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How do you Remotely Manage the Family's Computers?

posted by martyb on Sunday April 30 2017, @01:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the Ask-Soylent dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

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?

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  • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday April 30 2017, @09:14PM (1 child)

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Sunday April 30 2017, @09:14PM (#502001) Journal

    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.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 30 2017, @10:28PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 30 2017, @10:28PM (#502022)

    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.)