Ask HN: How do I keep my elderly father safe on the internet?

Re:Ask HN: How do I keep my elderly father safe on the inter... by troydavis on Sunday April 02, 2023 @12:03PM (#35411984)

Here's a few more ideas:

- in iOS -> Settings -> Messages, enable "Filter Unknown Senders." Go through recent SMSes/iMessages and create contacts for short codes and numbers that he has communicated with.

This option won't block the messages, but it'll make them harder to find and make their links much harder to click on (AFAIK it's impossible unless he copies and pastes the URL or creates a contact for the sender).

- install uBlock Origin, which makes it much harder to reach the phishing scam sites that back a lot of these campaigns. They're often hosted on sites that are on malware filter lists. In uBO, enable all optional malware filter lists.

- in addition to the malware detection mentioned by others, consider enabling Google "Enhanced Safe Browsing": https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/11577602?hl=en

- for phone calls, install his carrier's robocall/fraud detection and blocking app. For AT&T, it's "ActiveArmor" (https://www.att.com/security/). If he has a landline, pay for caller ID and consider a phone that speaks the caller's ID (example: AT&T TL96273).

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Re:Ask HN: How do I keep my elderly father safe on the inter... by mind-blight on Sunday April 02, 2023 @01:28PM (#35412934)

If you install Firefox on mobile, you can use uBlock origin on iOS

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Re:Ask HN: How do I keep my elderly father safe on the inter... by vsviridov on Sunday April 02, 2023 @02:37PM (#35413708)

I don't think this works, any browser on iOS uses safari renderer under the hood, so extensions don't work properly. Tried it a few months ago, as I'm using Firefox on my Android phone and wanted a similar set up for my mom.

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Re:Ask HN: How do I keep my elderly father safe on the inter... by CamelRocketFish on Sunday April 02, 2023 @05:06PM (#35415203)

Orion browser supports extensions

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Re:Ask HN: How do I keep my elderly father safe on the inter... by ehutch79 on Sunday April 02, 2023 @01:29PM (#35412944)

In addition to ublock and adguard, you might really want to setup a pihole, to filter out anything else that might have embedded browsers, like facebook, etc.

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Re:Ask HN: How do I keep my elderly father safe on the inter... by randomluck040 on Sunday April 02, 2023 @04:03PM (#35414544)

I understand where you are coming from but if something OPs dad wants to do and PiHole blocks it, he will not understand why it is happening and how to solve it. OP at least needs to think of that.

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Re:Ask HN: How do I keep my elderly father safe on the inter... by ehutch79 on Tuesday April 04, 2023 @12:09PM (#35441865)

I think this is a case where blocking first might be a better option than anything being unfiltered. better to get a call as to why they can't access fastmoney.ru then to have someone install a plugin in order to pay this western union bill... (real call dealt with at work)

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Re:Ask HN: How do I keep my elderly father safe on the inter... by randomluck040 on Tuesday April 04, 2023 @03:13PM (#35444552)

Overall I agree, better safe than sorry. However, at the same time I think that you have to manage risk properly. How likely is it that OPs dad will end up in a situation like that and does it make sense to use other means of ad blocking and educating him about some common phishing strategies or advising him to call him before he pays anything at all. I‘m facing a comparable situation, my dad is quite good with computers in his age range but sometimes I ask myself if I could do more to make it a more enjoyable/safe experience.

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Re:Ask HN: How do I keep my elderly father safe on the inter... by spikej on Friday April 07, 2023 @03:47PM (#35486159)

A simpler option is family filtered DNS like this https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-1

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Re:Ask HN: How do I keep my elderly father safe on the inter... by joeycodes on Sunday April 02, 2023 @03:28PM (#35414182)

In my experience, the UX on "Filter Unknown Senders" is incredibly weak. For example, the red "unread" badge will still be incremented by scam messages that are ostensibly in the "filtered" category. My parents quickly worked around "Filter Unknown Senders" by randomly clicking around until they found "All Senders" to read the scam messages again. The only thing that worked long term was to enable iOS parental controls and block all texts and calls from unknown senders. This requires a bit of up-front work to make sure all the legitimate numbers needed are stored as Contacts. Now our tech discussions are "what is the parental control password" and not "I just gave all my personal information and credit cards to a stranger please help" every week.

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Re:Ask HN: How do I keep my elderly father safe on the inter... by offsky on Sunday April 02, 2023 @05:12PM (#35415264)

That gives a new meaning to "parental control". I like it!

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