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Your Digital Inheritance?
eldavojohn writes "I wrote a journal entry musing on the idea of passing on accounts and digitally stored information from generation to generation. Has anyone done this or inherited anything? Does anyone else plan to do this? Is there a slip of paper in your deposit box at the bank with websites, account names and passwords?"
If you can inherit it, the government will want to tax it. It's a bit worrisome that someone who inherits a website, or even an online identity, with a good reputation and lots of traffic will one day have to pay a percentage of a value the government arbitrarily assigns.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I even have my hard drive encrypted so if I should die suddenly, no one has to search through my porn. One's porn says a lot about a person, most of which should probably be left unsaid.
More music, fewer hits
I guess that's not so bad; we aging I.T. types can soon get jobs in legal offices maintaining their legacy equipment.
-Kurt
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
I'd rather not leave my account names and passwords in a safe deposit box that could be subpoenad if the feds ever had a reason to.
Considering that they can subpoena your diary, and use it against you in a court of law, the only place safe to keep your passwords is in your head. And then, what with keyloggers, it's only safe if you don't use it also.
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
"Is there a slip of paper in your deposit box at the bank with websites, account names and passwords?"
:)
What about a bit of money invested with instructions specifying that that money is to be used to continue payments for web hosting/domain registration for any website(s) that you have now and want to continue on after you're gone? This is something that I've considered, but to date, haven't acted on.
If you have a blog, maybe it'd be worth considering a plan to have it export it to static HTML and just having that hosted at Geocities/GooglePages, unless you plan on posting from beyond the grave.
How did she guess a 14 character strong password? Even if it was a word, the chances are extremely remote she'd guess on the first try. I bet there was a keylogger on your system, or some other means besides chance. Too unlikely.
I'm not likely to live to see copyright expire on the iTMS songs in my iTunes library, but my kids might. Yet no DRM system I'm aware of makes allowance for passage into public domain.
Copyright must be limited; apparently it can be a hell of a long limit, but Constitutionally it must be limited in the U.S. And everyone knows that digital files don't age--as long as you keep them on fresh media they will sound just as good (if not better) 300 years from now. Yet there are no limits placed into DRM systems, nor sunset provisions to remove the DRM when the copyright expires.
This seems to me to be a system that actually prevents compliance with a Constitutional mandate. Why hasn't this been an avenue of legal challenge to DRM yet?
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
No need. Since I subscribe to the free information philosophy just about anything of value I create passes
;)
into the public data pool as a matter of course, whether it's words I write, code I hack, music I make, or photos I take. Data is so ephemeral anyway, and the world is so fickle to it's value. As a matter of historical record
some seemingly trivial rubbish becomes very interesting, while once treasured gigabytes of data becomes worthless
within months or days. I hope the internet archive machines will keep alive some interesting ideas and bits of art and code I create or collect, if it has value, but beyond that I don't care. I hope my grandchildren will be too busy
living their own lives to care about going through mine.
Everything else I dont want to go that way, personal private data, gets to meet shred -u -f and dd if=/dev/urandom of=byebyefile. My right to NOT have that data picked through by vultures is far more significant than my need to pass things on. Inheritance is tried up with 20th century notions of 'ownership'. That's so yesterday!
I think there should be an "opt out" scheme whereby if one dies, by default, one's relatives can send in proof of the death and be granted access to accounts (email and otherwise).
Sounds nice, but that idea is utterly defenseless against fraud.
1: "Only the Sith deal in absolutes."
2: "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."
Hmm...
3: Only an idiot quotes a now worthless hack like Lucas for political ideas.
Also, why would she be billed for this account? If he set it up, on his card, as the owner (which is the crux of your statement), what is she involved for? If it was her card, the account would be in her name, and your statement would also be invalid.
If you are going to try to come up with something witty to rag on AOL about, at least make it credible.
All this inheritance stuff keeps reminding me of peoples greed.
On too many occasions the offspring sue the deceased estate to overturn the will and get "what's rightfully theirs". In many cases the elderly have to fight for the right to control their own property against their overzealous offspring.
Digital inheritance will start a whole new fight over the IP of the deceased.
One of the reasons I have always hoped that I get a message from God a day or two before I die, is because I would freak out if I had to look down (or up) after death and watch my mother in law clean out my wife and my sex toy stash.
Pah! Why feel ashamed of your porn/toy collection?
Dildoes number heavily among the oldest known human artifacts - even the single oldest well-preserved artifact, the "Venus of Willendorf", some scholars have argued may have served as an artificial phallus (go ahead and look at the "hair" on it and tell me it doesn't resemble some form of sex toy, "ridged for her pleasure"!).
I have porn. I have toys. I have no shame regarding them... If my own mother found them while plant-sitting, I'd proudly say that yes, I use them to great personal/mutual pleasure with my SO.
I just don't get how a sexually reproducing species turned into a culture of such pathetic prudes! Humans... Like... Sex! We spend a disproportionate amount of time seeking it, we spend virtually all of our free time from our late-teens through late-twenties doing it, we'll lose sleep and food over it. Wherein lies the "shame" of having "accessories"?
Why would I care who finds out? The same reason i have a ton of life insurance. Just because I am gone, doesn't mean that I want to say "a hearty fuck you" to everyone I cared about. I care how I am remembered, and more importantly, I don't want to cause my family (including inlaws) undue stress if I die. It is called caring about others- I am sure that you feel the same way.
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By