I am a very active member of the Information Security Stack Exchange site. Every now and then, I come across people who I believe may suffer from paranoia. They believe that "someone" is out to get them, and use techno-babble to make themselves sound legitimate. Here is an example post:
How to prevent attacker from viewing what's on my Android phone screen? Can someone give me advice or suggest apps to prevent this?
For example, if I write in notepad, and it's offline, they can read it. They know the time of my alarm. if I just set new random one they know. If I play some music, they know.
Another post by the same user:
they can read my screen, listen to my mic and even control my notification. both my rooted and unrooted phone. This happens when i just moved to new place im renting, it was bad neighborhood.
I'm not a psychiatrist, but I am very well-versed in security and I am 99.999999% certain that the things this person described are not real. I asked that person a few times who "they" were, and how he could know that someone was reading his messages. He claimed he didn't know who "they" were, but he was certain someone was watching him. As an example for "proof" he claimed that someone in his neighborhood was listening to the same song he was listening to a while ago.
The sad thing is, such users come to our site regularly and I am unsure how to best help them. What should I do when I come across a person who I suspect may suffer from paranoia?
What I've tried so far
So far, I have tried to tell those looking for help with their supposed hacker problems that they are likely not being attacked, and that it seems to me that they may be affected by paranoia. I tried to help them by adding links to credible organizations (like the Australian Better Health Channel), which was always countered by them claiming that they are not paranoid and that their problems are real.
I'm not sure if bluntly saying "I think you may have a mental health problem" is beneficial though, and if it may do more harm than good. For this reason, I am asking this question, how exactly I should act and how to best help people.