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Comex, the Hacker Behind JailbreakMe.com, Hired as Apple Intern
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so if i start hacking the government
...you just may become a junior civil servant - but only once you've served yr 10 yr sentence
So basically, Apple is paying someone a lot of money to not write a jailbreak hack. This just goes to show, if you can't beat em, join em.
How do we know its a lot of money?
They seriously should make jailbreaking a standard procedure. You want to get on the pirate store? Hack up your iPhone? Get in all sorts of trouble? No problem, just schedule an appointment with an Apple Genius. You void your warranty, yes, but no need to go through some complicated jailbreak process which may or may not brick your phone.
Uncle Steve does not want you to jailbreak. Please stop it at once. You don't really care about Apple if you do this. Shame on you.
It's a shame what our culture has come to...
What you're saying is that if standing up for what you believe in doesn't pay well enough; fight against all you believe.
I know this post is gonna get downvoted just like all my others, but it won't keep me from speaking my mind. Unlike comex, I realize that paychecks/post ratings/etc... are just a number, and that even if the whole world were against me, I'll still stand for what's right.
He got off because there's currently a D.M.C.A. anticircumvention exemption for cell phones to make them compatible with apps. Keep in mind that the DMCA anticircumventions are only effective for a period of three years before statutory exemptions are to be suggested by the head copyright clerk. If the 'running apps on phones' exemption isn't renewed, it's possible Mr. Comex's career with apple might be a rather short one if he was really 'hired to not jailbreak' so to speak
I wouldn't be too worried about the state of jailbreaking either way. Even a relatively powerful company like Apple only has so many employees and so few funds to fend off the 6.75 billion other people in the world. D.R.M. really can't work in this interconnected day 'n age because somebody's going to figure out the trick to pick the lock some way, somehow.
I'm not sure entirely since I'm not a lawyer but I do take an interest in law and here's a general idea to the best of my understanding:
If the case ever made it to court, jailbreaking might be ruled legal if it's not considered "a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title" in the courts for some extremely technical reason. However since jailbreaking can enable piracy in ways that might otherwise not occur, I'm going to assume it does constitute a violation:
In this event, just for jailbreaking, he'd be found in violation of title 17, chapter 12 section 1201-1202 and held liable for willful infringement of copyright under chapter 5 in the order of $30,000-150,000 worth of civil damages to Apple per act of infringement. Whether this is per cracked device or per cracked devised I'm not quite certain
The donation button could be construed as acting as personal financial gain opening him up to criminal charges, meaning the damages for the first act of infringement could be raised to $500,000 and more importantly up to 5 years of jail time under Title 17 chapter 12 section 1204. For repeat offenses you double those numbers.
Sony should've sued the pants off of Geohotz, since there isn't currently an anticircumvention provision for game consoles. However Apple may've made the right move if they can convince Comex to take down his page if they feel 2012 isn't coming fast enough and want to pressure him to take down the page, disclose security gaps and close them shut tight.
I'll edit this post with citations when the library of congress puts copyright.gov back up. I could use Cornell Law School's site which I'm using for reference right now but I'd rather not since it just doesn't have the same sense of authority or completeness of a url ending in a .gov top-level domain.
I wouldn't be too worried about the state of jailbreaking either way. Even a relatively powerful company like Apple only has so many employees and so few funds to fend off the 6.75 billion other people in the world. D.R.M. really can't work in this interconnected day 'n age because somebody's going to figure out the trick to pick the lock some way, somehow.
I'm not sure entirely since I'm not a lawyer but I do take an interest in law and here's a general idea to the best of my understanding:
If the case ever made it to court, jailbreaking might be ruled legal if it's not considered "a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title" in the courts for some extremely technical reason. However since jailbreaking can enable piracy in ways that might otherwise not occur, I'm going to assume it does constitute a violation:
In this event, just for jailbreaking, he'd be found in violation of title 17, chapter 12 section 1201-1202 and held liable for willful infringement of copyright under chapter 5 in the order of $30,000-150,000 worth of civil damages to Apple per act of infringement. Whether this is per cracked device or per cracked devised I'm not quite certain
The donation button could be construed as acting as personal financial gain opening him up to criminal charges, meaning the damages for the first act of infringement could be raised to $500,000 and more importantly up to 5 years of jail time under Title 17 chapter 12 section 1204. For repeat offenses you double those numbers.
Sony should've sued the pants off of Geohotz, since there isn't currently an anticircumvention provision for game consoles. However Apple may've made the right move if they can convince Comex to take down his page if they feel 2012 isn't coming fast enough and want to pressure him to take down the page, disclose security gaps and close them shut tight.
