Arranging Electronic Access For Your Survivors? 335
smee2 writes "In the past, when a family member died, you could look through their files and address books to find all the people and businesses that should be notified that the person is deceased. Now the hard-copy address book is becoming a thing of the past. I keep some contact information in a spreadsheet, but I have many online friends that I only have contact with through web sites such as Flickr. My email accounts have many more people listed than my address book spreadsheet. I have no interest in collecting real world info from all my online contacts. The sites where I have social contact with people from around the world (obviously) require user names and passwords. Two questions: 1. How do you intend to let the executors of your estate or family members know which online sites/people you'd like them to notify of your demise? 2. How are you going to give access to the passwords, etc. needed to access those sites in a way that doesn't cause a security concern while you're still alive?"
Very simple.... (Score:5, Insightful)
a USB drive in the fireproof safe next to any important papers. Passwords for things they don't need to see are not on that drive. If you are worried even more, get a safety deposit box at the bank. Keep it updated and all will be ok. Then, on the other hand, some people don't care... the world can figure it out on their own.
Will (Score:5, Insightful)
Safety Deposit Box (Score:3, Insightful)
Obviously, if you change your passwords, you have to change what's in the safety deposit box, so there is some upkeep there.
BFF (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm relatively young, so I haven't put a lot of thought into this, but my best friend knows all the personal account names and passwords I use for everything. He would be able to get into any of my accounts with a few guesses. I don't have a comprehensive list of everything, but the main stuff would get worked out.
And before you security nuts go crazy about telling other people your passwords, keep in mind this is a person I trust above anyone else...even my own close relatives. If I can't trust him, then I must live a truely miserable life of denial full of people who dislike me. I also don't tell him any of the admin passwords at work, as A) other people have acces to those, and B) They aren't my passwords to give out, even though I know he would do no harm (hell he'd probably manage the network better than half our admins...)
Oh, I also know pretty much all his passwords too...so...yeah, he better not try anything :-)
TrueCrypt (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Am I just being cynical... (Score:2, Insightful)
Hello, the person you know as sexmonkey69 has died (Score:4, Insightful)
Sometimes is ok to just let the account expire.
If its someone important, they will find out your dead from loved ones or other connections. If its some random person you met on the internet, do they realy need to know? While social networking is all the buz, is that the best place to tell someone about a persons death?
Re:BFF (Score:5, Insightful)
And before you security nuts go crazy about telling other people your passwords, keep in mind this is a person I trust above anyone else...even my own close relatives. If I can't trust him, then I must live a truely miserable life of denial full of people who dislike me.
Not to burst your bubble, but have you ever considered your BFF might be tortured to have your passwords extracted from him?
Not that you'd be keeping information that the CIA maybe interested in but honest and trustworthy people can be made to divulge information either through duress or intoxication.
Its like giving your loved ones a bank account pin and someone holds them up at gunpoint and now they have to decide whether to break your trust or keep their lives. I personally don't like to let people deal with that scenario.
Not that you or I have anything worth that valuable... But people have been beaten up over stupid things like account credentials to online games. Might as well not burden other people with it.
Re:Will (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not the best idea to put user account information and passwords in a will. Once you die, your last will and testament will be filed in office of the clerk of the court, and then it becomes a public record, accessible to anyone who wishes to view it. Of course, your probate lawyer probably won't file the will immediately, so chances are that whoever is tasked with the responsibility to deal with the user accounts could change the passwords. (Whether it's legal to change the passwords after the owner's death is something that I haven't considered.)
Re:Very simple.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would my relatives need to nose around my private data and accounts when I die? For bank accounts and such, there already is an apparatus to allow them access, and for most private/encrypted data there is no need for access.
This is doubly true of email and online sites such as Slashdot. Unless I'm missing something.
Re:Very simple.... (Score:1, Insightful)
That seems to be an important observation, but when you think about it: Unless you die in a fire in your own home, the chances of the documentation being destroyed between your death and when someone goes looking for the information is pretty slim.
Safe + Email is the key (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought about this a couple of years ago when I had a health scare, this is what I came up with.
USB stick (or whatever it will be in x years) in a safe at home.
I have a paper will, with the usual stuff, plus an email address, and what to write in the subject and body.
The person that receives my will is instructed to email this address upon my death.
I have a rule on my mail account that matches the specified text in the email.
This email then triggers a whole load of actions:
Unsubscribes from mailing lists.
*Emails a personal message to people on my contact list.
*Sends an email with the relevant passwords to the relevant people.
*Sends an email with my finances, spreadsheets, important information to the sender.
*Sends an encrypted key to specified person which can access my harddisk.
*sends a list of things to shred!
This pretty much covers everything I need, including getting the relevant passwords to the right people, and auto emailing a personalised message to my contacts.
are you kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't even think how long the list of possible 'failure points' to your system.
you go missing- airplane crash- fall under a road paver- into a wood chipper- vat of acid- really unlucky gun shot while you were holding out your hands begging for your life...
You have to be freaking kidding if that is your i'm dead- you are covered methodology.
it'd be like having your life insurance policy in your wallet at all times.
Re:More to the point, would you want them to? (Score:2, Insightful)
So then it would be EXACTLY like the movie.
Re:BFF (Score:1, Insightful)
You remind me of the infinite horde of 14 year old kids on every MMOG I've ever played that say "My account got hacked :(" when what they really mean is "I trusted someone with access to my account and someone logged onto it and did stuff I didn't want that can't be undone."
Before you naivete nuts go crazy about some nonsensical need to share your account info with your BFF to keep the world a beautiful happy place, please consider that sharing passwords is not a prerequisite for being BFFs. If anything, the exact opposite is true. If you really cared about your BFF, you wouldn't put them in the position of having to be responsible (and being the recipient of blame) for damage should they happen to get drunk or fall in love or need to impress someone or whatever and leak your passwords.
Re-read your own post carefully - you end by describing the failsafe of mutually assured destruction. Distill some insight from it.
Re:justincaseidie.com (Score:3, Insightful)
Just create a watchdog script to watch for Slashdot DNS requests. If one hasn't happened within a few days, delete the bash script entry from the crontab.
Re:Password Program (Score:2, Insightful)
A piece of paper, with your passwords inside a sealed envelope stored in a fireproof safe? The only downside is that you have to trust your executors (and snoopers) that they won't open it until you die. Just seal it and sign it across the back flap.
My wife and I did this with out e-mail passwords. That's pretty much the key to any other site that we ever access.
Re:Will (Score:3, Insightful)