Cybersecurity, tech service projects for senior citizens

[RememberSchiff]

We still rake, stack wood, shovel but more and more our scouts are doing tech projects for the town and senior center.

From Boy Scout Troop 213, Superior, Minnesota :

Participants (senior citizens) are encouraged to bring their cell phone, tablet, computer or other device for one-on-one help with Janicki (Eagle candidate) and four of his fellow scouts.

“I was also thinking of teaching them to use Google and YouTube,” he said.

Van Sickle often fields questions from seniors about connecting to wireless internet, downloading voicemails and using email.

“Some of just these basic, everyday tasks, but because everyone has a different phone … it can be challenging, so we want to make sure people aren’t left behind,” she said.

As part of the project, Van Sickle suggested adding web cameras to the computer center to allow seniors to video chat with relatives.

“They  turn off their computers during the nighttime and these computers were scheduled to get updates during the nighttime,” Janicki said. “So they were years behind with their updates.”

“I think it’s great,” center manager Jenny Van Sickle said. “Something we get all the time is robocalls, security calls. We have people here who have had close calls. This scamming is prevalent and it’s serious.”

Janicki, a Superior High School sophomore, said protecting yourself from scams online is a skill that’s essential when using computers, especially public computers. It can include remembering to log out of email accounts, watching site names closely and not saving items to a computer's desktop.

“There’s tons of ways scammers can get money out of you, but it’s actually really easy to combat that using some simple browsing tips,” the scout said.

More of a very interesting story at source link.

https://www.superiortelegram.com/business/technology/4054327-Eagle-Scouts-project-eyes-cybersecurity-for-seniors

P.S. Nice, familiar-looking but less dusty HP workstation in link photo  

Edited August 6, 2019 by RememberSchiff