TR Forums

Cuhulin wrote:

I think all that the people pointing out the references to age are saying is that people should be judged individually, not based on "group think".

People know their family & friends. He wasn't remotely suggesting that we should randomly accost the elderly and badger them about their computer security.

And who is being judged? Certainly not you, as much you as you guys are desperate to unnecessarily tell us how unexceptionally exceptional you are. There's no real "judgment" in any sense behind the entirely harmless idea of "gee, maybe I should talk to my grandmom about how she does her banking on her PC now."

Cuhulin wrote:

I doubt there would have been any disagreement if the message had simply suggested a conversation with parents to determine whether they were technically savvy about phishing scams and, if not, step up to make sure they were protected - just as one might evaluate whether an aging parent is still safe to drive and, if not, get them to hand over their car keys. This wasn't about "me", it is about treating people as individuals. I use me as an example - everyone is an individual.

Wow. See, that really is a judgment. Asking about the car keys, no matter how sensitively or "fairly", is making a decision about whether or not they can continue to do something.

The fact that you'd equate that with simply educating someone, an action that is neither decisive nor conclusive, indicates that you've had an absurd overreaction to a completely non-controversial situation. No one was ever contemplating confiscating a computer, but rather empowering and educating people.

So while you continue to pretend that people aren't aware that their family & friends are individuals I'm being to suspect that maybe you are worried that someone is trying to take *your* keyboard away or something.

cuhulin wrote:

What I do know is that I have been bothered by "group think" for a very long time

Not long enough to properly know what it is, evidently. You are describing stereotypes and garden variety prejudice about out-groups. Not only is that not what "groupthink" actually is, it's also not remotely what *this* is: Parents aren't an outgroup (save for contextually-irrelevant adolescent angst).

cuhulin wrote:

Part of me simply remembered Ronald Reagan saying he would not hold Walter Mondale's youth and relative inexperience against him.

I can appreciate the humor, but not the subtext: you are directly implying that your response here involves more than a little generational resentment. A response that is wholly out-of-place towards someone's agenda of simple and honest filial piety.

DrJ wrote:

Absolutely right. If you are working with family members, you see them often enough to judge how well they are doing mentally. There is no need to tie it to age.

/facepalm.

Guys, are you still rolling with the idea we're so unbelievably socially-retarded that we need to be TOLD to assess the suitability of this advice in regards to our own family?

That, literally, upon receipt of this very simple message we're all immediately going to start flailing our robotic arms around as we approach our parents saying "PARENTAL UNIT BE ADVISED: ARE YOU AWARE THAT USE OF RANSOMWARE IS CONTRA-INDICATED?"

DrJ wrote:

But I do respond very negatively to how people characterize those who are older.

Not to be matched with how negatively I respond to those who mischaracterize and misappropriate the words of others, which is exactly what you and cuhulin are doing here, shamelessly.

DrJ wrote:

When I was in grad school, Joel Hildebrand, of regular solution theory fame, came in every day well into his early 100s. He had a handful of post docs, most of whom were in their 70s. I have been and continue to be surrounded by them, and I won't go into more here.

Please, please, continue to tell me how utterly normal you are. The incessant name-dropping really establishes that you're just one of the guys, just like everyone else.

You see, we can't talk about "people" because one of those people might be "you" and that's really important. Because you're really important.

DrJ wrote:

As for having a chip on my shoulder, I don't think so. After having run into age bias, which is real in R&D, I simply gave up on traditional employment and founded my own company. It has outlasted many of the places I interviewed

This is completely self-refuting. It's self-parody.

DrJ wrote:

and I no longer give a cr*p about what anyone else does.

As evidenced by what you've written here, assuredly.

DrJ wrote:

I give up. The OP is irrational

You asked for a quote, he immediately and directly complied.

Then he's irrational.

Yes. Please give up.

As feared, this thread has been completely derailed. When I saw the title, I was hoping we could have some helpful and useful discussions on an important subject. Not just parents, but siblings, friends, ourselves....preventing fraud/scams in general...

Probably too much noise in here for that discussion now.

Glorious wrote:

Cuhulin wrote:

I doubt there would have been any disagreement if the message had simply suggested a conversation with parents to determine whether they were technically savvy about phishing scams and, if not, step up to make sure they were protected - just as one might evaluate whether an aging parent is still safe to drive and, if not, get them to hand over their car keys. This wasn't about "me", it is about treating people as individuals. I use me as an example - everyone is an individual.

