Software Dead Man's Switch

Anonymous Coward writes "DaisyMan over on ArsWare has come up with a software based Dead Man's Switch that will, if you don't 'check in' every so often, post a message (presumably about your demise, but whatever you wish) to various message boards, send email (maybe that incriminating evidence?) to your friends, and encrypt specified files on your computer so that 'they' can't have them. Paranoia? Yeah, but they really _are_ watching you ..." Update: 06/22 12:57 GMT by T : The idea isn't new, but recently sparked a New York Times article.

Comments

Question...

[rant-mode-on]

The question is, can I set up a cron job to save me being pestered by it all the time?

supposedly dead

[Dan Aloni]

I really don't like the idea that by mistake, my relatives, friends, or colleagues on the Internet will get this kind of E-Mail by mistake:

"This is an automated message. If you read this, I am probably dead. My will is to be burried along with my hard drive, and send the rest of my computer hardware as donation to Linus Torvalds."

On the first time they get it, they may get paniced, and set up a funeral for me while I am away.

On the second time, I'd really drop dead and they'll laugh and ignore while I rot on my keyboard for months.

necessary services

[dboyles]

This reminds me of something that was on The Man Show a few years ago. In the event of an untimely death, a (made-up) company could be enlisted to "correct" some things for you. The team came in and replaced items such as Playboy centerfolds, a bong, porn videos, and a - let's just call it a "sexual device" - with pictures of your family, Bibles, and other such things.

They showed a "with and without" sequence, where one's parents came to their dead son's apartment to discover the two different scenarios. It was pretty funny, and encouraged me to say to my roommate, "You know that bottom drawer of my dresser? If I die, burn everything in it."

Re:How do you test it?

[BarefootClown]

laziness

I thought you said unusual situations...