That does sound similar. One difference I notice - my friend's boss met routinely with executive staff and senior managers at HP to go over future projects. The

That does sound similar. One difference I notice - my friend's boss met routinely with executive staff and senior managers at HP to go over future projects. They all made an effort to keep their entire organization secret - even renting offices to do the development off-site in the Bay Area. I have no doubt that HP's use of tourist visas for staffing was well known to all their executives. I do know that HP was working on a lot of secret defense department programs at the time - I wonder how many of those secret military programs were actually implemented by foreign nationals hidden away at HP?