There are some stories that deserve a full stop. Nicholas Allegra was a student at Brown University in Chappaqua, New York. But not normal. Behind his identity, revealed by Forbes, he was hiding comex, the hacker creator of the JailbreakMe project. We owe him the process that overturned the protections and restrictions that Apple installs on its phones. At just 19 years old, Allegra had put Apple on the ropes.
At that time, the iPhone did not have a store as such and iOS was a restrictive and very limited operating system compared to what its main competitor, Android, offered. To get around this walled garden and unlock the iPhone so it can be used with other mobile carriers, Allegra came up with its jailbreak system. When JailbreakMe became popular in the summer of 2011, more than 2 million people downloaded this little utility
Signed and fired a year later
Although he reveals himself as a true child prodigy, Nicholas Allegra came to work at Apple under the same conditions as any other intern. His skills were not neglected and the internship lasted a full year. It’s not for nothing that JailbreakMe was called genius, because it was years ahead of Apple developers. And it has actually been applied on millions of iPhones, including from the first version of iOS to iOS 6.
Until Nicholas Allegra found himself confronted with bureaucracy. You received an email that you needed to respond to and complete before the end of your year of employment as a remote intern. Apple takes this type of correspondence particularly seriously. However, he never received a response. By the time Allegra realized this and wanted to respond, it was too late. The young man considers that he will not be treated like an average employee and that his situation is different from that of other workers. Big mistake. Apple simply terminated its contract. More than fired, it was not renewed
But the young programmer had already managed to attract attention. Between August 2011 and August 2012, he secured a place in the industry and soon after received an offer from Google. Also as an intern, but not involved in Android, but in the platform ecosystem. During the last years, Allegra has collaborated with different companies such as Citrix Systems. And still focused on this aspect of cybersecurity and ethical hacking, something much more complex than just responding to an email on time.
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