I once worked in a git repository that required those kinds of restrictions.

This was within a bank and the code in question was related to enabling Apple Pay from within the banking application. The consequences of that information and code leaking or being seen by anyone who had not signed the NDA were very serious (don't remember the details but it made the lawyers were extremely stressed about it).

Needing to figure out a way to protect those parts of the codebase it was decided in the end that the "easiest" way of doing this was to split the repository in half, with the actual artifact building taking place from the half that had the NDA code. The rest of the application (basically the whole application) was then used as a dependency by it.

Still didn't quite solve the issue, but access to that repository was heavily controlled.

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SoftTalker 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Strikes me as bizarre that payment code would be sensitive, unless it's a security by obscurity thing (which would also be concerning).

Keys, secrets, etc. yes. But code? What am I missing here?

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danudey 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

As others have said, it's Apple and they do not take kindly to other people leaking their technology/announcements ahead of time.

See also: the time that ATI's CEO told his employees that their chips would be powering Apple's to-be-announced hardware a few days before the announcement. Steve Jobs responded by pulling all of ATI's hardware from its demo units at the announcement, not mentioning ATI at all, cancelling a joint demonstration of the Radeon card that was going to be in the system, and never partnering with ATI again.

https://web.archive.org/web/20001216031800/https://www.zdnet...

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gouggoug 22 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

From the linked article, it was a press release, not just to his employees.

> The incident began Monday when ATI, which supplies graphics cards for all Apple's current models, issued a four-paragraph news release that stated its Radeon processor would be featured in three new Mac models -- none of which were announced by Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) until CEO Steve Jobs' Wednesday morning keynote address.

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ifh-hn an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Sounds like a bit of a dick...

	▲	paulddraper 10 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		They unilaterally issued a press release about Apple's upcoming release. That's kinda a no-no for partnerships.
	▲	yonatan8070 29 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		One word: "Courage"

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formerly_proven an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> and never partnering with ATI again.

Except of course shipping ATI hardware for years afterwards, then also using nvidia, then dropping nvidia and only using ATI/AMD until transitioning to Apple Silicon.

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kurthr 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Because it's Apple. They are huge, have scary lawyers, write scary contracts, and want to "delight the user" with features only when they announce them. They hate leaks, and demand separate teams for basically any/all development.

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user_of_the_wek an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It seems this wasn’t about the code itself, it was about Apple Pay not being announced yet. So only people under NDA would be allowed to even know what they are working on.

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zer00eyz an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> security by obscurity thing... What am I missing here?

You are looking at the problem from the wrong direction.

If you build a honeypot, to trap hackers, does it behove you to explain what the bait is, and how the trap works?

Know your customer, fraud detection heuristics, finger prints, behavioral triggers are all areas where banks, and financial institutions need to keep the sauce secret. Telling the other party "how" you catch them just gives them the steps of what not to do.

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juancn 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's kinda like that, there could be a proprietary fraud detection heuristic in there that you don't want to get out.

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hk__2 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Maybe that’s some scoring to decide if you should be able to pay or not with some method.

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contingencies an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Can confirm split repos is an excellent solution for protecting IP.