Kanye West shows world his iPhone passcode during strange meeting with Donald Trump in White House
Code was revealed as rapper tried to show off updated hydrogen version of Air Force One
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Kanye West showed the entire world the passcode to his iPhone during a bizarre exchange with Donald Trump.
If that wasn't insecure enough, the passcode itself was the weakest possible one: 000000.
The revelation came as Kanye attempted to show the president new designs for an improved version of Air Force One. He claimed the pictures showed a hydrogen plane that he would work on with Apple and called the iPlane One – but they actually appeared to be a design concept that has spread around the internet for years.
As he was getting that picture up, he appeared to dismiss the prompts to use Face ID, the facial recognition technology built into the latest iPhones. It isn't clear if he didn't have that tool set up, or if it simply wasn't working to let him into the phone.
Instead, he tried to swipe into the phone and had to input his passcode to open it up. He did so in full view of the world's TV cameras, which watched as he typed the entirely unsecure passcode into his phone.
Apple has made a range of improvements to try and improve the security of iPhones in recent years. They include the facial ID technology, which makes it easier to lock and unlock a phone just by looking at it, but also encouraging people to move towards a six rather than four digit passcode, making it much more difficult for people to guess a passcode.
Despite those improvements, many users continue to set easy passcodes like Kanye's. As with passwords, people often use the most simple and obvious combination of numbers: often picking things like 1234 or 2580, as well as Kanye's choice of simply hitting the zero button.
Apple even encourages its users not to use those kinds of passcodes. If you try and set your passcode to 000000, like Kanye, the phone will pop up with an error message making clear that it is not a secure code – prompting people either to pick something better or to "use anyway", despite the threat of having all their data accessed.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments