Comment by strictfp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by strictfp | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

A certain elder member of my family simply cannot remember passwords. Or that she had a password at all. Or that she had an account to see what she wanted to see. So she uses password reminders everytime she wants to log in. If you log her out from a service to login yourself she asks you why "the computer stopped working". Password reminder works well until she gets logged out from the mail account, at which point creating a new account is a great solution according to her. So now when she gets a password reminder sent you have to check multiple mail accounts and hope that she is logged in to the right one. Otherwise you need to use one mail account to gain access to another until you find the password reset link. At this stage you have to hope for that the reset link is for the right Facebook account, and not any of the duplicate accounts she created when "Facebook wasn't working".

Her comment: "What? Do I need a password for this? I hate passwords! Why do they make me use passwords?" Proceeds to klick password remainder link

True story. Would ve funny if it wasn't so tragic.

Hate to be the one pointing this out, but your relative is unfit to use online services now.

You would not let her drive, would you? Even if the car provided her more automomy, the risk of her running into another car would be too high. Why would you then let her expose herself to a world full of predators that are specifically targeting senior citizens to wipe their bank accounts?

Better to monitor her use of computers as if she was a young girl.

Actually, she isn't that far gone. But she hates computers with a passion and treats them accordingly. I have tried for many years to teach her the concepts, but she refuses based on the premise that she thinks it's too complicated and that it "should be simpler".

Kind of reminds me of myself following useless bureaucracy.

Ok, not what I had in mind when I wrote my first comment, sorry about that.

Have you tried providing written instructions? In my opinion, for her vectors of attack, it is much less risky to have her password written down in paper somewhere on a drawer at home than have an online mess.

As long as she isn't using internet banking, is it really that much of an issue?

Assuming she doesn't fall for any scams (which is a big assumption).

Ideas that might help:

* set all redundant accounts to redirect mail to a main one

* do write the identifiers and passwords on paper notes, and have her keep them, for instance, inside her wallet

Reply on news.ycombinator.com