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

Flaw?

[Deanasc]

OK wouldn't this be a moot point if my enemies get my computer offline before the switch is thrown. A better way would be for the software to run off something like FIDOnet with no single weakpoint. Just my 2 cents.

Safe House

[smackdotcom]

This sounds markedly similar to the idea employed in the underrated TV-movie Safe House, where Patrick Stewart's character, a retired spook, employs a software failsafe based on his ability to recreate a Japanese alphabet character. If he is unable to complete this task every day by a certain time, incriminating information about his black ops "friends" would automatically be sent to every major news organization on the planet. It could be very handy if you think someone is out to get you...

Question...

[rant-mode-on]

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

Re:Question...

[clary]

Hehe.

Actually, maybe the poster was serious??? I could imagine putting the cron job on one of your main servers or workstations, easily found by "THEM." The dead-man's switch would be on some less obvious machine, in another location. When "THEY" rush in, unplug, and cart off all your machines, "THEY" unknowingly turn off the cron job.

For the most delicious irony, the most wily of you might find some way to host the dead-man's switch on one of "THEIR" machines!

login script

[xpurple]

I've got my laptop set to format the drive (yes | rm -r /) if I don't login every so often. Currently it's set at two weeks (I don't reboot much). I don't see this causing any issues, and it makes me feel better.

So far so good :)

Note that this gets around the annoying having to do something special to make it work. I'd login anyway :)

How do you test it?

[falser]

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.

Re:How do you test it?

[BarefootClown]

laziness

I thought you said unusual situations...

Re:NY Times registration

[ZaneMcAuley]

http://www.majcher.com/nytview.html

Just use this NYTimes user generator :D

Old DOS days

[brejc8]

I had a system just like this to protect the computer if it was stolen or I died.
If someone steals it and doesn't run a BBS program at least once a day then he system would encrypt most files and ring me.
Once I have the number of the person who stole my computer I would be able to get them.
The cool thing is that it run from boot block just like a virus so you would need to fully format the disk to get rid of it.

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."

Safe Deposit Box

[SparkyTWP]

I think I'd rather just get a safe deposit box and make instructions to have it opened after my death. Inside would be instructions for emails, postings, etc...

Then you know you wouldn't have to worry about accidentally tripping the program if you went on vacation.

You'd still need an encryption program for files though if you don't trust anyone with that, but that's not a big deal.

Accidentally encrypting data is no big deal, accidentally sending off final emails with very personal messages is a whole other story.

On a similar note... Fire Kits

[Xiver]

I have set up a fire kit that runs as an NT service on my laptop and our file server. In the even that my user ID is removed from the Domain my computer and the server will zip and FTP my personal files to me and delete my personal email.

I've considered adding options to wipe out my HD and user directories, but thought I might be liable if project data was lost.

A more effective one

[Fencepost]

Though their website is sappier than I would've believed possible, "Loving Pup" has a service along these lines for folks in the US. They aren't looking for notifications, they get the death notifications (by SSN) from the US government; when your SSN is listed they send the email messages that you'd set up in advance. Of course, they also charge an annual fee ranging from $12-24.

If nothing else, it's certainly safer in terms of vacations.

Revelation Day

[wytcld]

How about we offer really slick freeware (or even better, 'shareware' that can easily not be paid for so folks think its of greater value) secretly set to go off on the Day of Reckoning?

Prior to that civilization-improving point of revelation let's also have a backdoor so we can get the inside scoop on the really nasty revelations. Free the truth!
___

A much easier, less risky, more effective solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Have someone you trust, like your wife, your sister or, if you're alone on the world, a lawyer flip on the 'switch' when you're dead.

There must be someone you can trust more then your ability to check in every now and then.

And if there isn't, I truly pitty you, but you can hire a lawyer to do it.
And no there is no conspiracy between the lawyers and the government.

Good in theory, Bad in practice

[1g$man]

IIRC there were so many false alarms on the ArsTechnica forums from this thing that the moderators will lock any Deadman Switch posts on sight.

It's an interesting idea, but it's way too easy to forget it's running, go on vacation, and then come back and find your hard disk wiped. Not to mention a forum filled with ArsTechnica loungers weeping over your passing, only to be bitter to find out you've tricked them...

fastest way to destruction

[dattaway]

Make sure you format once to quickly start a new filesystem, repeated by a destructive badblock test to finish off the lost data between the inode maps. Just to be safe, scramble the boot sector and randomize the partition tables. That ought to make recovery a bit more difficult.

/sbin/mkfs /dev/hda --ooops, formatted the whole drive as a filesystem, not a partition. Scrambled the partition table and the user's data all in one step. Ooops. Sorry.

/sbin/badblocks -fw /dev/hda --forces write testing on a mounted filesystem with assorted patterns of data. Truely evil.

The first step ought to take a few seconds. The second will continue to munch away until the deed is complete. Since all data will be gone, no ill will from upset mourners.

Dead? Or just laid off?

[standards]

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.

Who could use this in RL?

[Bonker]

Who, really, has secrets that are keeping them alive or incriminating evidence that just might get them arrested, imprisoned, or killed. To most people, this kind of utility is a joke. To a few people, however, this is a godsend...

Like, for instance, RAWA. These are the women who ran an underground women's rights movement in Afghanistan while the Taliban were in control. You may have seen their website with its grotesque pictures. They lived and worked in secrecy, in constant fear of being imprisoned or killed by the Taliban. Wouldn't a dead-man's(or -woman's) switch be just the thing to send off a 'Farewell. This is the evidence of my capture at the hands of the Taliban' message?

It's not just them, either. Dissidents in China could also use a utility like this... especially all those guys who just got their internet cafes shut down. Suppose the 2600 guys got raided by the MPAA^H^H^H^HFBI and were all put in prison. I imagine that Emanuel Goldstien has some juicy information he'd like to share in the event of his capture or death.

The Gotti family has been in the news a lot lately. Suppose that you were a mob informant and had information on them that was all that was standing between you and 'Sleeping with the Sopranos after next season'. A dead-man's switch would go a long way to allowing you to release that last little bit of information, even if the mafia got to you first.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

If you feel a need to do this....

[Fencepost]

If you feel a need to screw your coworkers like this if you quit/get fired/whatever, you're at the wrong company. Quit now before you do something stupid and vindictive that's likely to mess up your life, because if you feel like that now even if things improve you'll never really be happy there.

If you can't grasp that, grasp that most companies that inspire this sort of feeling are the large impersonal ones that are likely to survive, and that eventually they may figure out what you did at which point you're screwed for the rest of your life and they're minorly inconvenienced. Not worth it.

for best effect, go nuclear

[danny]

Obtain a surplus Russian nuclear warhead and wire your dead man switch to that... That's what one of the characters in Neil Stephenson's Snow Crash does, anyway - the result is that he gets looked after very carefully by local law enforcement.

There's a great bit of dialogue at one point that goes something like "You can't attack him, he's a sovereign nation!" "So, I'll declare war on him first." If anyone has a copy handy maybe they can transcribe it.

Danny.