Technology.....so freakin hard to keep up!

Mailman

Mailman

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A couple of nights ago, the local police informed us that a stolen iPad was using our wifi. Some very tense moments with three cops standing in our living room , giving us the stink eye and asking hard questions. After a while I think they realized that they were talking to a couple of befuddled old folks and they left. We are convinced that some nefarious individual tapped into what we believed was our secure wifi router. How the heck can that happen? It's only a couple of years old, but all we ever did was basically hook it up and turn it on.
So...for the last two days, we have struggled to 1. Update our wifi router's firmware 2. Change our wifi password to some mile long complex random series of numbers letters and symbols. 3. Upgrade the encryption technology of our router. 4. New passwords for all of our devices.
I know for you folks that work with computers , these things are simple, and for people that grew up with technology, these things are simple to do. But for us OMG! None of this is intuitive, any how to info you can find is full of dense technical language and terms that don't make sense. It took us the better part of a day just to figure out how to access control of our wifi router!
Here's a tip, YouTube is your friend. Find a video made by some twelve year old kid to show you how to do things. Why do these things have to be so hard? Why can't they make these things simpler and more intuitive? I'm beginning to wonder how many years of being able to figure these out I've got left? Am I alone here?
Signed, Struggling to keep up
 
Dear Strugllin' Trust me you're not alone. Thankfully you have worked things out before any major issues or losses.
12 year olds are pretty bright these days. Just make sure to check with one before you trust any YouTube video.
Remember like the internet just because it's there doesn't mean it's true.

annlanders
 
Bob, with today's tech, you could just buy a robot to do all that for ya. But then you'd have to figure out how to make the robot work. Wait a sec..... I smell a trap here...:umm:
 
It gets worse.

What you struggle to learn will need to be eventually forgotten, replaced by the next gadgets. We used to say that "The half-life of an electrical engineer's knowledge is 3 years.". Memory loss and senility may help.

My wifi has a Texas security system.
If someone's in range to linkup to my wifi,


.......Then they're in range...
 
Struggling Mailman,
Having grown up in an age when electronic devices used vacuum tubes (the best guitar amplifiers still do!), I can say while things today are smaller and faster, they certainly aren't any easier to understand and use. And forget about trying to do your own repairs! That's where they get the whole "professional geek" job title (my laptop is in the shop now...almost coulda bought a new one for what that's gonna cost!). We're just dinosaurs.
2M,
I live in the sticks. I agree, "...if they're in range...they're in range...".
 
I'm surprised they'd go after a stolen ipad. It must have been stolen from the chief. Or maybe the guy who was robbed was killed.
 
Indeed - a stolen iPad seems a bit minor to bring on three LEOs.

Having said that - I agree - technology sucks.

Stupid engineers - who needs ‘em?

......waitaminit!
 
xjwmx said:
I'm surprised they'd go after a stolen ipad. It must have been stolen from the chief. Or maybe the guy who was robbed was killed.
Click to expand...

Yeah we thought that was strange also. Usually the police don’t get very excited about stolen property. Their usual response is something like, “We’ll write up a report, but it’s not very likely that you’ll ever see it again.”
 
Hey Mailman, you just proved to me that I am not alone in this 'high tech' stuff. I am a lot calmer now though.

'blinking time light on a VCR'...lmao
 
Yes the tech torch gets passed on.

Used to be with any computer, A/V, etc. issue around our house, "Dad how do I fix this?"

Nowadays it's a text to one of my boys......
'Ok, how do I fix this?'
 
Mailman said:
Yeah we thought that was strange also. Usually the police don’t get very excited about stolen property. Their usual response is something like, “We’ll write up a report, but it’s not very likely that you’ll ever see it again.”
Click to expand...
I've heard of gps-enabled stuff saying here I am come and get me, and they aren't interested. It's like there needs to be an official channel or something.

Setting up a router isn't too hard. Probably yours is an old one -- they used to come defaulted to no password needed. I've noticed the new ones come with the password on a sticker on the bottom. All you need to do is set up a password for your old one and it doesn't have to be a long or complicated one. Find the instructions online. I remember a few months ago they decided long, complicated passwords are generally bad in the grand scheme of things because ppl forget them, or are so discouraged by the thought they don't use a password at all...
 
robinc said:
Yes the tech torch gets passed on.

Used to be with any computer, A/V, etc. issue around our house, "Dad how do I fix this?"

Nowadays it's a text to one of my boys......
'Ok, how do I fix this?'
Click to expand...

