The Inquirer-Home

Apple rickroller gets a job as a developer

Skips prison time
Thu Nov 26 2009, 10:45

PROVING THAT it is indeed a mad world, the 21 year old author of the Ikee Iphone worm has gone and landed himself a job as an application developer on the platform.

Ashley Towns, the young man who thought it incredibly amusing to Rickroll jailbroken Iphone users, has swapped his ironic tee shirt for a cleaner one as he has joined mogeneration, an Iphone app developer firm. And, no, we hadn't heard of it either, 'til just now.

Of course it's not unusual for hackers to swap their dusty black stetson for a clean white one, but usually they do a bit of prison time in between ruining people's expensive IT kit and developing for it.

The fact that the Oz upstart has skipped that part has irked security expert Graham Cluley, who greated the news thus, "It jars with me that Towns has shown no regret for what he did, and that now his utterly irresponsible behaviour appears to have been rewarded. Will Towns be offering a token $5 compensation to all those he infected for the inconvenience he caused? I doubt it."

It's probably going to further peeve those users whose Iphones are still emblazoned with a picture of 80s pop star Rick Astley, most of whom are in Australia. And let's not forget that the whole thing is good publicity for mogeneration, which is also based in Australia. µ

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Comments
So the dark side wins

So young skywalker has been turned by Emperor Jobs to the dark side.. ;-)

posted by : Rob, 30 November 2009 Complain about this comment
Would you prefer...

...for him to apply his programming skills to commercial products, or to black-hat projects?

Make the guy unemployable, as professional talking head Cluley clearly would prefer, and I've no doubt that rather less ethical people would be more than happy to help him put a crust on his plate.

You choose.

posted by : Jon Green, 27 November 2009 Complain about this comment
my hero

It's not like his "virus" is dangerous or causes any damage whatsoever. Personally I laughed my arse off when I first heard of it. He should get a medal to go with his new pay-check.

Oh and if he upset you by jacking your lamer-phone, get a clue. If you're dumb enough to buy anything Crapple makes then you're already askin' for it.

posted by : A J, 27 November 2009 Complain about this comment
no its more obvious than that..

apple could not afford for this man to serve a day of jail time. Not one minute of one day, and quite likely has him accompanied for a while 24-7.

no they could not. After all, who else will find the hacked Iphones? Its obvious apple cant.

posted by : neko, 27 November 2009 Complain about this comment
best move

I know 3 guys who were so good at hacking Cisco, they wrote a book... Cisco got so pissed they tried to sue and get em jailed... FAIL! ..
.. after a couple of years Cisco paid them 6 figures to pull the 1st book and write one on Securing CS...

@Thor .. if snApple didnt hold onto their designs like a junkie clutching a fiver on his way to a crack den .. less ppl would be hyped up to make some nice scareware.

posted by : I know, 26 November 2009 Complain about this comment
Stupid People

If people weren't stupid enough to hack open a controlled piece of software, it wouldn't be an issue!

posted by : Thor, 26 November 2009 Complain about this comment
Correction..

It would be a mad world if he DIDNT get the job.

White hackers are ITs best friend.

posted by : James, 26 November 2009 Complain about this comment
aboutus
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