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With brown curly hair and a pair of glasses, 19-year-old Nicholas Allegra from New York state, US, looks like a real-life Harry Potter. However, rather than waving a wand, Nicholas is a "wizard " at "jailbreaking ". This is probably why he ended up with an internship at Apple, a job many of his fellow Brown University students dream of.

Jailbreaking is the process of removing the limitations set by Apple on devices with the iOS operating system. These devices include the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. It allows users to gain full access to the operating system and download additional materials that are unavailable through the official Apple App Store. However, it is estimated that Apple loses $100 million (640million yuan) from jailbreaking each year.

Nicholas, with a famous nickname "Comex", is the teenage hacker behind the jail-

breaking site JailbreakMe. com. The site tells users how to unlock their iPhones using software that is not approved by Apple. The jailbreaking software he made has been downloaded millions of times by users around the world.

Then Forbes magazine suggested in an article that Apple's security team might need him as a new intern. It seems that they do. Little more than a day after Steve jobs stepped down as CEO, Apple welcomed Nicholas Allegra. Nicholas wrote on his Twitter on August 26 that " 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.

Apple is not the only company embracing the skills of hackers. Facebook recently hired iPhone jailbreaker George "Geohot" Hotz as a full-time employee.

However, there are still hot debates about whether employing hackers is a wise solution. The word "hacker" has always had a double meaning. In the press, "hacker" means someone who breaks into computers. They steal from people's bank accounts, download sensitive information and attack legal websites. Among computer lovers, it means a cool programmer who can make a computer do whatever he wants.

Hiring a hacker does have its advantages. A talented hacker is probably quite capable of finding problems and suggesting corrections. On the other hand, because of a hacker's former behavior, many people doubt their morals .Can the company trust them with its valuable assets ? And can someone who is so used to working alone in the dark fit into a new role within a company?

One thing is for sure- Comex isn't the first member of the hacker community to land the job of his dreams. It's likely that he won't be the last.