That's funny and true! My son and his wife work in computer tech , and they have commented many times how relatives constantly call them to come set up or fix stuff. I have always avoided calling them for just that reason.
It sometimes takes me days to figure something out, but I get there eventually. Haha!

xjwmx said:
I've heard of gps-enabled stuff saying here I am come and get me, and they aren't interested. It's like there needs to be an official channel or something.

Setting up a router isn't too hard. Probably yours is an old one -- they used to come defaulted to no password needed. I've noticed the new ones come with the password on a sticker on the bottom. All you need to do is set up a password for your old one and it doesn't have to be a long or complicated one. Find the instructions online. I remember a few months ago they decided long, complicated passwords are generally bad in the grand scheme of things because ppl forget them, or are so discouraged by the thought they don't use a password at all...
Click to expand...

The initial set up on the router was a snap. It's a couple years old and actually has pretty good capabilities. The problem was we couldn't for the life of us figure out how to get back into the control panel and make changes, you had to go online to do it. Once we finally figured out how to get there we were able to download the latest firmware which had security enhancements, set the encryption to a higher level, and change passwords. And you are right about the hard passwords being a pain. Once we changed the password, all of our devices were knocked offline and had to be reset. You don't realize how much stuff goes through your router, phones , tablet computers, laptops, printers, kindle readers, all had to be reset with the new ridiculously long and difficult password. I used an online random password generator to create it.
 
aldo5468 said:
Just my unrequested opinion, but I don't think you should ever hesitate to call your son/DIL for help. You're his father, for goodness sake! You should go right to the head of the line!
Click to expand...

Ha! Thanks and you’re right, he would happily do it. I have always been fiercely independent and am stubborn by nature.
 
That's pretty weird mailman I kinda read that they were after the guy for much worse but were tracking him down through the phone. Did they have a search warrant?
Yeah the techno churn is going ever faster.
Just bunch of old guy battling windmills stories follow.
Apple is purposely slowing down their older phones. (again?) I'm on my 3rd Samsung S5 cause I know how it works and there's a samsung app that moves my crap to the new phone (mostly) HAH! No matter how fancy stuff gets never give up on kludge fixes! I ran a laptop for year after the screen died. I sawed off the lid and ran an old monitor, the 2nd replacement keyboard was taped on. When I finally gave up on it I bought a good used laptop that would accept the harddrive in a bay, and ran the new laptop from the old drive (after some serious driver patching), I was able to keep all my old software and files. When that started getting wonky I got a USB enclosure for it to move stuff over to the used desktop I got with a lost password. I was locked out but finally found out the drive had a special, "restore to factory" partition, after about a thousand windows updates it was up and going again. Bonus; parts for older stuff are dime a dozen on flea bay. I have an old monster color laser downstairs that I just got back from the brink yet again, took three tries over about a week.A lot of it was some hinky router networking glitches. It also turned out that Hewlett Packard's latest driver for this printer per the website driver update menu was no good! I ended up using an older "not recommended" driver that works perfectly. A fix wouldn't work, about a day later I'd come up with another line of attack and go at it again. This about the forth time over 4 years I brought it back from the graveyard. A $5,000 dollar printer with all new internals, total invested less than $200. I ain't smart but can beat my way through a door with my forehead. Kinda like mailman sez the info is out there IF you have web access.
I find and buy the "not for distribution" factory OBDII diagnostic test software for all my vehicles also not just the code reader, erase stuff, the dealer service department, get your hands bloody, change module code software. You really do have to watch your P's and Q's when going that deep, would be ugly to "brick" a car.
 
Last edited:
Mailman said:
A couple of nights ago, the local police informed us that a stolen iPad was using our wifi. Some very tense moments with three cops standing in our living room , giving us the stink eye and asking hard questions. - - -
Signed, Struggling to keep up
Click to expand...

Hi Mailman,
remember, they were cops so their IQ is about the same as their shoe size.
Rather than the complex happenings you describe I reckon it's far more likely that they'd come to the wrong address.
 
Was thinking about this while shoveling the lastest gift from the heavens this morning.
You realize they were looking at traffic in and out of your router? DID THEY HAVE A SEARCH WARRANT? Scary stuff. Hope you don't have an expectation of privacy when sitting on your couch.
 
Yeah - having read Gary's comments and thought about it - I agree Mailman. What happened there was more than a little creepy.

While I'd hesitate to comment on police procedures in another country - I can say that here, I am confident that the coppers would need a warrant to most of what they seemed to have done on your turf.

Pete
 

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