Are people still this tech dumb?

[ares93]

I live in one of the Boro's of NYC, Queens to be exact, I have just now checked after reading this thread, there are 12 networks within range of my laptop's wifi card, only 5 of them are secured, well 6 if you include mine, some people just either don't know or don't care.

i've cracked the schools network over fifty times in order to teach them to use something better than WEP. but they dont seem to take a hint.

using my toughbook, i get 23 wifi networks from the balcony. of those 23 i've managed to crack 19. the others are secured with WPA2. its kinda become a hobby of mine. i try to pinpoint whose access point it is. then i drop a note with the password in the mail box.

but my absolute favorite is my neighbor who has an unsecured wifi network and free file sharaing between his computers. i can enter his NAS and watch movies he has downloaded off the web.

 

[{ Emilia }]

I don't know (or want to know) the tech stuff - my tech-literate kids do it for me - that's why I sent them to Uni to get their IT & Computer Science degrees. Why have a dog and bark yourself?

Omg, Mom?
Is that you???

When did you move to Australia???

 

[Kestra]

Watching my mom's relationship with tech evolve over time has been pretty funny. When I first left for college, she had never even turned on a computer. We got her an email address and taught her how to use that (have you ever realized how many steps there are in just turning on a comp and emailing someone?), then I remember it was a big deal when I showed her how to use attachments. And the wonders of the shift key so that she didn't have to type in caps all the time.

She started sending me musical e-cards all the time. My roommates loved it. Eventually she discovered online shopping and travel reservations and things really took off from there. These days she's either on her laptop, iPad, or iPhone. It's still strange to get a picture emailed from my mom's iPhone, given where she started.

One of the texts I got from her the other day started with "OMG" and I was so disturbed. My sister said she got a "wtf" in one of the texts my mom sent. Where is she learning this kind of language?!

 

[ToddKent]

In my experience many of the people who are very "computer savvy" are the same people that cannot change a flat tire, replace a car battery or change the oil in their car.

Cars are technology too and there are people who drive every day who are every bit as clueless about their automobile as some people are about their computer. I submit that knowing how your car works is much more important...especially if you find your self broken down on the side of the road.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

In my experience many of the people who are very "computer savvy" are the same people that cannot change a flat tire, replace a car battery or change the oil in their car.

Cars are technology too and there are people who drive every day who are every bit as clueless about their automobile as some people are about their computer. I submit that knowing how your car works is much more important...especially if you find your self broken down on the side of the road.

I can do all those things to my car, and have done so on many occasions, as well as for others.

I think it's funny how some tech people are intimidated by car repairs.

 

[Wanderlust]

Its just slowing down my computer, and i just got wireless internet so i cant get viruses anyway.

fail

 

[FPAlpha]

I've noticed that too.. my dad comes from the analogue age and can do almost anything mechanical.. welding, electricity, doing stuff on the car (apart from the electronics for which you need specialized equipment) etc but the first time i set him in front of my old laptop and explained to him what a double click is or how a Windows filesystem works was just him staring at me with a big on his face .

He has come far though in the last years.. now he's breezing through the net, is active on many social networks including Facebook and has built himself an IT system in the house just so he can chat with friends all over the world.

I guess my generation who's grown up with computers is a bit more aware of the possibilities and dangers of new technologies but even then i wonder how naive people can be sometimes like giving out passwords to total strangers yet be paranoid about their ATM code in real life.

 

[BlobVanDam]

I don't know why it should be at all surprising that people are this dense when it comes to technology.

Meanwhile, my router is WPA2 encrypted with a long password of completely random gibberish that even I can't remember, doesn't broadcast the SSID, and is MAC filtered to only my own devices. I have about 3 other wireless networks in range, although I've never bothered checking if they're secure or not. Maybe I should....... MWAHAHAHA.

 

[Arrqh]

I think it's funny how some tech people are intimidated by car repairs.

I completely fall into that stereotype

But to use a car analogy... something like securing a wireless network isn't like knowing how to do simple car maintenance, it's more like knowing the rules of the road. I can understand not people not caring about how to replace RAM or even know the difference between a hard drive and the actual computer, but things like wireless security are important for your own safety just like knowing who has the right of way on the road is.

Of course, most people don't know that either...

 

[Aurian]

Yes, people are very tech-dumb.
I mean, at work I am known as "the girl that can fix everything" and they go running to me to fix all computer errors when the IT-crew is unavailable (which apparantly is all the time).

And I am to be honest- no freaking genious, but apparantly these things are judged by who you are surrounded by

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Yes, people are very tech-dumb.
I mean, at work I am known as "the girl that can fix everything" and they go running to me to fix all computer errors when the IT-crew is unavailable (which apparantly is all the time).

And I am to be honest- no freaking genious, but apparantly these things are judged by who you are surrounded by

Mere competence with technology is shockingly rare, I'm afraid.

 

[backstept]

I work electronics at Walmart . . . some people apparently think I'm tech support because they bought their computer at Walmart so I must know how to fix them too . . .

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I feel bad for people who get their computers fixed by Geek Squad and the like. Bigger ripoff than a crooked auto mechanic.

 

[TheGodBen]

In my experience many of the people who are very "computer savvy" are the same people that cannot change a flat tire, replace a car battery or change the oil in their car.

I changed a flat tyre just yesterday, but I was the kind of child that used to open all their toys with a screwdriver just to see how they worked.

