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Recently, someone in my family was not able to get into their home PC with their password, and called for assistance. This means having to drive down to the machine to see what they are doing, and log in with the appropriate account that can reset that password. Work commitments preclude driving there right away to see what is happening, and I am trying to locate a remote access solution. If they were logged into the machine, I could use some sort of remote assistance tool, but that is not an option in this case. There is the possibility of setting up SSH or OpenVPN to access the machine via the Internet, but I am not certain leaving those tools running all the time is the smartest idea in this day and age.
What recommendations do the Soylent community have for securely managing a machine over the Internet when someone is not logged into it?
(Score: 4, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday April 30 2017, @03:38PM (10 children)
Sometimes a telephone call will suffice. I would think that it ought to for the example in the summary. About that, it seems odd that someone wouldn't have the password to administer his/her own computer.
You obviously haven't spent a lot of time working with older people who still don't understand computer basics. For some older members of my family (in their 70s), I've actually had to go three levels through a chain of password recoveries until I finally got access.
(The whole story: I was trying to set up an Echo Dot which one of them had encountered at a friend's house and thought was cool, so he bought one. I advised against it, but anyhow... I needed to install the Alexa app on something, because Amazon obviously couldn't allow you to setup their device without another device. So, they hand me an iPad.. 2, which hadn't had its OS updated in years. Obviously the Amazon Alexa app wouldn't install without a system upgrade, but the tablet was too full of photos and other nonsense to even download an OS upgrade. So, they have another tablet -- an Acer. I need access to the Google account they had linked it with to get into Google Play. They can't remember the password. I try password recovery, which sends me to a different email address of theirs at Yahoo. They can't remember the password there either. I try password recovery there, and it sends me to yet another Yahoo account for recovery. They can't remember that password either. Luckily, that third account contained another -- younger -- family member's email address as a recovery address, so I call her up and send her the recovery code, which she then gives to me and allows me to go through and recover THREE email accounts to get to what I needed to. Ultimately, stupidly, I realized too late that the Android version on this tablet was too old to download the Alexa app too, and of course most manufacturers don't do system updates on tablets beyond a year or two these days. What a waste of a couple hours of my life. Now, you may say, "How could they not know so many of their own passwords??" Because modern devices tend to save passwords forever... so they just entered these things years ago ONCE for their devices, and they haven't needed them since. And yes, this whole thing was a security disaster waiting to happen with outdated devices... but by this point I was too frustrated to do anything more than give them a stern lecture to write down the new passwords I had just given them and just buy some new devices.)
These are the same people who simply can't figure out how they turn Airplane Mode on their tablets all the time, leading the "internet to stop working." Despite owning these tablets for several years, they didn't even know what airplane mode was until I recently explained it to them. Trying to troubleshoot anything with them over the phone is an exercise in futility.
Perhaps it's a child?
Any child over the age or 3 or so likely has better intuition about how to deal with computers and other modern tech than a 70+ year old family member. Unless they used computers in their jobs before they retired -- and a lot of blue-collar workers didn't start using them frequently until the past decade or so -- they may have absolutely no clue how to interact with modern tech. Modern tablet/phone OSes (which are supposedly meant to be "simpler") are the worst, because they are non-discoverable and depend on knowing where/how to swipe to do a lot of stuff, with no instruction manual included.
Older people tend to know how to read Facebook, order from Amazon, maybe find the obituary page in their local newspaper through the browser on their tablet, and whatever stupid puzzle game app or whatever they like to play. That's about it. Figuring out how to turn on the camera reliably when trying to Skype is "advanced" for them.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 30 2017, @05:01PM
To add to this and distill the primary problem with providing phone support: it's very slow. A competent admin with remote access can generally fix problems much faster than trying to guide an inexperienced user through the same process by voice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 30 2017, @06:00PM
I think you done been trolled.
That, or his intellectual exceptionalism has resulted in no family members calling for help due to his being unable to properly communicate in any language that they understand, but they all seem to leave him alone since he *is* able to communicate he can't help them because his fancy words are indistinguishable from magic.
Anyway, no good deed goes unpunished. If you set up a support system, you will be expected to use it. If you have time for that, then that is great.
I told my family to get tablets after their XP and Vista machines conked out. One of them thought it strange because I "work in computers" and bought one that came with windows 10 on it. They asked for help and I was ineffectual and they believed me when I said I wouldn't even use this if you gave it to me for free!
