Apple Gives Internship To JailbreakMe Creator 'Comex'

“It’s been really, really fun, but it’s also been a while and I’ve been getting bored,” Allegra said via Twitter . “So the week after next I will be starting an internship with Apple.”

Allegra, who goes by the hacker handle “Comex,” developed the Web site JailbreakMe.com, the primary tool in the hacking community for those looking to jailbreak their iOS mobile devices.

“JailbreakMe is the easiest way to free your device. Experience iOS as it could be, fully customizable, themeable, and with every tweak you could possibly imagine. Safe and completely reversible (just restore in iTunes), jailbreaking gives you control over the device you own. It only takes a minute or two, and as always, it's completely free,” according to the JailbreakMe Web site .

Jailbreaking allows users to circumvent security mechanisms in Apple’s mobile devices, such as iPhones and iPads powered by iOS, to run applications not authorized by Apple’s App Store.

Meanwhile, the JailbreakMe Web site has been crucial in a recent series of jailbreaking hacks against the iPhone.

In July, a critical PDF flaw in Apple’s iOS became widely publicized after hackers publicly disclosed the browser-based jailbreaking exploit JailbreakMe.3.0.

The PDF flaw stemmed from a buffer overflow issue occurring in the way the iOS parses fonts in Apple’s mobile Safari browser. Another vulnerability in the iOS allowed hackers to bypass Apple’s ASLR (address space layout randomization), a security feature that involves random position arrangement of key data areas that make it more challenging for hackers to predict target addresses and launch attacks.

Apple repaired the jailbreaking flaw less than two weeks later with an update to iOS 4.3.4, available for iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad 2, iPad and third and fourth generation iPod touch.

Days later, hackers at Redmond Pie outlined details of the Pwn tool allowing users to jailbreak the latest iOS, version 4.3.4. However, the attack was tethered, indicating that users would need to reboot their iOS devices by physically connecting it to their computers in order to maintain the jailbroken state. The exploit also did not apply to the iPad 2.

Earlier this year, Allegra announced a jailbreaking hack to the iPad 2 days after its release.

Meanwhile, in light of his long history of breaking into iOS, Allegra appeared to be surprised at the outpouring of enthusiasm from his followers regarding the internship.

"Thanks for the congratulations everyone; I was expecting a more negative response," Allegra tweeted.

However, Allegra is not the first known iOS hacker gainfully employed at Cupertino. Apple hired Peter Hajas in June, known for developing a popular jailbreak app known as Mobile Notifier.