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

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71–80 of 132 posts

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

#71
post #56

Family 1Password for me + spouse, separate 1Password account for my elderly parent–in–law. I maintain paper copies of all keys. I back up (export) 1Password vaults quarterly to an offline backup I maintain. I maintain two small (1Tb) SSDs with digital copies/scans of all important documents, offline. Try to sync monthly. Store inside faraday bags inside fireproof (in theory) safes. We both lie excessively when creati…

How do you find using GSuite (etc) for family accounts? I've been considering it for a bit but I'd love to hear about your experience.

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

#72
post #16
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We have a WhatsApp group where they can ask whether something is dodgy. They don't use it for chitchat, so anything that comes through, I treat urgently. I really like that idea.

Until an older relative uses that same group for something completely unrelated.

We have a separate chat group for that. It doesn’t work perfectly but it does work well enough.

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

#73
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…

> So, for instance, Amazon has a made-up name and our PO BOX and our "junk" number from Twilio.

If you're worried about the government prying, using a fake name on a PO box is a great way to rouse suspicion and investigations into whether or not you're doing something nefarious with the post.

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

#74
post #6

I preconfigure all windows machines in my family, and take away their local admin rights. No crapware installs, no disabling of updates or defender. No microsoft accounts. They get firefox browser with adblocker preinstalled. I manage their important passwords (eg fastmail) and trained them to rely on firefox sync for the recoverable accounts. I use MeshCentral for remote administration (amt)… its amazing for the pri…

Firefox Sync is great for this. It's essentially a password manager, and if you install it on Android, you can use it as the default login information autofill app.

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

#75
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?

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

Doesn't even have to be that big of a policy change; if Facebook gets suspicious about you using a fake name or various other scenarios, they'll lock your account until you provide a scan of a passport or state ID.

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

#76
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There are plenty of non-transferable warranties out there.

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

#77
post #53
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…

Just curious - do you have Lyft pick you up or drop you off at your house/apt or do you avoid that as well? I think of that action as different from payment information verification.

don't use Lyft or Uber. Why would I want a company to keep track where I'm going linked to my credit card. It is creepy.

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

#78
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…

> So, for instance, Amazon has a made-up name and our PO BOX and our "junk" number from Twilio. If you're worried about the government prying, using a fake name on a PO box is a great way to rouse suspicion and investigations into whether or not you're doing something nefarious with the post.

> If it's not a government agency, it doesn't get any real info.

I don't think rsync is worried about government prying.

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

#79
No. I don't feel like this is respectful of autonomy, so I don't engage in it. If someone asks for help or asks questions, I will give them truthful answers at a level they can understand. The only rules I enforce are for devices on my own network, which I filter and control extensively but only at a network level. I don't control any of the devices on the network except those which are purchased by me for my own purposes. I explicitly taught my spouse and children that you should never share passwords with anyone for any reason, including with me. Most of the devices are protected simply by connecting to the network, but mobile devices also have data plans. Almost everyone uses a password manager by choice and on my recommendation, but everybody uses different ones based on what they're most comfortable with.

In this way, people in my family get to choose their own pathway online. They're informed, and they get to make informed choices about what data they care about protecting vs sharing. You can do whatever you want on your own devices, but not on my network, that's mine and I get to set the rules there. For the most part, folks choose my network for protection and performance rather than the wider freedoms of mobile data. I also provide everyone with a VPN account for their mobile devices for when they're out of the house, and most of us use it, but it's entirely optional.

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

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

People learn when they have motivation.

If you always do everything for them, tell them it's complicated or easy to mess up.. well then yeah, they aren't going to learn.

Tech knowledge is not special compared to any other kind of knowledge. You don't have to be "tech savvy" to be a self sufficient user.

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