Wow. See, that really is a judgment. Asking about the car keys, no matter how sensitively or "fairly", is making a decision about whether or not they can continue to do something.

Yeah, from time to time, I do that with the grandparents that still drive (find an excuse to have them drive somewhere, then watch it carefully and make sure it's safe). Haven't had to have a talk like that yet. (We almost had to do that with one, but the DMV retested him and took care of that for us.) It's been a while since I checked one of them though, should probably do that again...

But anyways, you figure that older folks were raised in different times, might not be as fast or alert as they used to be, things change, and yeah, I can see how some of them fall for it. Absolutely depends on the person. I've gotten pretty good at spotting Craigslist scams (ex. certain text, they copied another listing, email with odd characters in it), but I can easily see someone who's not familiar with that particular site not catching those - I've spent enough time browsing those listings to have figured most of it out.

Cuhulin wrote:

It isn't age.

It is. Maybe not you personally, but on average and over time---yes, it is. Elderly people tend to be more receptive to scammers of various types.

The AARP even warns about it, although they focus on the availability of personal savings rather than the decline in mental function.

There is some science on it, but I want to be clear: Are you seriously claiming that mental faculties do not decline with age?

I no longer have access to academic journals, so this is the most relevant information I could find:

https://consumerist.com/2012/08/20/scie ... -with-age/

CScottG wrote:

..damn,

Just stopped my mother on a call with "microsoft" (from India), who was setting up a network "remote control" access to her computer, to help her "remove" the Zeus virus.

-she just couldn't understand that she was being scammed, nor the unbelievable security "hole" she was trying to open up, nor the disastrous consequences that could have occurred had I not been there (..her entire financial life and accessibility is essentially recorded on that machine) - a Saturday-night meal perhaps saved her finances (..just unbelievable). Hell, she didn't even want to hang-up the phone on these scammers.


The worst part is that I've tried to tell her about these sorts of problems before, many times!


IF you have parent's over (what, fifty-five?), not only is a "talk" in order - it's probably time to help them set up their system and their connections and passwords in a manner that protects them BEFORE the worst can happen. Exactly what that is I don't know (..though no doubt something that will likely involve some hole-sucking amount of your life.)


Also, I think it's time for this forum to have a SECURITY section.


-venting done.

I tried to set them up as users years ago... problem is my Dad likes to download random software to try new things... *sigh*
My solution was to give my mother her own computer and they use that for financial stuff. My Dad has his machine for playing.

My mother lives with me now, but previously I twice happened to come over and she handed me the phone and jokingly said its for me.
Mum is 70 this year and has heard me talking about some of these scams for years. I think the first time this came up was 2001 or 2002... what with browser pop-ups saying she is infected and what-not.

The phone calls are just an extension of that.

I find it funny that they used to call me all the time.

I troled one of them by asking where are you calling from and they said miami, I told them they should call me back on my office phone and gave them the local FBI office in Florida, the first one in the list when I googled it.

These days I tell them they are a scammer, and they need to find another career, and hang up.

Arvald wrote:

I tried to set them up as users years ago... problem is my Dad likes to download random software to try new things... *sigh*
My solution was to give my mother her own computer and they use that for financial stuff. My Dad has his machine for playing.

My mother told me she didn't want her PC any more as she could do everything she wanted on her iPad. MALWARE RELIEF!

Trouble now is that it's an iPad 2 so no iOS 10 will be forthcoming!

My son has gotten pretty good at trolling them. A couple of times, he's kept them on the line long enough that when they figured out they were being trolled they got really mad and started swearing at him.

Telling them you need to turn the computer on but "it is really old so it will take a while to boot" is a good way to keep them hanging on the line. Followed (after a suitable pause) by "Oops, it just crashed, it is restarting again... hold on."

Ha, amazing! We don't ever get these calls; possibly because we don't have a landline phone!

excession wrote:

Ha, amazing! We don't ever get these calls; possibly because we don't have a landline phone!

neither do I but I still get scams.

whm1974 wrote:

excession wrote:

Ha, amazing! We don't ever get these calls; possibly because we don't have a landline phone!

neither do I but I still get scams.

If there's a will, there's a scam... (

Arvald wrote:

I tried to set them up as users years ago... problem is my Dad likes to download random software to try new things... *sigh*

My solution was to give my mother her own computer and they use that for financial stuff. My Dad has his machine for playing.

