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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.
The question is, can I set up a cron job to save me being pestered by it all the time?
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.
"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.
0x2b or not 0x2b, the answer is -1
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."
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
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...
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.