I’ve become the tech guy, and family are extremely entitled to my services. My mom especially. BTW I can’t cut her out, because I still live with her and she EXPECTS me to fix anything computer related. She won’t take no for an answer.
I’ve tried to keep track of her passwords with a password manager, I’ve spent literally 8 hours in a single day filling out captchas and replacing passwords, and I’ve spent even more time trying to teach my mom how to use the manager.
She CAN’T learn it, and always makes a new password, which she doesnt keep track of and expects me to fix it. What the hell do it do? She uses firefox, with auto refill on, but it doesn’t autofill on her iphone.
Use something that has solid iPhone support. Bitwarden has integration with iPhone to replace the built in password manager. That’s what I do. It
Then on desktop, I use the bitwarden plugin for safari, Firefox, and chrome.
It even works for passkeys and syncs them between devices. Even between iPhone and desktop. It intercepts the iPhone passkey manager.
Then it even works for her apps on iPhone.
Seriously, it’s a very seamless, elegant solution.
Get a blank notebook with alphabetic tabs and write all her passwords in there. Label it “crochet projects” or something. A non-techy friend of mine does that. At first I was horrified but it’s a lot safer for her than post-it notes on the monitor.
It’s also, in some ways, safer than some centralized password managers.
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Go to another account she hasn’t messed up on her phone, and make her watch as you use the password manager to get in. Then, you can tell her for sure that the tech is working, and you’ve done your part, but you cannot fix her behavior. If she wants to keep resetting her passwords all the time, that’s on her, otherwise, she’ll have to put a small amount of time and effort into adapting to using the password manager.
If she isn’t going to follow your suggestions and advice, why is she asking you for help? If she sincerely wants help, she needs to make an effort on her side to follow through.
This is a problem with psychology and boundaries, not a tech issue.
Stop helping, she uses you as a crutch because the option is there
My mother-in-law was super dependent on my wife for everything related to technology. Banking apps, netflix, sending and receiving money, anything related to the government she had her do it. Then we moved a few states away. We came for a visit a few months ago and guess what? She manages to do it all by herself now. Even calling an uber or finding the cat videos she likes she was able to do herself now.
The point being: she doesn’t want to and won’t learn because she has someone to do it for her. Since you can’t make her do it, then you just have to accept it unfortunately.
My mom resented anything tech related. I knew she was smart enough to learn it, she just hated being forced into it so we always had to do it for her.
Would she use one of those little password-keeper books? It’s not as secure as a password manager, but it might help get her self-sufficient.
You could start not knowing how to do things, give slower answers, just give bad customer service. Or ask her if whatever she’s trying to do can wait until she gets home to get computer.
I know the feeling of wanting to help, it’s part of why I became a librarian. I also know the pain of old folks coming in and asking the same questions. I had one lady, really sweet, that would come in and ask for the phone numbers to maybe 3 businesses a day. Like, we’d show her how to look it up, we’d walk her through it on a public terminal, she’d still ask us again the next day. It gets frustrating and you pick your battles.
At least I could go home after a shift and stop being the tech-knower. It doesn’t sound like you get to and that sucks.
Do what I do with my wife. I say she has to learn how to do it and I sit down in front of her and make her take notes and then have her try doing it. I’ve finally been able to get her to do some stuff on the computer on her own.
My mom’s password manager is a pen and paper notebook. It’s not ideal, but it keeps me from having to reset everything every month, and she chooses slightly more complex passwords since she doesn’t have to remember them (even though she is slowly memorizing them)
This is the answer.
For many people who don’t understand technology, the solution isn’t more technology. Is a password notebook technically less secure? Yes. But it’s much better and more understandable than what she really wants, which is the same username and password for everything.
Plus, a notebook is great way to pass information that’s not just usernames and password. It’s in invaluable resource in case of death. Digital is great, but physical copies are important.
My wife does this with notecards. I have to hide the passwords on my PC so I don’t have to dig through her notes.
Out of all my family and friends, if I had to pick one person to save my life based on wether they could find the correct password to a site or not. I’d go with my 80 year old grandma. She does it with pen and paper. It’s a god damn blessing doing tech support for her, she has every little detail on there.
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Instead of dropping a system on her that she can’t/won’t use, try asking her what she wants to do. You can explain why passwords need to be different, but you can simplify it by sharing passwords across sites that don’t matter. So someone gets her BBC password and finds they can also use it on the Daily Fail, whoop-de-doo. Different pw for the bank.