Yes, my Dad's the same way - and even then it wasn't enough.

I finally put on a continuous back-up system on his computer (..a cheap little Segate affair a long time ago that worked out very well). Sadly though that back-up system that he is familiar with for "roll-backs" is no longer compatible with current-gen OS's. He's been needing a new system for a while now and I've been looking at various solutions to these problems.


-clearly though, my Mother has her own problems - and she is starting to try more software.

excession wrote:

Ha, amazing! We don't ever get these calls; possibly because we don't have a landline phone!

Yes!

That's a good solution to some of the problems, and one my parents have (..an unlisted magic-jack #).

Of course it didn't work to my Mother's benefit this time because she called out.

The other problem is that both parents seem to want to share that telephone number with just about anyone and anything.

just brew it! wrote:

..Followed (after a suitable pause) by "Oops, it just crashed, it is restarting again... hold on."

Firestarter wrote:

..I warned him because I knew he'd be a target. And you know what? He already had a scammer try this exact scam!

Warn your folks, people

Yup.

And if possible, try to find some ways to mitigate the risks that your parents can at least tolerate - make it an interactive process though.

My parents are both intelligent, highly-educated people, and yet both of them have gone and deliberately installed mal/ransomware in the past year that was, to me, blatantly suspicious. In my father's case, it was a "baseball card appraisal" program for use with his scanner and some old baseball cards, downloaded from a random site with a .ru domain name. In my mother's, it was an e-mail sent out from a friend's compromised Facebook account, telling her that she needed to download a "Facebook photo viewer" in order view some pictures.

Both of those cases set off instant alarm bells for me, but not in my parents, and by the time they were telling me about it the damage was done (no money/files lost, just some time to do a complete format and reinstall).

They're not computer-ignorant, and they're not so old that they have cognitive decline -- they've just spent most of their lives using computers prior to ubiquitous Internet access, and don't seem to have yet developed the Internet Scam Immune System (for lack of a better term) that I have. I have spoken with both of them about scam calls, and neither took it amiss -- my father told me he's already received a few, and knew instantly to just hang up.

So I'm a little concerned about their computer usage, but not terribly so. This is as opposed to, say, my uncle who should reasonably never be allowed to use technology more advanced than an Etch-A-Sketch, because he is both convinced of his own brilliance and has the common sense of a roasted peanut. He not only falls for scammers -- giving out his home address, Social Security Number, and banking information -- but then gets incensed when he's told that he's fallen for a scam and refuses to contact his financial institutions out of pride. He's lost thousands this way, and refuses to learn. I would love to stick him on a Linux desktop with very minimal user rights, but that would then require me to provide him with technical support.

I got one of those Windows phone calls over a year ago......I kept him thinking I was a noob about computers and delayed his remote control commands for around 25 min then I said what is the name of the one of the 5 computers I have on my network that has this so called VIRUS on it? I let it go on for 5 minutes more got bored and hung up:)

Bit of a thread necro, but this is interesting and relevant: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/millennials ... ft-survey/

Perhaps we've been so good at driving home the point that seniors need to be wary of scams that they're actually better at spotting them than non-technical young people.

Then there's this: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/irs-imperso ... udent-tax/

WTF. Someone claiming to be from the IRS insists that you send them thousands of dollars in Target gift cards to pay off some made-up fine, and you just go and do it? (And yeah, the editing of that article is horrendously bad; it's a candidate for being linked in the "Where's the editor?" thread too. )

just brew it! wrote:

Bit of a thread necro, but this is interesting and relevant: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/millennials ... ft-survey/

Perhaps we've been so good at driving home the point that seniors need to be wary of scams that they're actually better at spotting them than non-technical young people.

It's a fair point that young people are also susceptible, but the study is so flawed that it has almost no value.  For starters, these were all people willing to answer a survey.  The very nature of that statement means that they've already narrowed the field to the top single-digits of those most susceptible to scams; regardless of age group.  Even worse, they're relying on the 100% honesty of the participants.  It could very well be that elderly folks are much more embarrassed to admit being the victim of a scam due to the stereotype and stigma.

Reading this reminded me of a video I saw on Facebook about some scammer who tried to scam a guy asking for target gift cards worth of $1500 or $15k. He made a video and made fun of them then abused them and the scammer guy said it takes him around 10 minutes to normally get others pay money to him. This is a serious problem and no tool can actually save anyone from phishing except for knowledge and common sense. It is essentially important to keep the elders inform about these things cause they are the weak links for the bad guys! Good thing you posted it up!

