Ask Slashdot: Remote Support For Disconnected, Computer-Illiterate Relatives

An anonymous reader writes I use email to communicate with my folks overseas. Their ISP only allows dial-up access to their email account (there is no option of changing ISP), that can receive messages no larger than 1MB nor hold more than 15MB (no hope of changing that either). They are computer-illiterate, click on everything they receive, and take delight on sending their information to any Nigerian prince that contacts them, "just in case this one is true". Needless to say, their PC is always full of viruses and spyware. In my next yearly visit, instead of just cleaning it up, I'd like to gift them with some "hardened" PC to use for email only that would hopefully last the year before someone has to fix it. So far, these are the things I have in mind:

• Some kind of linux distro, or maybe even mac. Most viruses over there are windows only and propagate via Autorun.inf or by email attachments, not having Windows could prevent both.
• Some desktop environment that hides anything unrelated to connecting to the net and accessing their account (dial-up software, email client, web browser, exchanging files between their hard disk/email attachments and USB drives). By "hide", I just want the rest to be out of the way, but not entirely removed, so that if necessary, I can guide them over the phone. For this, Ubuntu's Unity seems like a particularly bad solution, but a Gnome desktop with non-removable desktop shortcuts (is this possible?) for the file manager, browser, email client and dial-up program could work. An android system is unlikely to work (they have no wifi, and they were utterly confused with Android's UI).
• This could be a life saver: some kind of extension to the email client that executes commands on specially formatted emails (e.g., signed with my private key), so that I can do some basic diagnostics or install extra software if I have to. This las point is important: they currently rely on acquaintances who may not be competent (they can't evaluate that) if something happens between my visits. They, most likely, wont know how to deal with anything non-windows, so all tech support would fall on me. (This is the reason I haven't moved them from windows yet.)
• Another very useful extension would be something to automatically re-assemble attachments split into several emails, to overcome the 1MB message limit.

Does any of that exist? If I have to build that system myself (or parts of it), do you have other suggestions? For the inevitable and completely reasonable suggestion of getting someone competent for tech support: I've tried that too. The competent ones don't last beyond the third visit.

Comments

There's actually a robust solution available.

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need an exotic hardware or software configuration. You just need new folks.

May I suggest an Etch-A-Sketch?

[SJester]

No malware is written for it, it is impervious to network attacks, and it can be restored to the original system image just by shaking.

Re:Dial up can still access gmail

[Daniel_Staal]

You are making the assumption that Gmail isn't blocked, and that the users in question would be open to changing their email addresses.

Also, webmail over dialup has the distinct disadvantage of requiring you to be online to read your email. This ties up your phone line, and may cost money. Batch-download is normally a better solution over intermittent links: Connect to get your email, disconnect, read it, write replies, connect to send. Total time online: usually less than a minute.

Lock down the Windows desktop

[C0L0PH0N]

I support a Windows 7 PC in our community center (retirement community). I simply installed Drive Vaccine (http://www.drivevaccine.com/), which is cheap and allows you to either lock the PC down entirely (no virus infection possible :)), or keep say a "documents" folder writable, but locks the rest of the PC down. This PC has run for several years, and is restored to a "baseline" after each restart. Never an infection, as it can't survive the reboot. Users can surf the Internet all they want, and write and receive emails etc, etc. Occasionally, I unlock it to do updates of various sorts, but then I lock it down again. Sounds perfect for your parents.

Re:Dial up can still access gmail

[stoborrobots]

... most viruses require a constant high speed connection...

You must be new here - I'm young in internet years, but even I remember the number of viruses flying around in the days of floppy disks and dial-up modems, long before constant high speed connections...

Your Relatives should not be on the Internet

[wisnoskij]

They ... click on everything they receive, and take delight on sending their information to any Nigerian prince that contacts them, "just in case this one is true".

Your Relatives should not be on the Internet. Not only will they be scammed out of possibly every cent they have, but they are probably sending spam and viruses to all of us.