

Ask HN: How to communicate basic security protocols to parents, non-techs - cpher

I&#x27;ve been writing an email to my family (mostly 65+ parents, retired, etc.) about how to protect themselves from email scams, etc., especially in light of the heartbleed fiasco.<p>There&#x27;s often no distinction between a systemic bug (e.g. heartbleed) and an actual corporate security breach (e.g. Target). Everything is a &quot;hack&quot; to them. I&#x27;m not looking for &quot;general&quot; advice, e.g. make sure you&#x27;re using https, etc. And I&#x27;m afraid this will devolve into &quot;any non-technical user&quot;, no matter what the age. If so, that&#x27;s fine.<p>Here&#x27;s what I&#x27;m asking...How do you communicate this stuff to your non-tech people, whether parents, grand-parents, colleagues, etc.? Without being overcome with technical descriptions. How do we help them stay safe? Everything from social engineering (a la Kevin Mitnick) to clicking on emails from their &quot;bank.&quot;<p>Is there a protocol, or set of &quot;rules&quot; you place on your loved-ones? The last thing you want is for them to call you at 2am asking for help because they&#x27;ve been &quot;hacked.&quot; What strategies are you using to prevent the &quot;2am call because they&#x27;ve been hacked?&quot;
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anigbrowl
My streategy eventually became refusing to deal with it, and prodding them to
develop a relationship with a local computer store - if I can't answer
something in a single sentence or two, I say it's too complex to explain and
they should have someone look at it. This didn't go down that well at first,
until I got them to agree that they wouldn't try to fix their car this way if
I was a mechanic, and trying to fix their computer without being able to see
it was just as inefficient.

