At least one (and I assume all) manufacturers of network hardware have backroom code sharing deals with the NSA, and likely only highest leadership and a single release engineer knows about it.
I personally know a trustworthy release engineer that described in detail they were the person that had to send all new source code for each release to an NSA owned FTP server.
Does that mean Apple is actually doing this too? Hard to say, but when there is no accountability it is best to operate under the assumption the worst is happening. Particularly given Tim Cook is very publicly sucking up to the president every chance he gets.
Im presuming you can't just directly ask the people you met if this mysterious modded Airtag exists?
Also on a side note: Did anything happen in 2025 regarding the saga from Defcon last year or did everyone just move on after 24? I apologize if this is still a sore issue.
I hear you, and if I was given such an order, even if it came with a gag order, I would never comply and would go straight to the press, consequences be damned.
Problem is everyone knows the people like me that would react this way, and those people go on vacation eventually or can be replaced. Pay attention when that happens.
If Trump asked Tim Cook for a favor, I bet it gets taken care of one way or the other.
I would not take your bet on any specific company at any specific time, but in the scale of the top ten tech companies over a decade, it is absolutely happening regularly with some of them and there is political will for it to be all of them.
