7 ms·

That is precisely why one or more emergency communication protocols are necessary. They need to be carefully designed to reduce the risk of infiltration by sca

That is precisely why one or more emergency communication protocols are necessary. They need to be carefully designed to reduce the risk of infiltration by scammers. As with all forms of security, some level of convenience will need to be sacrificed. I considered your examples to describe two different kinds of scenarios, which might merit different kinds of security measures. 1. Incoming communication from a young child (or a person who is very dependent on you): you'll probably want your phone line to stay fully open. Hopefully in the case of young children, this means that their parents are relatively young and will have grown up with skepticism toward incoming communication from strangers. 2. Incoming communication about a younger, adult relative. Maybe for many people, such communication could bear the introduction of a bit of slowness by security measures. Probably in most cases, there's little that the older relative can do for the younger, temporarily incommunicado relative. They might not need to get a message about them right away. In many cases, the message will be bad news anyway, something that the older parent can do nothing about. Such bad news can probably wait a few hours, even a day or two to be delivered, and it's not too bad for the older relative to be none the wiser for a bit, if such temporary impotence protects them from the increasingly present threat of serious, life-altering scams. As with all security measures, there's a tradeoff between convenience/immediacy/cost and security. It will likely be hard to design reliable, secure, and accessible emergency communication protocols, but I hope (and optimistically suspect) that it's indeed possible. Attempting to design such protocols is a worthy endeavor for us to undertake, given how many of our loved ones are increasingly vulnerable to randos who have no business getting to their front door so easily.

pests 3y ago
> Such bad news can probably wait a few hours, even a day or two to be delivered, and it's not too bad for the older relative to be none the wiser for a bit That right there will be a deal breaker to many. Your kid gets hit on their bike across town. Maybe you'll find out two days later?! Or someone has hours left to live, and you're not trying to do anything at all - just be by their side. Organ donation? High risk operations? These questions can't wait days.
- domador 3y ago
  I'm still hopeful that a good emergency communication protocol or set of protocols could make quick, but well-verified emergency communication possible. In my earlier comment I wanted to communicate that a speed tradeoff would be involved when protecting ourselves from scammers. Maybe I was too dramatic when talking about waiting hours or days to hear from a loved one, but we'd likely need to give up near-instant incoming communication from strangers (and loved ones trying to contact us through strangers) if we seriously want to protect ourselves from scammers. For many people, the tradeoff--even if in the order of minutes or an hour or two--will be unacceptable and they'll prefer to leave their incoming communication channels completely open and unsecured. However, others people may decide that a small tradeoff is worth it, when weighing their own vulnerability to destructive scams vs. a much lower probability of needing to help a loved one with the catastrophic examples you mentioned. This latter group should not be considered by society to be heartless. Though nobody dies right away when they lose their life savings to a scam, they may very well end up dying or ending up with a very miserable life as a result of that scam. They should not be blamed for reasonably protecting themselves (AND their loved ones, who'd also be affected indirectly by that scam.)

pests 3y ago

> Such bad news can probably wait a few hours, even a day or two to be delivered, and it's not too bad for the older relative to be none the wiser for a bit That right there will be a deal breaker to many. Your kid gets hit on their bike across town. Maybe you'll find out two days later?! Or someone has hours left to live, and you're not trying to do anything at all - just be by their side. Organ donation? High risk operations? These questions can't wait days.

domador 3y ago
I'm still hopeful that a good emergency communication protocol or set of protocols could make quick, but well-verified emergency communication possible. In my earlier comment I wanted to communicate that a speed tradeoff would be involved when protecting ourselves from scammers. Maybe I was too dramatic when talking about waiting hours or days to hear from a loved one, but we'd likely need to give up near-instant incoming communication from strangers (and loved ones trying to contact us through strangers) if we seriously want to protect ourselves from scammers. For many people, the tradeoff--even if in the order of minutes or an hour or two--will be unacceptable and they'll prefer to leave their incoming communication channels completely open and unsecured. However, others people may decide that a small tradeoff is worth it, when weighing their own vulnerability to destructive scams vs. a much lower probability of needing to help a loved one with the catastrophic examples you mentioned. This latter group should not be considered by society to be heartless. Though nobody dies right away when they lose their life savings to a scam, they may very well end up dying or ending up with a very miserable life as a result of that scam. They should not be blamed for reasonably protecting themselves (AND their loved ones, who'd also be affected indirectly by that scam.)