JailBreakMe creator interning at Apple (he says)

If you can’t beat ’em, co-opt ’em. The 19-year-old New Yorker who created the JailBreakMe tool for iPhone users to unshackle their hardware from No 1 Infinity Loop tweeted that he’s landed an internship at Apple.

Nicholas Allegra, creator of the site JailBreakMe, announced the news on Thursday on his Twitter feed @comex. “The week after next I will be starting an internship with Apple,” Allegra said.

Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at computer security firm Sophos, said in a blog post that Allegra has “given Apple plenty of headaches in the last couple of years” finding security vulnerabilities in the iPhone. “Each time Allegra has found a flaw in Apple’s software, the company has been forced to rush out a security patch,” he said.

Commenting on an internship for Apple’s nemesis, he said: “From Apple’s point of view it’s a case of: If you can’t beat them, get them to join you.”

In June, Facebook hired George Hotz, a hacker known as “GeoHot” who was sued by Sony for hacking the PlayStation 3 game console and is credited with being the first person to go public with a way to hack into an iPhone.

– AFP