Although Apple is somewhat against people hacking their precious iOS smartphone, it appears that if you are exceedingly good at doing it, Apple will recognise that fact in some cases, as evidenced by a recent tweet by iPhone Dev Team member Comex.
According to an article over on Apple Insider, Comex, AKA 19 year old Nicholas Allegra is going to start an internship with Apple the week after next. @Comex tweeted…”So, the week after next I will be starting an internship with Apple.”
Comex is probably best known for releasing the web based JailbreakMe iPhone 4 exploit, and gained notoriety again last month when he released an updated version of the exploit for iOS 4.3.3.
Allegra is quite sure why he has a knack for cracking Apple’s security on the iPhone and says, “It feels like editing an English paper. You just go through and look for errors. I don’t know why I seem to be so effective at it.”
Dino Dai Zovi, a security researcher compares Comex’s hacking ability with “advanced persistent threat” hackers that are government sponsored and says, “He’s probably five years ahead of them.”
One of the first people to hack the original iPhone back in 2007, former National Security Agency analyst Charlie Miller is also impressed by Allegra’s ability and says, “I didn’t think anyone would be able to do what he’s done for years. Now it’s been done by some kid we had never even heard of. He’s totally blown me away.”
According to a recent article by Forbes, the 19-year-old hacker has apparently been on leave from Brown University since last winter and has been searching for an internship.
Allegra say he hacks because he loves the challenge, and taught himself to program when he was just 9, is a self confessed Apple fanboy, and says, “By the time I took a computer science class in high school, I already knew everything. I didn’t come out of the same background as the rest of the security community. So to them I seem to have come out of nowhere.”
Well it seems Comex’s hacking skills have paid off and his search for that internship is now at and end, so it just goes to show if your are good enough at circumventing Apple security, Apple notices.