West Virginia Offers Free Cybersecurity Training To the Elderly

West Virginia's Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who's currently running for U.S. Senate, announced Tuesday that he's partnering with two local community and technical colleges to connect senior citizens with college students for free cybersecurity training. The announcement comes amid rising cyber scams, many of which are targeted at elderly.

Bad idea

[110010001000]

Now the elderly will NEVER be able to find out how to pay off those student loans!

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[Nidi62]

Now the elderly will NEVER be able to find out how to pay off those student loans!

And with inevitable cuts to Medicare they need that access to CHEAP V1AGRA!, since those retirement communities are essentially giant orgies.

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[llamalad]

What people call this topic is a great indicator of how well they understand two things: the topic itself, and marketing.

People who have actual technical chops in the field tend to call it Computer Security, IT Security, or Information Security.

The clueless, and the people marketing to the clueless, call it Cyber Security.

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[johannesg]

What people call this topic is a great indicator of how well they understand two things: the topic itself, and marketing.

People who have actual technical chops in the field tend to call it Computer Security, IT Security, or Information Security.

The clueless, and the people marketing to the clueless, call it Cyber Security.

Similarly, arrogant, elitist assholes also refer to cyberpunk as "information punk", cybernetics as "IT netics", and cybersex as... well, I guess they don't need a word for that.

Also, they are slavering at the mouth for a chance to play the upcoming game, "Computer punk 2077".

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[llamalad]

Who peed in your Cheerios this morning?

No need for name calling, nor the straw man argument where you're attacking a nonsensical blanket statement that I didn't actually make.

But hey, if it makes you feel better... Happy Tuesday!

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[johannesg]

"Oh look at me, I'm so great, I know the _proper words_ for things! Unlike those idiot proles! I'm so good!"

That's you.

Good luck...

[The Original CDR]

I tried explaining to my father to 1) not to look at naughty bits, 2) don't use his debit/credit card when prompted by a scary security warning to buy THIS SOFTWARE RIGHT NOW, and 3) don't interrupt the weekly scan from the AV software that I installed. Never works.

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[jellomizer]

Yea but these are the experts teaching him. Not his kid.
It doesn't matter if you more qualified by a factor of 10 to explain this to him, you are still the kid who had their face covered with Cheerios vs just eating them.

I have had my data trying to warn me about the dangers of "Big Data" because there was a guy on Fox News talking about it. And he told this to me a day after I was finding statistical trends across a multi-million row data sets. He think I fix computers for a living.

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[jellomizer]

This seems almost a post that belongs to the next story [slashdot.org] Where Stuff presented on TV is often considered True by the elderly.

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[jellomizer]

Just mod this down, too close to lunch not enough thinking

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[Darinbob]

I have been tempted to say that these fake IT scams all come from Hillary, just so my mother would take them more seriously.

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[Ocker3]

Now That's a sneaky way of using their conspiracy beliefs against them! :D

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[Opportunist]

Pretty much this, yes. I had a similar discussion with my father recently that ended in "Dad? I'm responsible for the IT-security of a large international corporation, my job literally is to know IT-security. You decide to get your security information from a journalist whose job it is to keep you sitting through the ad block to hear the rest of his drivel. Ponder for a moment who you think knows more about how to secure your damn computer."

And him storming out with a "I was just saying, jeesh, can't I say

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[Ocker3]

I think they want to show that they have Some level of knowledge about something that they probably guess we're already Really good at, and they get frustrated when it becomes clear how huge the gap in knowledge is. Perhaps we need an IT version of 'yes and', where we say "yes, that's interesting, and here's something else cool to know and tell your friends" so they know we appreciate their gesture, and we also give them something really accurate they can tell their friends: "Remember what that guy on Fox

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[Darinbob]

I believe this bit. My mother refused to believe that the guy who was trying to get her money and the guy who offered her free IT services were the same guy. After long explanation I asked "you don't believe me do you", and she said in a quiet voice, "no".

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[Ocker3]

I forwarded out a warning from the Australian Federal Police's Stay Smart Online service, a teacher printed it out and put it in front of their husband, who was on the phone with a 'Microsoft Gold Partner' who was doing the bloatware/scareware scam thing. They refused to believe it and ended up signing up for some (hopefully just useless) software. Human psychology is a strange thing.

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[alvinrod]

The first point is about as stupid and pointless as abstinence only sex education. People are going to engage in risky forms of behavior no matter what you tell them. Rather than telling them no to do something, it's better to explain that if they choose to engage in those behaviors what they really need to watch out for and when they need to get some outside help. In high school, I had a teacher that told us that while we shouldn't be out drinking, that if anyone of us ever got drunk at a party and needed

A general lack of Media Education.

[jellomizer]

I had one 45 minute class in 6th grade, that stuck with me for about 30 years. It covered how advertising works, and their methods for getting your attention.
Sure I still fall to the advertisements, but at least my logical mind knows it, and allows me to take a step back and avoid the impulse buy. But that was one a one off class, and I actually paid attention to it.
Most people will trust or not trust an add just based on where it is shown and how expensive it is to show it.
A TV Add is the most truthful.
d

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[jellomizer]

Other then saying "GO LOOK IT UP" could you provide sources which we can fact check and validate?

If you want higher order thinking skills, we should be given tools to help aid with this. vs. Trusting the first google result from some unknown media outlet.ru

hmm

[cascadingstylesheet]

Might have some effectiveness ... depends on the person, I suppose.

A bit like giving self defense classes to the elderly ...

Woot

[Eldaar]

Glad to hear it - some local libraries in my area do offer some basic classes on topics like using Microsoft Office, Windows 10, and similar topics. However, I don't think many/any focus on how to keep your information secure while using the Internet.

And frankly, even if they do, it's nice to have other organizations (like colleges and universities) offering training so that it's more available and more people will have access to it. While people like Opportunist have noted that their own parents may not