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Software Dead Man's Switch

Posted by timothy on from the take-short-vacations dept.

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.

2 of 231 comments (clear)

  1. How do you test it? by falser · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Like, do I have to do a "trial death", spewing out messages all over the internet like "Hey I'm dead, blah, blah, oh by the way I'm just testing my death switch, you may disregard this message". I think after testing it out a couple of times nobody's really going care when you really do die to take notice.

    Certainly the chances of an accidental death mode going off are high. So I think there should be different "death alert levels". If you don't sign in after a month, it starts sending out alert messages like "Hey I haven't been around for a while and I might be dead, please check whether or not I'm dead for me, Thanks bud!".

    There should also be instructions given in an email to your friends/family so that they too can stop the death switch for you in dire or unusual situations (coma, kidnapping, laziness). And only then if another couple days pass it goes into full blown death mode.

  2. Dead? Or just laid off? by standards · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In my previous job for a large corporation, there was a programmer who decided that it would be a good idea to install such a switch. In the event he didn't update a particular file at least once within 30 days, a job would start slowly corrupting an accounts receivable database.

    Unfortuantely for him, he was severely injured in a car accident and was incapacitated for several months.

    Now that he is out of the hospital, he's in jail.

    Was it his fault? You bet. But the company was also severely repremanded for having poor controls on sensitive computing systems.