As Apple closes a chapter in their life as Steve Jobs stepped down as CEO, another chapter is about to begin.  Nicholas Allegra, popularly known as Comex in the jailbreaking community, will soon start working for Apple.  Comex, the 19-year old living with his parents in Chappaqua NY, broke the news to everyone in his Twitter account just a few hours ago.

“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.” @comex

Comex is part of the iPhone Dev Team, not a legitimate Apple team, who got Apple’s attention with his JailbreakMe.com site that allows users of iOS devices such as iPhones, iPads and iPod Touch to hack their devices, allowing them free access to thousands of available apps in the App Store.

Jailbreak uses existing exploits in the iOS 5 beta to hack into the software which in exposes users to security vulnerabilities.  Comex recommends installing the “PDF PAtcher 2” from the Cydia app store after the jailbreak to address the security issue.

The feat was described by Comex as, “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,” in his interview with Forbes.

With Comex working for Apple, would this mean that JailbreakMe will soon cease to exist?  Or could this mean jailbreaking will become easier as Comex could easily make codes for the loopholes he’ll find?  It’s too soon to tell how this one will pan out.

The iPhone Dev Team also bid farewell to Steve Jobs in one of their blog posts.  It has a big Tom & Jerry photo with a short but very meaningful message.

We loved the chase!

Good luck, Steve.

Signed,
Jailbreakers and tinkerers everywhere.

Apple is not the first to lure hackers into corporate employment, as Samsung signed CyanogenMod creator Steve “Cyanogen” Kondik as a Samsung Mobile Software Engineer.  For those of you who don’t what CyanogenMod is, it’s the JailbreakMe for Android devices.  Cyanogen assured followers that CM will keep on running and will not be affected by his joining the Samsung team.  Recently, developments in CM have slowed down, but the CM team still assures developers and followers that this does not indicate that the project has changed or will change in direction.

As hacker employment goes, who could forget Jeff “Dark Tangent” Moss, renowned hacker and founder of DefCon who is now a member of the Homeland Security Agency?  It just proves that keeping your enemies closer is far better than losing sleep worrying about their next move.  And who better to hire to learn of your own weaknesses?