates data and wanted to record data from it. They made every effort so that I did not see this equipment and I did not see.
We discussed ways to hide the data that was recorded. As a disk engineer, I suggested that they create an additional partition on the disk and store data there. So, even if someone connects an iPod to a PC or Mac, iTunes will perceive the device as a regular iPod. What's more, the iPod will look the same in both Mac Finder and Windows Explorer. They liked the idea.
Then they wanted to add an easy way to start and stop recording. We took the longest path in the settings and added an item with an unremarkable name there. I helped them do this in OS code that was a bit more than obvious. The rest of the device functioned like a regular iPod.
The newest iPod at that time was the fifth generation iPod, better known as the "iPod with video". Compared to the iPod nano, which became popular shortly after this story, the iPod case was relatively easy to open and put back together without leaving any noticeable marks. What's more, the fifth-generation iPod had a 60GB drive, meaning there was plenty of room for both songs and additional data. And finally, this was the last iPod for which Apple did not verify the digital signature of the OS.
This was important because it made the fifth generation iPod, in a way, jailbreakable. Enthusiasts enjoyed the opportunity to run Linux on it, which was difficult without the specialized knowledge and tools that Apple possessed. We, the iPod engineering team, were impressed, but Apple didn't like it. Starting with iPod nano, operating systems have been digitally signed to stop hackers. The bootloader checked the digital signature before loading the OS: if it does not match, then the device will not boot.
I don't think Paul and Matthew ever asked Apple to sign their version of the operating system in order to run it on iPod nano. I'm even sure Apple would not agree. In any case, the large fifth-generation iPod was ideal for this purpose.
After several months of continuous work in their makeshift office, Paul and Matthew completed the integration of their special equipment into the iPod and scrapped the project. They returned with their computers and debugging devices back to the Bechtel office in Santa Barbara. They returned the source DVD and the passes to me. They said goodbye to me and I never saw them again. The DVD sat on a shelf in my office for years until I saw it while cleaning.
What they were doing?
The Department of Energy is huge. Its 2005 budget is $ 24.3 billion. It is responsible for US nuclear weapons and nuclear power programs, including Los Alamos National Laboratory, which was part of the Manhattan Project. As the DOE budget request states:
2005 $ 9,0 . , . , , .My guess is that Paul and Matthew were assembling something like an invisible Geiger counter. Something that DOE agents can use openly. Something that looks unremarkable and plays music and functions like a regular iPod. You can walk around the city, listen to your favorite music and discover the presence of radioactivity - for example, stolen uranium - or evidence of the development of a "dirty bomb" without the chance that the public or the press will find out about it. Like many other electronic gadgets, the Geiger counter is getting smaller and cheaper. And I was particularly amused that I came across the Radiation Alert Monitor 200 , which resembles a classic iPod.
When I asked Paul and Matthew what they were doing, they changed the subject and started arguing about where to go for lunch. Oh, those geeks.
The special iPod that didn't exist
Only four people at Apple knew about this secret project. I am the director of software development for the iPod, vice president of the iPod division, and senior vice president of hardware. None of us work at Apple anymore. And there are no records. All connections were only in words.
If you ask Apple about a special iPod project, public relations will honestly say that Apple has no record of such projects.
But now you know.
