Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Do you manage your family's digital safety?

news.ycombinator.com

61–70 of 132 posts

Re: Ask HN: Do you manage your family's digital safety?

#61
post #55

No - just nudge them towards better practices and answer questions they may have. It isn't worth the drama frankly and they are grown adults. >Which subjects spurred the most discussions and how did you solve it? We had one distant family member go off the deep end with 5G vax/google/phone is listening to me. That triggered a family wide discussion on this. Tried injecting some facts, but its quite hard explaining co…

I think one thing to note here is that a lot of conspiracies are founded on a grain of truth, or at least uncertainty. The problem is that things are taken too far. But finding this keystone is also often the manner in which you can dismantle that conspiracy.

As an example to this, a lot of 9/11 were founded on the "they fell too fast" aspect and "jet fuel doesn't melt steal beams." Both these things are true! The problem is not understanding some basic engineering principles. In this case 1) skyscrapers are have a designed failure mode to collapse in on themselves (and quickly) as to not destroy surrounding buildings if they fail. 2) Jet fuel may not melt steal beams, but it is hot enough that it can cause significant structural weakness, enough that the weight of 1/3rd of a skyscraper will cause said beams to break. Understanding this makes it a far more likely scenario than Bush allies placing hundreds of thermite bombs all around the WTC without anyone noticing.

But the problem is that there was something odd that doesn't fit general knowledge. Knowledge is 100% the cure to conspiracies.

Worse, I think hiding information will just build on the paranoia. Especially with something like data privacy, since we all here work with data. It will turn into "you hid this from me, so you're part of the conspiracy." In that case, it removes all chances that you have. Yes, discussing the nuances of the "conspiracy" can cause people to go a little further off the deepend, but it can also form a bridge between you and that person (as opposed to isolation, which is what most conspiracy theorists do. Put themselves in a bubble). That bridge can be used to lead them out, because they now trust you and you have expertise. It's not easy, but it's something I've personally done.

Re: Ask HN: Do you manage your family's digital safety?

#62
post #57
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason I do this is that there are fascinating and unpredictable interactions between behavior and identity that extend out into the indeterminate future. If we assume this information persists forever - and we might as well - it represents infinite liability and risk whereas the mitigations I have proposed cost almost nothing. Or, to put it another way, it's very cheap insurance.

Life is finite

Data is forever

Re: Ask HN: Do you manage your family's digital safety?

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes some kind of knowledge your users have. I install whatever I can to control/centralize the devices of my wife and parents. The less they know the better. Because your know, I am the 24/7/365 all-knowing support. I do not do this with my teen kids. They can manage their stupid themselves. Until recently I had them tracked in Google maps but not anymore. They do see me though.

> The less they know the better. I have found the opposite to be true. If I push them to invest and understand, they are more likely to fix their own problems. I play tech support very infrequently and usually it's just initial onboarding - "Hey, how do I watch movies?" My users can reset their own passwords, reboot devices, and some of them can even restart stuff on the server. There's a dashboard with all of our li…

Some people learn, some don't. Generalizing how tech savy people are, can or even want to be is a futile effort

Re: Ask HN: Do you manage your family's digital safety?

#65
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Europe your payment will most likely fail if your name doesn't match your card's and often even if your address doesn't match the address on your card. Sad.

Also, knowing how bureaucratic Europe is, I can totally see myself having a warranty claim rejected because of a name mismatch.

Whose name the warranty is in and who pays for the warranty should not be required to be identical.

Re: Ask HN: Do you manage your family's digital safety?

#66
post #57
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason I do this is that there are fascinating and unpredictable interactions between behavior and identity that extend out into the indeterminate future. If we assume this information persists forever - and we might as well - it represents infinite liability and risk whereas the mitigations I have proposed cost almost nothing. Or, to put it another way, it's very cheap insurance.

Life is finite

A life span is finite, but your life during the life span is infinite.

See chaos theory's infinitely long line in a finite-sized circle

Re: Ask HN: Do you manage your family's digital safety?

#67
post #37

The number one thing that we do is use an assumed name and address (and phone number) for all online interactions. If it's not a government agency, it doesn't get any real info. So, for instance, Amazon has a made-up name and our PO BOX and our "junk" number from Twilio. As I have mentioned here many, many times: This is possible because VISA/MC do not verify cardholder name. They make it seem like they do and mercha…

Is this a disaster waiting to happen if visa/mc one day flip the switch on name verification?

Beyond that, for the type of tracking and fingerprinting done today, how relevant is your name actually?

Re: Ask HN: Do you manage your family's digital safety?

#68
post #37

The number one thing that we do is use an assumed name and address (and phone number) for all online interactions. If it's not a government agency, it doesn't get any real info. So, for instance, Amazon has a made-up name and our PO BOX and our "junk" number from Twilio. As I have mentioned here many, many times: This is possible because VISA/MC do not verify cardholder name. They make it seem like they do and mercha…

Merchants can and do check names but it’s not mandatory for a charge. Credit card number and expiration dates are the only required info.

Re: Ask HN: Do you manage your family's digital safety?

#69
post #37

The number one thing that we do is use an assumed name and address (and phone number) for all online interactions. If it's not a government agency, it doesn't get any real info. So, for instance, Amazon has a made-up name and our PO BOX and our "junk" number from Twilio. As I have mentioned here many, many times: This is possible because VISA/MC do not verify cardholder name. They make it seem like they do and mercha…

Is this a disaster waiting to happen if visa/mc one day flip the switch on name verification? Beyond that, for the type of tracking and fingerprinting done today, how relevant is your name actually?

For a lot of stuff your credit card number is the reliable join key anyway

Re: Ask HN: Do you manage your family's digital safety?

#70
It's an uphill battle. The best I can seem to do is to put adblockers and privacy plugins on phones and browsers, and upgrade computers with Linux.

These days, if someone's needs can be met by ChromeOS, then they can be met with desktop Linux and a browser, too. Compared to Windows, the support issues almost cease upon upgrading to Linux, as it is virtually impossible for someone who doesn't know what they're doing to break a Linux install. The slim amount of issues I've encountered can be fixed with a restart.

Post reply on HN