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Famed jailbreaker and former Apple intern Comex set to join Google as an intern
Famed iPhone jailbreaker Comex, whose real name is Nicholas Allegra, tweeted on Tuesday that he will be joining Google as an intern in the coming weeks. Allegra originally made a name for himself when he released a jailbreak tool dubbed JailBreakMe. As the name implies, the tool enabled users to easily and quickly bypass Apple's iOS security measures. Allegra's work eventually caught the attention of Apple who decided to hire the Brown University student as an intern in August of 2011. Allegra lasted 14 months at Apple before being let go under somewhat murky circumstances in late 2012. As for what Allegra will be up to over in Mountain View, well that's anybody's guess. It doesn't appear, though, that he'll be working on any Android related matters. Allegra noted in a conversation on Twitter that he will not be involved with Android, adding that he never liked the mobile OS "enough to ever want to hack it."
JailbreakMe hacker Comex let go by Apple after failing to respond to offer letter
After developing JailBreakMe, cracking such devices as the iPad 2 or iPhone 4 and finally scoring a paying intern gig with his nemesis, hacker Comex tweeted that he's no longer working at Apple. Also known as Nicholas Allegra, the talented coder's Cupertino situation apparently came asunder when he failed to respond to an email offer to re-up with the company, though he also told Forbes that the situation was more complicated than that. He added that "it wasn't a bad ending," and that he has fond memories of his Apple experience, but if you're hoping the Brown University student will have an iOS 6 jailbreak soon, don't hold your breath -- he's concentrating strictly on his studies, for now.
JailbreakMe creator Comex joins Apple as an intern
Allow us to extend our congratulations to Nicholas Allegra. He's more popularly known as Comex, the party responsible for crafting the infamous JailbreakMe and Spirit tools that's given Apple so many headaches recently. Starting the week after next, he'll be officially wandering around 1 Infinite Loop as a bona fide intern. We're not terribly surprised, since the skill level needed to give iOS engineers a run for their money can be a highly valuable asset to the company; hiring someone with the know-how to spot vulnerabilities in Apple's OS would only serve to make the platform more secure. It wasn't mentioned how Allegra's talents will be utilized by Apple, but -- given the programmer's extensive history -- we can make a few educated guesses.
JailbreakMe's Comex goes to work for Apple
Nicholas Allegra, aka Comex, aka the young man behind JailbreakMe.com, has been offered an internship with Apple, according to his recent Twitter update. "It's been really, really fun, but it's also been a while and I've been getting bored. So, the week after next I will be starting an internship with Apple." JailbreakMe.com has been around for awhile, and it's long been one of the easier methods of jailbreaking iOS devices. Over the years the site has gone through various iterations to get around Apple's attempts to plug the holes it exploited, but now it appears Apple has employed the greatest jailbreaking deterrence it can: a job offer. After Comex was profiled in Forbes, we speculated it wouldn't be long before Apple offered him a position. It looks like congratulations are in order.
Getting to know you: Comex, the boy behind iOS' JailbreakMe
See that kid above? That's Nicholas Allegra. He's the hackdom Harry Potter to Apple's Ye-Who-Shall-Not-Jailbreak-Our-Wares, and Forbes managed to sniff him out for a little bold-faced exposé. The 19-year old hero of the iOS community, better known as Comex, got his self-taught start with Visual Basic when he was still in single digits. After graduating through a venerable online forum education, the precocious coding lad set his smarts to homebrew Wii development, and the rest is JailbreakMe history. The self-described Apple fanboy admits his background is atyipcal of the cybersecurity industry, but with a former National Security Agency analyst praising his work as years ahead of his time, we don't think he should worry. For all the trouble his code has caused Cupertino, Allegra's not trying to be the embedded thorn in Jobs' side. Rather, the iPhone hacker claims "it's just about the challenge" and plans to keep on keeping ol' Steve on his billion dollar toes.
Forbes profiles Comex, the hacker behind JailbreakMe
The Apple world knows him as Comex, the person who developed JailbreakMe to let iPhone users quickly and easily jailbreak their devices. Now Forbes has outed Comex in a preview of an article that will be published in the magazine later this week. Comex is really Nicholas Allegra, a 19 year old student on leave from Brown University who lives with his parents in Chappaqua, NY -- not too far away from IBM's facilities in Armonk. Allegra is looking for an internship, and hopefully now that the world knows who he is, he'll be able to get a job with Apple or another electronics or Internet firm. Forbes writer Andy Greenberg cites security expert Dino Dai Zovi as comparing jailbreaking to "writing a ransom note out of magazine clippings," then goes on to say that last year's JailbreakMe 2 was more akin to "requiring an attacker to assemble a note out of a random magazine he's never read before, in the dark." Dai Zovi, co-author of the Mac Hacker's Handbook, notes that the level of sophistication in JailbreakMe is on a par with Stuxnet, the state-sponsored worm designed to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. He says that Allegra is probably "five years ahead" of the hackers who create persistent attacks on government and industrial targets. For all of his hacking skills, Allegra refers to himself as simply an "Apple fanboy" who likes the challenges of finding -- and exploiting -- security issues in iOS. Let's hope that Apple offers him a full-time job soon.