I'll edit this post with citations when the library of congress puts copyright.gov back up. I could use Cornell Law School's site which I'm using for reference right now but I'd rather not since it just doesn't have the same sense of authority or completeness of a url ending in a .gov top-level domain.
It would cost the gov more money to jail him than to hire him.
Like someone has said earlier, "2 birds, 1 stone."
Where are the Einsteins?
Guys, it seems that nobody has seen anither reason Apple has hired a notable jailbreaker, it is not to STOP jail breaking, it is to work on the Iphone team.
This guy is brilliant, his ability made him famous as a jailbreaker, but the reality is that his talents and knowledge about the iphone operating system make him a very important part of the development team. It is why I would hire a guy like him.
George
Guys, it seems that nobody has seen anither reason Apple has hired a notable jailbreaker, it is not to STOP jail breaking, it is to work on the Iphone team.
This guy is brilliant, his ability made him famous as a jailbreaker, but the reality is that his talents and knowledge about the iphone operating system make him a very important part of the development team. It is why I would hire a guy like him.
George
I think just the possibility of getting to work with the main development team creating new apple products is reason enough to accept it. This sort of experience is something money can't buy.
Just as one of the best M:TG players was invited to work as an intern at Hasbro, though he later quit because he was frustrated by some of the processes.
What right is there to stand up for? This is an iphone. Jailbreaking is not intended. If you don't like that fact, then you shouldn't be buying an iphone in the first place, not getting one regardless and then complain about all the supposed limitations.
I suspect that like most hackers, Nicholas Allegra's desire for providing jail breaks hinged on gaining fame. In this case, his activities netted him an internship at Apple.
With all that the Internet and technological progress has to offer, the number of wiz kids are legion. One genius has been hired and another will soon take his place. That is the way of things.
The quest for infamy has always been a young man's game - even if only for 15 minutes. Having your name mentioned somewhere in cyberspace and knowing that someone might actually give a **** is an extremely powerful motivator.
I am not at all worried about the state of the Jailbreak community.
With all that the Internet and technological progress has to offer, the number of wiz kids are legion. One genius has been hired and another will soon take his place. That is the way of things.
The quest for infamy has always been a young man's game - even if only for 15 minutes. Having your name mentioned somewhere in cyberspace and knowing that someone might actually give a **** is an extremely powerful motivator.
I am not at all worried about the state of the Jailbreak community.
Seems to me the intent is more to bribe him to expose how he's able to find these vulnerabilities.
I hope he understands that even the best magicians don't expose their best secrets.
This kid is a hacker, in the truest, Steve Wozniak sense of the term. He's interested in figuring out how things work and how they don't, and he's clearly got some talent for understanding systems. He's the sort of person who created Apple, it only makes sense that Apple would want to hire him, and it only makes sense he'd want to work for them.
Apple no doubt will kiss his ass over the course of this internship, and hire him as an employee as soon as possible so they can lock him and his talent down. He's really going to go places in life, and Apple recognizes it's better to have him working for them than for any rival companies. As a consumer of Apple products, I prefer this as well. If other companies are smart, they'll try to lure him away too, but I expect this guy chose jailbreaking Apple products because he likes Apple products, in which case Apple has a definite headhunting advantage.
Apple no doubt will kiss his ass over the course of this internship, and hire him as an employee as soon as possible so they can lock him and his talent down. He's really going to go places in life, and Apple recognizes it's better to have him working for them than for any rival companies. As a consumer of Apple products, I prefer this as well. If other companies are smart, they'll try to lure him away too, but I expect this guy chose jailbreaking Apple products because he likes Apple products, in which case Apple has a definite headhunting advantage.
Totally depends on the company and the nature of the internship.
The interns at my company are well paid and seen as employees, not contractors.
There is nothing secret about what the guy does. He is just good at it. Good at breaking things, which doesn't necessarily mean he is good at building things as well.
In that case it seems that Sony was found lying to courts and just using the money they have to bully someone with less money. With equal amounts of money for lawyers on both sides, Sony would have lost the case and looked extremely stupid. For starters, the company that started the court case lied about having copyrights (it was the US distribution arm of Sony that sued, a separate company from Sony, Japan that just happens to have a similar name; and they don't hold any copyrights).
And of course it turned out that Sony is just a bunch of incompetent ****s that deserve all they got for losing passwords and credit card details of millions of customers. Let's not forget that.
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Who said anything about building things? FWIW if it's no secret why would Apple show interest with this guy? Remember Apple announced that their iOS was so secure that it was no longer subject to jailbreaking yet this kid figured out a simple web-based exploit. Obviously this kid knows something all their iOS engineers missed and that is a secret worth investigating.