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What Happens To Your Data When You Die?
dacarr writes "Your data - that is, the personal web pages and projects you have worked on to make the 'net a better place - are presumably password protected. But sooner or later the time will come when you take that last breath, and with you goes your passwords, but not your data. It's still there for your benefactors to deal with. And while many famous people who are no longer with us (e.g., Douglas Adams or Chuck Jones) have a staff for this, well, many of us don't. As such, have you planned for the hereafter, and if so, how?"
When I was in college a friend from the rugby team killed himself. I noticed days later that his student computer account was still open and emails had been received after his death. It gave a strange feeling to "finger" his account (which was how we found out about people in the old pre-web days) and have it return status information about him almost as if he was alive. I guess I can't really describe how it felt, almost like in some way some part of his life was still going on even though he was no longer around. I wrote to the system administrators and asked them to close his account down, which they did.
Not that it's relevent to the question at hand, but I never could understand what would cause someone to take their own life. Of course, logically I understand what causes it - complete and utter despair - but emotionally, I guess that I have never (thankfully) felt down enough to empathize with someone who commits suicide. It seems like such a waste. The summer before this he and I had decided to try to get into good shape for the upcoming rugby season, and we pushed each other at the gym and during runs and sprints. After he killed himself, I just had to wonder, what is the point of working so hard to get into good shape and then just ending your life?
Personal anectodes aside, I don't really see much point to this Ask Slashdot question (which is usually the case as Ask Slashdot is the lamest part of Slashdot by far). Your digital files will be treated the same way as your paper files after you die, and people have been dealing with the question of how to ensure that their personal effects are handled in the way that they would want to for thousands of years now. My advice to anyone reading this would I guess be to keep encrypted anything that you don't want anyone to see after you are gone, and for anything else, don't worry about it.
That said, I have a little fire safe that I keep important stuff in, like car titles, contracts and cd-rom backups of my computer files. Some of it is sentimental stuff like letters and writing. I imagine if someone decides it is worth publishing, it may live on significantly past my life time. Perhaps none of it will, but I'm not too worried about that, I'm happy that my "important data" lives on in the only place that matters, in the memories of my family and friends.
Basically, usefull and/or popular information has an indefinite life span because people will preserve, expand and share it. Call it the natural selection of information. We don't really need to do anything different to keep that going. Frankly, it's a good thing that useless and unimportant data dies, I'd hate to think that a future historian would be forced to search through petabytes of things like 100 year old Slashdot first-posts in order to find information about our recent war with Iraq.
The meek shall inherit the earth, in 3 by 6 plots. - Lazerus Long
Ximian's Ettore Perazzoli died last year but his site and blog are still up:
http://perazzoli.org/blog.php
I just use my first name and digit 1 for all the accounts I have that require passwords.
Sooner or later they will discover a vulnerability.
I can't speak for Douglas Adams but Chuck Jones' entire enterprise is handled by his lovely daughter Linda who literally busts her butt to run everything. That's hardly a "staff". Chuck would have been content to never have drawn another cel or market anything but thank heavens Linda suggested it.
/.ers reading this should be concerned
with one thing: finding a porn erase buddy and give them a housekey and all of your passwords.
The idea is that if you die unexpectedly your porn erase buddy will go into your machine, clear your machine of all the pornographic files. In addition you can also have him/her to clear out your conventional
meatspace porn so your Momma will still highly of you even after you're gone.
Timothy Leary is another good example of dedicated fans who keep the site running after he died and an even better example is Peter McWilliams who put the entire text of all of his books online before he passed on. I recommend Ain't Nobody's Business if You Do. The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in a Free Country.
Frankly as far as data and death are concerned most of you
This is exactly why you make a will. Passwords...how ever you store them...should be left to the people you wish to have said information. It's that simple
Your data should be treated like what your mom said about underwear. She always said you better have a clean set just in case you get hit by a bus and have to go to the hospital; you better have a clean pair. Just like underwear being clean, you better not have anything you don't want her to see - at least encrypt the good stuff or even use those crazy alternate data streams but don't leave it for everyone to find (especially anyone from RIA because you know they dig you up to get you into court).
Why aren't your passwords in your legally protected last will and testament? A trusted 3rd party can then divulge the passwords on your passing, along with all your other 'property'.
I work at a domain name registrar, and if someone doesnt have the username and password and the registrant is deceased, we need a death certificate along with our normal info to get the log-in. It's not a foolproof system, but it's been a pretty rare occurrence. Most of the Internet crowd is pretty young.
-- http://uncannyvalley.org/
It is entombed along with me in gold CD-Rs, along with my wife, secondary wives, concubines, treasure, and guards in a vast pyramid of my own design. They shall all accompany me to the afterlife.
