Unless the someone invented state-of-the-art anti hacking hardware and couldn't think of any better use of it then protecting the secrecy of hdd firmware, then

Unless the someone invented state-of-the-art anti hacking hardware and couldn't think of any better use of it then protecting the secrecy of hdd firmware, then that is just a lie (or knowledge gained by reverse engineering the firmware is not considered "public" information). If you are interested, here is a story of someone modifing hdd firmware [1]. [1] http://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack http://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack