Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some of the scams have the caller actually pretending to be YOU. So if they have the agreement to consult with you before sending any money, what are they going to do?
I would hope that my parents could tell me from another caller :-)
Ask HN: How do I make sure my non-technical parents are safe online?
181–190 of 215 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do I make sure my non-technical parents are safe online?
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
OP is discussing iOS. MacOS is free. Google hardware is definitely less expensive than Apple’s though.
MacOS is free? Where can I download it? I need to setup a MacOS VM for development.
Are you doing this from a non-Mac environment? The App Store site has it. It seems I’m missing something...
Re: Ask HN: How do I make sure my non-technical parents are safe online?
#183I actually came to Hacker news to ask the same the question.
My Dad travelling to a different country for a month and the mobile network there was VOLTE, while at home its 3G. The phone (iphone 7) was having some issue and I was unable to help him. He took the phone to mobile shop and that guy installed a 3rd party app & made him put a passcode.
Actually the last time we travelled together & we both used that mobile network and there was no issue. So, there was no reason to put a passcode.
The issue is that when my dad has an issue, he tries to describe it to me and does not read to me exactly what he sees on the screen. It would be great if there was a remote desktop like I could see his device via my device and help him also. Also, have an admin account on the phone so that admin privileges are needed to install apps or even open the settings app.
In the past even my younger cousins or kids install apps (games or some hype app that they feel everyone must have) on his phone.
Re: Ask HN: How do I make sure my non-technical parents are safe online?
#184I work for a phone company, Community Phone, whose majority customers are seniors. We periodically check in with our customers over text message (helping make sure they achieve their goals, like using Uber, or whatever... which is our business: to enable an improvement in overall quality of life via phones, rather than phones in themselves). As a result, many of our customers FB message/call/email/text us as a sanity…
I am not sure how this will work between "a company & a customer". But I would like filter my parents SMS, so that they can see messages from known & trusted contacts, while I can ensure that the messages from unknown sender is not spam. 95% of unknown senders are spam.
Re: Ask HN: How do I make sure my non-technical parents are safe online?
#185There's a concept called "security awareness" that the InfoSec experts talk about a lot. It's basic course in staying safe online and, well, in the case of companies, keeping the company safe as well. You might want to consider running through some of that curriculum. I don't get the feeling it's long and arduous to get through but it has been shown to help. It's far from full proof because people can still make mistakes but it helps.
Also, of course, there are the usual things you can do to make their computing/networking environment more secure, which I'm sure other commenters have mentioned.
Re: Ask HN: How do I make sure my non-technical parents are safe online?
#186The number one thing you can do to help them is talk to them about being conned / scammed. That's by far the most likely way for them to get victimized online, and the only way that's seriously affected anyone I know. Since they're not technical, their natural self-defense against this kind of this has trouble functioning online. Talk to them about real world analogs to pop-up ads that look like virus scanner alerts,…
After hearing about them getting scammed several times I finally had my parents agree to contact me before they are paying for anything online unless it's on Amazon.
Yes
Re: Ask HN: How do I make sure my non-technical parents are safe online?
#187The number one thing you can do to help them is talk to them about being conned / scammed. That's by far the most likely way for them to get victimized online, and the only way that's seriously affected anyone I know. Since they're not technical, their natural self-defense against this kind of this has trouble functioning online. Talk to them about real world analogs to pop-up ads that look like virus scanner alerts,…
Also, tell them to be suspicious of email links that require them to log in. If "PayPal" sends an email saying you need to change your password or log in for some other reason, teach them to go to type paypal.com in the browser themselves instead of clicking the link.
Absolutely, repeat this a bunch of times even at the risk of being a bit annoying. It's worth it. Make that point. Anyone asking for your password or other sensitive info is very likely a fisher (aka a thief).
Re: Ask HN: How do I make sure my non-technical parents are safe online?
#188There's a concept called "security awareness" that the InfoSec experts talk about a lot. It's basic course in staying safe online and, well, in the case of companies, keeping the company safe as well. You might want to consider running through some of that curriculum. I don't get the feeling it's long and arduous to get through but it has been shown to help. It's far from full proof because people can still make mist…
Note: You will quickly find examples of what's taught with a web search. You could do a stripped down version very quickly.
Re: Ask HN: How do I make sure my non-technical parents are safe online?
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
MacOS is free? Where can I download it? I need to setup a MacOS VM for development.
Are you doing this from a non-Mac environment? The App Store site has it. It seems I’m missing something...
Yes, I am in Debian GNU/Linux but if MacOS is free then I'd like to setup a VM to run Xcode in.
Re: Ask HN: How do I make sure my non-technical parents are safe online?
#190This just almost happened to me and my family. My parents are pushing 70 but still try to keep up with things. My father decides he wants to call PayPal regarding a return request from eBay. I'm in the room and "PayPal" tells him they need to go to a secure line and he needs to download an app. That's really strange I think, but generally scams are from phone calls to you, not you making the call. So I remain skeptic…
that actually happened to me trying to find a human to talk with at Yahoo.
it was kind of hilarious to "hum-hum" my way through his instructions on how to install TeamViewer on Windows. obviously it failed at some point as I wasn't able to keep the pretense...
there are entire call centers dedicated to those scams, it's kind of scary.