But as Arrqh said, there's a difference between repair/maintenance and normal operation. I don't expect everyone to know how to change the oil in their car, but I do expect them to know the difference between sidelights, dipped beam, full beam, fog lights, indicators and hazards. It's important for their own safety, and the safety of others, that they know what all those different buttons, levers and dials do. I don't expect everyone to know how to insert RAM into a computer, even though it is actually a very simple process, but I do expect them to know how to protect their wireless network and operate antivirus software. And if they could learn how to copy and paste too, that would be swell.

 

[Jadzia]

In my experience many of the people who are very "computer savvy" are the same people that cannot change a flat tire, replace a car battery or change the oil in their car.

I think it's funny how some tech people are intimidated by car repairs.

I completely fall into that stereotype

For an intellectually oriented person, I am quite practical too, but car mechanics is one thing I have little to no interest in.

And I think that intellectually minded xor practically minded is the greater stereotype ~ eg, the doctor/lawyer/professor who doesn't know how to paint a wall, nor realise there's any difference between gloss and emulsion.

A lot of clever people are clueless about basic practical things.

Also, those same intellectual people can see something that amuses them, and form a belief about what they have seen. But when they communicate their story to people who are practically minded, there may be much laughter at how silly that person's belief is when the true explanation is blatantly obvious.

 

[ares93]

In my experience many of the people who are very "computer savvy" are the same people that cannot change a flat tire, replace a car battery or change the oil in their car.

Cars are technology too and there are people who drive every day who are every bit as clueless about their automobile as some people are about their computer. I submit that knowing how your car works is much more important...especially if you find your self broken down on the side of the road.

As a part time car mechanic and an IT and networking student, i must object. I completely and utterly resent that statement.

Id hate to show off, but i was one of three people who built the fastest car in this city.

 

[Finn]

I work electronics at Walmart . . . some people apparently think I'm tech support because they bought their computer at Walmart so I must know how to fix them too . . .

Like how some people think the people who sold them their goldfish at the pet section are experts with aquariums and fish.

 

[Trekker4747]

I once had someone argue with me up and down that they didn't need to physically connect their computer to their printer in order for it to work. Somehow, to this person, the computer would just "know" the printer was there and would just "somehow" fill the printer in on what to do.

Neither device was wireless.

The things you get into when your parents tell everyone they know that you "know computers" and building one gets you into more trouble, running a business for a year where you built several computers even more and when in that business you installed a complete in-home, 10 machine network? Hoo-boy.

What's amazing is my mom now is quite competent and adept at operating her laptop and getting it to talk with and print with the wireless printer. At the same time it somehow confounds her on how to press the "input" button on the remote a few times to get from the TV to DVD Player.

 

[Miss Chicken]

When my father got his first computer he bought the cheapest one he could find. The trouble was that it was a 286 which of course only had DOS, not Windows. Trying to teach a senior citizen how to use DOS is extremely frustrating. I finally managed to get him to buy a computer with Windows 95 on it and had some success in training him to use it. Sadly he had a brain hemorrhage soon after and when he came home from hospital he could no longer concentrate long enough to learn anything.

My brother, a lawyer, once phoned me up because he couldn't get his internet to work. I asked him what browser he was using. He didn't know what a browser was. I asked him if he was using Internet Explorer. He said I think so. I said 'Did you click on it to get on the internet?" He said know, he didn't realise he had to. He was used to having a computer where IE loaded automatically on startup.

Can someone tell me - is my internet connection secure if I have to key in the password on the bottom of my router to add a wireless computer, or do all makes of that router have the same password?

 

[Trekker4747]

To get into the router to make changes to network it has to be a hard connection. To get into your network the various types of securites will vary and can all probably be cracked in some way or another. I'd argue any security is better than no security and that if you router shows up as locked to someone roaming they'll likely just move to an unlocked one rather than try and crack into your router unless they've a specific need to get into your router.

The password on the bottom of your router is likely the admin password to log into it to make changes which, again, can only be done with a hard connection. There's the possiblity it's the wireless code and if it is it's likely it's not 100% unique which meas it's likely it's not 100% secure.

Depending on the settings of the router I'd recommend setting your own password using alphanumerics and not dictionary words and especialy words and phrases that are not unique to you.

Probably the most "common" way to make an different enough password is to select a sentence from a book, or a page, or something and type in the first letters of all the words of that sentence or down that page, including capitalization and an identifier.

For example, sitting next to me here on mom's end table there's an In Touch magazine for May 2011.

So to make a password from it I'd use "IT41192aouwFqmstsgettwctytdam"

(obviously this would work better with a collection of books magazines) translating this to 'In Touch, May 2011: page 9 two paragraphs and then the first letter of each word for the first two paragraphs on the page including the capitalization.)

Use whatever format/system best suits you to know what it is and how to quickly get to it without having to write it down. Otherways is to take a short sentence unique to you and type it out but by shifting the typed letters one key to the right.

"quick brown fox ran swiftly" becomes:

wiovlrtpemgpctsmdeogyau

(the "l" wraped around to the other side of the home row.)

There's any number of ways to make hard passwords that will confound, but not defeat, password-hacking programs. The more unique your password is the safer it is.

If you're using any of the default ones offered in the browser, no matter what the security type, chances are the various combinations are out there in some fashion and bots are built to input them into a device to gain acess to a network.

But I only see this as an issue if you've got something to specifically protect or hide. Chances are most people are just looking for a system to leech off of more rarely a network to do something illegal on that cannot be traced back to them. If your network is showing secure you should be mostly safe from the majority of invaders.

They all the precautions you think are necesary.