Actually, you need to apologize to the Meat Puppets ;-p
If you can't figure out my address, just drop me an e-mail and I will explain.
I eat a vial with all my passwords. In my will I state that the Medical Examiner has to remove it from my gut. Every few days I pass it, wash it and swallow it again. :)
You know.. I just had this really weird vision of a medical examiner removing a glass vial from your windpipe.
"Cause of death? He choked on his passwords.."
This statement is false.
Document containers consist of two thin layers of steel, which have a hydrated compound stored between them; used to be plaster of Paris, or calcium sulfate hemihydrate (same as gypsum sheetrock). Upon heating, the hydrate gives up its water, flooding the inside of the container with water vapor. This serves two purposes. The first is that the heat of vaporization absorbs large amounts of heat, so the container heats up less rapidly. The second is that the water vapor displaces oxygen, making it less likely that documents will burn- unless, of course, the container fails. Remember- it's just two pieces of sheet steel. A fire safe is not necessarily a burglar-resistant safe, and most of the common safes on the market can be manipulated ("cracked") very easily by even a novice- they're not SUPPOSED to prevent theft. One needs to purchase a UL-rated burglar resistant container for that sort of thing. Safes can combine theft and fire resistance ratings; consult a security professional (like a SAVTA member) for the appropriate safe.
Also important to remember is the location: If a safe is on the 2nd or 3rd floor, once that floor burns through, the container will fall. If it cracks open- there goes your contents. So- put it in the basement. BUT- make sure you don't have heavy objects located above it (refrigerators, etc.), which will crack it open. Put the safe on blocks if you can so that the contents aren't soaked from the firefighters flooding the basement!
Media containers should follow the same general rules (be careful where you put it, etc.), but work on a different principle. Last I checked (it could have changed), media containers use wood as insulation. This keeps the contents at an acceptable temperature, provided everything works. Wood is a great insulator, and it burns relatively slowly unless it is divided in a manner than allows combustion.
None of this means that every fire-rated safe will survive. In fact, a review of areas swept by wildfires in California in... 1991, IIRC, showed that even home-made safes worked as well in some instances as UL-rated containers. However, the best containers were all positioned in the slab, or in some other large, non-combustible heat sink. In-floor safes fare well, although exceptions (such as where the dial melted and dripped into the money stored within, causing most of it to burn) were noted.
So- in short, look for the UL rating. No, the $50 toy safe at the discount store isn't the same as the $500 media vault from a locksmith, even if they ARE both rated. No, the people who sold you the $50 safe will know nothing about how it works, or how well it will protect your data, or how to open it and retrieve your property if your house *does* burn down. No, the $50 safe will not come with a professional who knows how to open your container if something DOES happen to go wrong with it. A professional SAVTA member will be able to help you with all of this, as well as sell you the appropriate container.
But, of course, if you want to try the $50 safe, go right ahead if it helps you sleep better. They have to meet the minimum standards from Underwriter's Labs (UL 72 for Class 125 and Class 150 containers). And it will depend upon where you live (across from a fire station in a Class 1 noncombustible structure, versus Uncle Marty's trailer home, 25 minutes from the nearest volunteer fire department), of course. But for GOD'S SAKE, don't assume that because the label says "FIRE SAFE," that they're all the same, or that they'll save your data no matter what.
Disclaimer: No, I'm not a SAVTA member, and I don't currently work as a locksmith or a safe/vault technician.
Bury me with my hard drives.
... for this to be relevant.
Here's a hypothetical situation -- you keep all your finances (check register, bank balances, etc) in Quicken/M$FT Money/et al, as well as policy numbers, loan payment schedules, yada yada yada.
Your home directory is encrypted (via something like Mac OS X's FileVault) when stored, and decrypted only upon a successful login.
You're in a car wreck and are comatose for 6 months.
During that time, your car is repo'ed, your home is put up for sale due to lack of property tax payments (I think there are probably things to protect one from the mortgagor, but not from your friendly local gummint) -- you get the idea.
It's a good idea to have someone you trust (Fox Mulder notwithstanding) know how to get in and manage things in your absence.
If you're fortunate enough to have TWO people you trust (or almost trust), you might devise some sort of digital equivalent (this IS Slashdot, right?) of the old "2 halves of a dollar bill" key used in the movies. It would seem like a variant of the RSA scheme would work nicely. Maybe a large number that is the product of two (or as many trusted folk as you have) large primes could be the key to your digital castle...
Otherwise, recovering from a coma could be one of the most unpleasant surprises you'll ever have.