Simplify your own life. You have to do free tech support for your Mum, and to be fair she changed your nappies for years, but everyone else is expected to trade, especially if they expect you to pay for their services when you need them.
Of course tinkering with something makes it your fault any time anything goes wrong, and the lesson we learn from that is …?
PEBKAC.
But seriously, she needs to understand that, even though she (presumably) taught you how to tie your shoes, you don’t keep having her tie them for you. At some point there is no problem except that she isn’t accepting the solution.
Keeping with the analogy, if a person just refuses to tie shoes, not wearing shoes is always an option…
She never taught me to tie my shoes. I didnt know until I was like 15.
Both my mom and dad were workaholics, and my babysitter was a far closer parent than they were
I don’t mean to be rude, but maybe stop forcing her to use a tool that you like but she doesn’t. I’m tech savvy but I also think that password managers are a pain in the ass to use. Just let her choose a password of her choice for every service, give her a little paper notebook and let her note down all the passwords. Tell her to make them long and secure and different for every service. Tell her to store the notebook in a safe place. Done.
Again, she has trouble keeping track of things. Ive given her a printout with her passwords and she loses the paper, and doesnt know how to print it, or is straight up too lazy to type in a long complicated password, so she just makes a new random one.
She can’t even keep track of the new passwords she makes, so I dont think this would make a very big difference
The suggestion was for a little notebook, not a printout.
Have you tried a little notebook?
A notebook is more of a “thing” than a piece of paper is. A notebook is the sort of thing a person can keep on a bookshelf. A sheet of paper is gonna live on a flat surface until it’s thrown away.
Try the notebook.
This, and it should be passwords she chooses and can remember (at least the ones she uses the most). Not some random mix of letters and numbers.
Also let her save them in her browser.
Take a picture with her phone? Then it will be in her gallery. Or frame the paper and hang it on the wall.
Obviously terrible for security so depends on what is more important to you.
That works right up until you have to change one of the passwords.
Realistically, how often does this happen?
Maybe find a solution when it happens.
My main problem is that she is CONSTANTLY changing passwords. I try to teach her how to use her passwords manager, and have a printout in the vault, but she is too lazy to get the password, and type it in. She is too lazy to even track the new password she makes.
Then make it easier for her to retrieve a password. A vault is not a good place. Give her a little notebook she can put in a shelf or drawer.
This is how I approach all problems in my life, +
How many password breaches have there been?
Perhaps many, but I have over 500 accounts in my password manager, yet none of have been leaked per the password exposure report (which I assume is based on the https://haveibeenpwned.com/ database).
So perhaps the problem is overblown in practice, assuming you don’t use the same password in many sites.
My mom signs up for a lot of sketchy shit and has been pwned like 30 times across her emails.
A decent compromise might be to pick a short phrase she can remember, and make all her passwords that phrase+the name of the service.
Like her bank password would be “iloveop+bank”, her Netflix would be iloveop+netflix", etc.
Any chance your mom knows how to work a spreadsheet? Mine is old school and just keeps an encrypted spreadsheet synced between her devices so that she only has to remember one password
Okay, now I am curious, how are password managers a pain in the ass to use? Mine has only made my life easier and better. Even my non-tech savvy wife (whose password was the “I forgot my password” button) uses bitwarden extremely smoothly. Her password game has made a full 180 with very little instruction from me.
Only option really is to show her how to reset her password. Sounds like she’s already doing it, just tell her that’s how you log in, you let it autofill, and if it doesn’t work you click forgot password and check your email and that’s how passwords work now
Can’t you setup whatever manager to autofill the password?
Not every website is set up properly to allow that to work seamlessly.
True but enough do that it annoyed me to the point of disabling the autofill on my system, so maybe for this person it would be an improvement
My family used to both say I was the nerd and can and need to fix all their shit, AND anytime anything went wrong it MUST be my fault since I’m the one “tinkering” with and fixing their shit.
This is a minor part of a huge amount of reasons I worked my ass off to get fully independent and no contact with my family anymore.
Ugh I hate whenever something goes wrong the blame is always placed on the last guy who worked on it. If you ever build a PC for someone, you better believe you are gonna be tech support for that thing FOREVER.
I’d understand if you had issues immediately, or days after, but if its been weeks, months or even years? Gtfo. Thats longer than most free warranties.
