DARPA

The agency that built the internet, GPS, and drones — years before admitting each one.

Its unclassified greatest hits — the internet, GPS, stealth, mRNA funding, Siri's ancestor — are the argument for taking its classified portfolio seriously. The agency's stated job is to prevent technological surprise, which in practice means causing it. LifeLog, the plan to record a human life in total, was cancelled February 4, 2004. Facebook incorporated the same day. Historians call it coincidence. DARPA, notably, has never seemed embarrassed.