Wow, that's actually kind of impressive. Some random scammer sat there thinking, "It'd be great if I could get paid in gift cards, so why not just ask for it?".

Who buys a $1500 gift card anyway? That's got to be pretty rare even at super expensive specialty retail stores.

Both of my parents are hopeless with computers but they can see a scam for what it is quite quickly. My dad has had several calls from microsoft which went nowhere for the scammer.

One day I hope to get one. I will let them play around in a VM and see how long it takes them to figure out I am rolling it back each time they reset after installing their software.

I've heard the thing to do with the VM is to sweeten the deal with a zip bomb helpfully renamed passwords.zip or similar. Now I'm not necessarily suggesting that anybody do this...it's just something I've heard about.

I've never gotten a call from "microsoft" but I did have "irs" leave a few messages a while back.

just brew it! wrote:

Bit of a thread necro, but this is interesting and relevant: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/millennials ... ft-survey/

Perhaps we've been so good at driving home the point that seniors need to be wary of scams that they're actually better at spotting them than non-technical young people.

I looked for the actual paper behind these news articles and couldn't find "jack".

My guess is that "findings" are not properly represented in many instances, particularly with respect to the "age related" category as reported and restated by many new sites.  (..classic "journalism" ****.)

My guess is that most of the respondents for the survey were millennials (18-34) - ie. more respondents = higher percentage, and likely within a category of respondents that generally have far greater exposure (..those using the internet more often).

CScottG wrote:

My guess is that most of the respondents for the survey were millennials (18-34) - ie. more respondents = higher percentage, and likely within a category of respondents that generally have far greater exposure (..those using the internet more often).

Err... that's not how percentages work.

But your overall point (that it is difficult to say how valid the results are without more info) is valid.

just brew it! wrote:

CScottG wrote:

My guess is that most of the respondents for the survey were millennials (18-34) - ie. more respondents = higher percentage, and likely within a category of respondents that generally have far greater exposure (..those using the internet more often).

Err... that's not how percentages work.

Here is one of the finding statements:
"Surprisingly, 50 percent of those who continued were millennials between the ages of 18 and 34." (..this is after the 1 out of 5 continuation after first being contacted as mentioned below.)

https://staysafeonline.org/blog/new-dat ... cams#_ftn1

(..and I believe this was the original article that got the blog-sphere rolling.)

Ahh, I thought you were referring to this bit:

Among those who were exposed to tech support scams, more than a third of those between the ages of 18 and 24, and 43 percent of those ages 25 to 34, fell victim to scammers.

In contrast, older customers seemed to keep their guard up. Among those ages 55 to 65, just 16 percent of those exposed to tech support scams fell victim. And in the over-65 group, 17 percent fell into the scammers’ traps.

NovusBogus wrote:

I've heard the thing to do with the VM is to sweeten the deal with a zip bomb helpfully renamed passwords.zip or similar.  Now I'm not necessarily suggesting that anybody do this...it's just something I've heard about.

I've never gotten a call from "microsoft" but I did have "irs" leave a few messages a while back.

A zipbomb will do absolutely nothing.
1. The scammer is probably not running AV on their machine.
2. Any AV from the last 10+ years only scans so deep before discarding the file.
If your parents brains are losing so much plasticity that they are incapable of thought and now make it through life on feelings and things they learned long ago, then it it time to get them a chrome book an take away their windows machine.
Trying to teach them that if someone calls and says they are from Microsoft that they actually want to trouble shoot the Roku and not the computer, is not going to work. You might be able to tell them Microsoft is evil and only calling so they can bill them just like a corrupt mechanic does (if you can use things they know from "their time" you might get more traction).
Also keep in mind that if this is happening to them, then it will happen to you.
We all lose plasticity in our brains as we get older (this is how people become conservative). You fight it by forcing yourself to learn new things rather than going to easy emotional stimulation in your free time. My father is still a genius, my mother is becoming a dough head (not as bad as her mother was). I'm not a genius anymore (kids, do not drink a liter+ of vodka a day for decades).
See also http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shot ... he-elderly

THIS scam:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jpHwUVOA7U

-from the land that you brings you the concept of Karma. 

Hmm, maybe she will be reincarnated as a cockroach?