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That is a iPhone X like device, which only has Face ID or a PIN.

A PIN is more secure than a fingerprint and Face ID. But at least use a combination of either one with a PIN to make it more secure.

Since the device was already on and it directly showed the PIN screen, Face ID is disabled and instead he chooses to only use a very very weak PIN.

Oh dear.

3 comments

> A PIN is more secure than a fingerprint and Face ID...

While generally true, this is probably not the case for someone who's regularly using their phone on camera like a Congressional rep.

Even being caught once entering your passcode on camera is enough to compromise it, regardless of how complex it is. A passphrase would possibly buy you more time (less discernible finger movement on a phone screen), but I would still consider it compromised.

It has a notch, but I am unsure if it is an iPhone?

It opened up to iMessages (blue and white conversations), it's an iPhone

I'd be curious if Apple had anonymous telemetry that showed what people were picking for their phone unlock PINs. Everyone I've ever seen set one does this same type of thing, either all one number, or they draw a line through the middle. The more advanced maybe use a date like their birthday that they can actually remember.

It's just security theater.

No, PINs are not transmitted to Apple.

"What this process appears to show is that Apple never sees, handles, or stores your device passcode or password in unencrypted form, and it never passes the passcode or password over anything but secure transport. It requires only your Apple ID account name and password, sent over HTTPS, as the first stage of logging into iCloud, but not for the later stages."

Excerpt from: https://tidbits.com/2019/09/26/why-apple-asks-for-your-passc...

Just checked what's the most popular PINs...

1234 1111 0000 1212 7777 1004 2000 4444 2222 6969 9999 3333 5555 6666 1122 1313 8888 4321 2001 1010

https://www.pocket-lint.com/phones/news/148224-these-are-the...

I'm not using any of this, but many of the people I know their PINs (family, girlfriend, close friends)

Are actually using something from this list