Apple parts ways with hacker famous for iPhone ... Apple parts ways with hacker famous for iPhone jailbreaking

Nicholas Allegra, who was hired last year after gaining fame at JailBreakMe, was let go after not responding to an e-mail offering to extend his employment.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET )

Apple's experiment with employing a hacker famous for jailbreaking the iPhone has ended.

Nicholas Allegra, also known as Comex, was hired at Apple after gaining fame with the JailBreakMe, a Web site that simplified the process of removing Apple-installed protections from the phone -- a practice Apple opposes. When Apple hired him as an intern in August 2011, Allegra was a high-profile member of the jailbreaking community, regularly publicizing security vulnerabilities in Apple's iOS software.

However, Apple ended the 20-year-old Brown University student's employment last week, Allegra revealed today.

"So... no point in delaying. As of last week, after about a year, I'm no longer associated with Apple," he tweeted this afternoon. "As for why? Because I forgot to reply to an email," he wrote in a follow-up tweet.

"I wasn't too happy about it, but it didn't seem like I was able to fix it," he told Forbes. "So that's what it is."The e-mail he didn't reply to was an offer to extend his employment at Apple as a remote intern, Allegra told Forbes. After not responding to the original e-mail, he learned that the offer had been rescinded.

CNET has contacted Apple for comment and will update this report when we learn more.

Hackers have proven to be popular hires at tech companies these days. Charlie Miller, famous for his hacks on the iPhone and MacBook Air, joined Twitter last month, and well-knownPlayStation 3 hacker George Hotz, a.k.a. Geohot, had a brief stint at Facebook last year.