They got some of the computer club people in the retirement community to make faces at it because they avoided win10 as well, and ultimately someone got them downgraded via some method I didn't ask about, and they ALSO bought a tablet... they didnt want to go through this again with a laptop...
but yeah. this question was probably relevant to me 10 years ago, but I guess the question is aimed at 20 somethings that are now the grown up kids that are so smart they will of course help everyone with their computers. 10 or 15 years from now, no matter what the OP is using as a primary 'workstation' OS, he will have a younger relative filling this niche, asking how to remotely control smartphones easily without the use of a digital app locker or something.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Appalbarry on Sunday April 30 2017, @07:07PM (6 children)
Any child over the age or 3 or so likely has better intuition about how to deal with computers and other modern tech than a 70+ year old family member.
Um, which 70 year olds are those? I'm well past sixty, and have worked my way through programming on punch cards, C-64, many versions of Windows, an Apple, and Linux, along with a couple of dedicated word processors.
I know at least a few people over seventy who have a programming background, plus a lot of time spent doing graphic design and computer music composition on various machines.
In fact, with the single exception of my 89 year old mother I don't know a single person over the age of 65 who doesn't have smart phones, computers, or tablets, and usually all three.
We are the generation that invented, and grew up with personal computers. It's absurd to suggest that we are any less capable of using technology than you are.
In other words, you can't complain about old people not understanding tech, and then also complain that they've taken over Facebook and Twitter. The problem is aptitude or training, not age.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 30 2017, @07:37PM
The 'tech savvy generation' is a complete myth. Most people can do little more than access their Facebook accounts (and they are suckers for having such a thing anyway) and use the same software they are already familiar with (typically proprietary Microsoft garbage); that's not even remotely tech savvy.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Sunday April 30 2017, @08:31PM (1 child)
It depends on who you flock with. In my work I run into lots of people not in technological field and the older they are, the more mystifying the tech is. By the same token, I've hired plenty of millennials to do receptionist type work and I'm always disappointed at their computer skills. Yes they can use Facebook fine, but I really feel like I shouldn't have to explain that cmd-c is "copy" and cmd-p is "paste" -- this isn't esoteric knowledge.
Secondly, you're a programmer and know other programmers. The way most people see technology is as a magic black box and if it doesn't work like they expect, they won't even make a methodical attempt to understand it. Certainly as a programmer, you've looked at the way a program fails to understand how to fix it, probably even tried to make it fail. When you experience glitches in a program you didn't write, you can methodically attack the program to see exactly what makes it fail to come up with a work-around. You get that there is a logical interaction between what you do and how the program was written. Most people don't -- it is simply magic to them which works until it doesn't, and once something is outside the rote learning they used to get to whatever skills they have, they quit.
So anyway, you may be a geezer (and I'm right behind you), but your technical skill level is not the norm, your understanding that tech is not black magic is not the norm, and your faith that people will care enough to learn it is not the norm.
(Score: 2) by gidds on Tuesday May 02 2017, @12:53PM
Exactly! As you say: people treat technology as magic; they don't want to understand it, they just want to remember the specific sequence of actions to achieve a particular goal, and treat everything else as ‘Here Be Dragons’.
And I think it's less about details than about the whole mindset. For example, I had a family member who simply couldn't get his head round softkeys.
This wasn't on a computer, nor even a smartphone, but back on what we'd now call a ‘feature phone’ (i.e. a dumb mobile) — and a simple one at that. It had just one softkey (a button below the screen that could do different things, with its current meaning shown on screen next to it). He wasn't a stupid guy, but he just couldn't grasp the idea that you needed to look at the screen to see what the button did. He expected to remember a sequence of keypresses to do what he wanted, and it frustrated him no end that pressing the same keys in the same order could have different results.
Actually, I think that mindset is much wider. People ask me “How do I do X?”, and (because I'm often not familiar with the device or software in question) I have to say, “I don't know. But let's take a look…” And I can often do it, not because I know what buttons to press, but because I look at the screen and try to see what it's telling me.
It seems that many people just don't look. Perhaps especially older people; perhaps because when they grew up, controls were hard-wired, and devices didn't have any state other than the control settings, so you never needed to look.
How do we avoid getting like that? How do we keep up with technology?
That's tricky. I think one thing is to try to set aside preconceived ideas. Perhaps that's why young folk pick this stuff up quicker: they're not trying to fit everything into their existing understanding, because they don't have any existing understanding. They just accept what they see for what it is.
