Locking down a Machine and Restricting Websites

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  orangetrain on 28/03/2021 - 20:10

  +1

  Get EPOA asap and put their finances under trust

  • 

    morse on 29/03/2021 - 05:19

    It’s always good to have an EPOA arrangement in place before it’s needed. However it is up to a person to choose if they want to nominate an EPOA and the terms under which a person can make decisions on their behalf e.g. most commonly people appoint someone to make financial decisions on their behalf when they are medically deemed unable to do this for themselves. A person can no longer nominate an EPOA if they don’t have capacity to make decisions e.g. if someone already had a moderate degree of cognitive impairment, such that they could be exploited, they can’t nominate an EPOA. In these cases any formal arrangement has to go through a guardianship tribunal in the relevant state.

    Nominating an EPOA can also work out pretty badly for some e.g. I’m aware of a case where a persons ex-wife was the EPOA, she sold his house whilst he was in a coma (questionable whether he was going to survive), when he did survive he wasn’t too pleased and was temporarily homeless, but she was within her rights as per how the EPOA was set up. When I eventually get around to setting mine up, there will be clauses around types of decisions and timeframe I’m medically incapacitated for.

    In OPs case if they are concerned about the persons cognitive capacity to make their own financial decisions they could link in with a geriatrician, occupational therapist, neuropsychologist or social worker. The local Aged Care Assessment Team (ACAT) or a GP would be reasonable places to enquire.

• 

  clokeyyy on 28/03/2021 - 20:18

  +6

  Assuming he is on Windows 10, make his account a standard account and turn on user access control (UAC), this will prevent most remote support programs scammers use like Teamviewer, Anydesk from being able to run on the computer without a admin's authorization. (this will at least help prevent against tech support scams)

  • 

    Kangal on 28/03/2021 - 21:56

    Would a ChromeOS / Chromebook do the trick here?

    • 

      Clear on 28/03/2021 - 23:16

      You can take control with TeamViewer and remote viewing only with AnyDesk. Windows would be more flexible in locking out those apps.

• 

  Randxyz123 on 28/03/2021 - 20:19

  +2

  • Run open DNS and have a list of whitelisted sites.

  • Make the main account non administrator

  • Create a new administrator account that only you have the password for

  • Install teamviewer so you can manage it remotely.

• 

  ausbuysell12 on 28/03/2021 - 20:27

  What system is he using? Possible to install ubuntu or something if he only needs to access certain the internet from his computer?

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  bdl on 28/03/2021 - 20:30

  +1

  https://www.quad9.net/

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  elgrande on 28/03/2021 - 21:59

  Pretty sure if you set it up as a family device in windows 10 you can restrict it to certain sites.

• 

  deme on 28/03/2021 - 22:23

  +3

  There is a difference between being tricked into a phishing site and fooling for a scam. Often they can cross over but I want to point out the differences as they have an impact on how to address them.

  In general,
  Phishing site: the urgency is due to trying to stop something bad to them from happening or sometimes there is no false sense of urgency in the lure the victim just gets tricked to login on the wrong site.

  Scams: there is a sense there is a (fake) pending reward eg. Romance or money. The victim often gets stuck trying to make the reward a reality and often gets tricked and over again. In sever cases they'll make the scam part of their identity so when you criticise it they feel as if you are criticising them.

  So what to do?
  Phishing, there is no silver bullet because a lot of it is out of your control (eg. You can change how your bank authenticates you, however keep that in mind as its their fault if you get phished successfully).
  Security keys (u2f/Fido/webauthn) are very effective against phishing but removing the human from having to figure out if a site is legit or not.

  Scams:
  People get tricked… But often this is a rare event and small amounts.

  When someone is getting scammed over and over again this is no longer just about them getting tricked but they need psychological help too.

  Think about this scenario if you went to buy a car for 30k and they sold you a lemon a reasonable person would be suspicious about purchasing from that place again and even more suspicious about purchasing cars in the future. Yet why do some people get scammed over and over again?

  You'll have to find out if it's money troubles or another underlying issue causing them to act so irrationally.
  It's quite probable they are still actively searching out get rich quick schemes in hopes to make the lost money back and then some.

  I don't think a technical solution such as blocking sites will cut it here.

• 

  ihbh on 29/03/2021 - 16:10

  elderly family member

  Can you clarify whether he was:

  • Previously at least an average sophisticated person, but has declined with age

  • Or has always been an unsophisticated person

• 

  Hawk78 on 01/04/2021 - 14:17

  Thanks for your advice everyone, yes its a difficult situation to manage. He had a stroke in the past and it has affected his judgement. So it really is a user issue. My cousin is trying to protect him whilst at the same time allow him to use the internet, A difficult balancing act. He is using Win 10 pro if I recall. We will explore some suggestions and see if we can at least improve the situation. His financial affairs are now being handled by others but we are concerned giving out his licence etc to scammers may result in identity theft.
  Thanks again for the suggestions.

• 

  cwongtech on 01/04/2021 - 17:08

  Adblock will help prevent a lot of stuff even becoming visible (lol)
  It won't help emails coming through though.

• 

  [Deactivated] on 19/04/2022 - 11:34

  Just came across this sorry for the late reply.

  I use nextdns.io to protect my elderly and my children (not affiliated with them). I've put it on the router, and I manage everything through the web. You can restrict as much or as less as you need it to.

  If you want, you can use a referral link: https://nextdns.io/?from=jzd59xmb