Apple iCloud bug locks user with "True" surname

Many computer software, be it locally or on the cloud, are designed to take into account ways that people, intentionally or not, could break the system. Programmers tend to account for potential errors in human input or intentional methods of gaming the system, but it's statistically impossible to be prepared for all of them. One strange case, in particular, has seemingly locked an Apple iCloud user from her account for months, just because Apple cloud storage software wasn't prepared to handle someone whose last name happens to be "True".

In many computer languages, "true" is a reserved keyboard to denote something that is, well, true. Of course, that is also a normal and often-used word in the English language and may even be someone's name. Unfortunately, a single capitalization mistake seems to have made iCloud's software mistake one for the other and lock Rachel True out of her account.

The author took to Twitter to express her frustration at a months-long problem that didn't have any end in sight. Her surname is "True" but, whether by her own mistake or the system's, was changed to "true" somewhere in the process. That, in turn, was interpreted by the software as an actual part of the code and triggered a bug that locked her out of her iCloud account.

Can get your coders to free my last name from icloud jail?
Been locked out for 6+ months because of an uncapitalized t in TRUE, my surname but also a computer command.

Now that I a layman have explained problem to you a giant computer company, could u fix?@apple @AppleSupport https://t.co/TSEjUU1nXF

— Rachel True (@RachelTrue) March 6, 2021

This would have been a funny anecdote if not for the fact that Ms. True has been trying to get that situation fixed since September last year to no avail. In the meantime, she was still paying the monthly subscription fee for Apple iCloud despite not having access to it, probably just to keep her files intact. According to some programmers, what looks like a trivial issue may not actually be that simple to fix, especially if it means touching a cloud-based service used by thousands of users around the world.

The somewhat good news is that all the media attention finally got True part of her intended results. Apple said they will get back to her next week, hopefully with a real and more permanent solution.