And another is to play. Children are also very good at this, but adults tend to look down on it. Which is a shame, because exploratory play is how we learn about new things! Obviously, with technology you have to be a little bit careful to avoid doing real damage, but having a good old play and poke around is a vital way of getting to grips with something new.
In the Olden Days™, of course, this was easier: you could look through all the menus (or press all the buttons) to get a good picture of what was possible. As software moves away from such old-fashioned UIs and is controlled more by gestures and swipes, that gets harder to see. I think we're laying down a real problem with software discoverability.
But I think it's just as important simply to keep your eyes open.
[sig redacted]
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday April 30 2017, @08:53PM (2 children)
Um, which 70 year olds are those?
People in my family. Relatives of my friends. Lots of older folks.
I know at least a few people over seventy who have a programming background
So do I. Please re-read my post. The one sentence you quoted sounds like an overgeneralization, but you will note that I specifically referred to blue-collar workers, many of whom may have retired before they got a lot of computer experience.
In fact, with the single exception of my 89 year old mother I don't know a single person over the age of 65 who doesn't have smart phones, computers, or tablets, and usually all three.
My family members I referenced have all three too. That doesn't mean they have any clue how to use more than their most basic features.
It's absurd to suggest that we are any less capable of using technology than you are.
I didn't suggest any older people are "less capable" of learning how to use technology. I used the word "intuition" in the very quote you used, which is something that generally comes from experience. I merely suggested that many older people lack significant experience, and it's pretty much an established psychological fact that older folks have a harder time absorbing new skills. I myself will admit to that -- I certainly don't "pick things up" as fast as I did 10 or 20 years ago.
In other words, you can't complain about old people not understanding tech, and then also complain that they've taken over Facebook and Twitter.
Who is complaining about older people taking over Facebook and Twitter? I don't give a crap about either.
The problem is aptitude or training, not age.
And my statement was that a larger percentage of people over the age of ~70 (maybe closer to ~75 now) had significantly less exposure to technology (which means less training) than people tend to in everyday work, etc. today. Therefore, the minimal skills many of them have are somewhat limited to tasks they actually do everyday (see the list at the end of my email).
By no means did I mean to imply (and I certainly didn't say) that older people are all stupid or incompetent or whatever you think I said. And plenty are experienced and have spent decades working with computers, etc., but it's more likely to find those who AREN'T among older people than younger ones.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday April 30 2017, @09:14PM (1 child)
By the way, if anything my statements were meant to mirror the adage that was popular about 20 years ago about how people needed the grandkids to program their VCR. I assume you remember when people used to say that. And I'm sure, given your background, you were able to program your own VCR at the time. That didn't make the statement less apt for lots of older folks.
But really what it was about was unfamiliarity with interfaces coupled with decreasing desire to experiment with new tech. How many older people back then really cared enough to program their VCR? Most of them certainly didn't fiddle around with buttons on the remote just to see what they did as their grandkids did.
Now we have devices like tablets that have dozens or even hundreds of times the number of functions that those VCRs did, often with interfaces that are just as unintuitive, non-discoverable, and filled with jargon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 30 2017, @10:28PM
the adage that was popular about 20 years ago about how people needed the grandkids to program their VCR. I assume you remember when people used to say that.
Hey, Gramps! What's a "VCR"?
(See, now the grandkids need a grandparent to explain what magnetic tape was, why we say "dial" a phone, and how to wear on onion on your belt.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 30 2017, @11:20PM
You didn't understand my comment. What I meant was: it seems odd that someone wouldn't be permitted or trusted to have the root/Administrator password to administer his/her own computer. The asker knew the root/Administrator password, but seemingly didn't consider providing it to the owner of the computer. See the part about "having to drive down to the machine to see what they are doing, and log in with the appropriate account that can reset that password"?
Any child over the age or 3 or so likely has better intuition about how to deal with computers and other modern tech than a 70+ year old family member.
Given unsupervised physical access, it doesn't take much cleverness to find a bootable ISO that has chntpw, and gain access to an Administrator account on Windows. It takes less to find a bootable ISO and use it as a live CD. A child could do it. As for elderly people, even if they are forgetful or incompetent, we usually trust them to handle their own affairs. In either case, I question the value of keeping the root/Administrator password secret from the owner of the computer.