What Does Your Dead Man's Switch Do?

LqdEngineer asks: "How many of you use or have used a Dead Man's Switch designed to perform some action if you don't check in for a certain amount of time? Recently, I decided to put one together using MySQL and some cron jobs, but I wanted to see what others have their switches set up to do in the event you fail to check in. E-mails to loved ones? Send encryption keys to friends/family? Hate mail to your boss? Has anyone ever been on the receiving end of the results of such a system?"

Comments

Wives and Other DMSs

[P(0)(!P(k) P(k 1))]

From TFS:

I decided to put [a dead man's switch] together using MySQL and some cron jobs . . . .

I'll counter with my own ask-ask-slashdot: why would you use MySQL? It's only one more component to fail after you've expired.

My advice: lose the extraneous components; and get a wife, too: they come with a redundant dead man's mechanism.

Re:Wives and Other DMSs

[Profane MuthaFucka]

they come with a redundant dead man's mechanism
they come with a redundant dead man's mechanism
they come with a redundant dead man's mechanism

hmmm. Now I think I understand what's in the nightstand drawer.

Re:Wives and Other DMSs

[kjart]

and get a wife, too: they come with a redundant dead man's mechanism

You've clearly never been married or else you'd realize that the need for a dead man's switch rises dramatically in the years following ;)

Re:Wives and Other DMSs

[P(0)(!P(k) P(k 1))]

[Y]ou'd realize that the need for a dead man's switch rises dramatically . . . .

Ah, but that's the double sens of “dead man's mechanism:” herald and agent of your unmaking.

(At the very least, she unmade me a bachelor.)

There's only one thing it should do

[TodMinuit]

Blow up the building.

Re:There's only one thing it should do

[zyl0x]

Why, did someone take your stapler?

Re:There's only one thing it should do

[BecomingLumberg]

No. Were that the case, he would burn down the building. Duh.

My gas pedal...

[ForestGrump]

When I take my foot off, it slows the car to a halt. Just kidding, cruise control gets around the situation.

Grump

Re:My gas pedal...

[ajs318]

s/bus/milk float/
s/55/4

Re:My gas pedal...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Ted, you forgot your brick!"

Re:My gas pedal...

[ultramk]

"I would like to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather. Not screaming in terror, like his passengers."

Halo.

[headkase]

Duh. Activate the rings and release the black hole from it's omni-magnetic retainer so it can eat Earth. No traces left.

Re:Halo.

[Anonymous Coward]

And even worse, those bastards that complain about the people who constantly moan about grammar nazis.

creates more deadmens switches

[green pizza]

My deadman's switch is programmed to create a series of new deadmen's switches, each more complex than the last.

First things first

[antifoidulus]

delete all the porn!

Re:First things first

[ElaborateCalculator]

Mod parent up:
+1 Solipsist

Re:First things first

[lukas84]

You are not the center of the universe. You are merely an almost infinitesimal part of the big, grand, large, larger than life universe.

Correct. Thus, my death will have little consequence to the world as a whole.

Whatever these little consequences are, they can't concern me anymore, since i'm already dead.

Even the (hypothetical) people i love don't have any consequence to me anymore, since i'm dead. Death is The End.

This thinking can, of course, lead to amoral decisions, and that's why we have invented religion :)

Re:First things first

[Anonymous Coward]

Having kids is a waste of money anyway.

Re:First things first

[rawtatoor]

Then they go back to find out more information and find volumes of porn,

If they aren't down my life's passion of snuff films, poop sex and tentacle porn then let em starve.

Re:First things first

[bofkentucky]

You never saw the Man Show, they had a fake ad that in tone sounded like a life insurance spot, but the premise was, as a single guy you're going to leave shit behind your family doesn't need to see. If you have their service, Adam and Jimmy would come over and replace your den of filth, porn, and booze with a clean house, bibles and pictures of Jesus on the wall. My youtube-fu is weak, but it's funny shit.

Re:First things first

[Anonymous Coward]

World may be meaningless to you. You are dead. You, in effect, do not exist anymore. But the world does not stop existing simply because you expire.
You are not the center of the universe. You are merely an almost infinitesimal part of the big, grand, large, larger than life universe.

That's mighty big talk for a figment of my imagination.

Re:First things first

[Monkelectric]

It is so rare that one solipsists meets another.

Re:First things first

[MarkGriz]

"Having kids is a waste of money anyway."

Can't get laid, eh?

Cheer up, someday your princess will come.

Re:First things first

[LearnToSpell]

Only if you've got 'em working in the salt mines.

Ironically...

[Frogbert]

It's hooked up to my personal suicide machine.

Re:Ironically...

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

Yes, but did you test it?

Re:Ironically...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but did you test it?

Oh great...he hasn't responded. You, sir, are being charged with murder!

Why not have some fun?

[monkeypoo]

Why not make a system that, after you've passed away, pretends to be you from beyond the grave?

Maybe it checks your email contacts (most people will know you've passed on of course) and sends out randomly generated messages about how great heaven is?

"You'll never believe it! The Mormons were right!!"

Re:Why not have some fun?

[Workaphobia]

Well, if the system can pass a rigorous Turing Test and functionally replace you in all your roles, that may mean that you never even died. Either that or your life was so predictable and monotonous that a machine could live it for you.

We need a new checkbox when posting to /.

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

[_] No Karma Bonus [_] Post Anonymously [_] Post Humously

Re:We need a new checkbox when posting to /.

[nacturation]

Dammit, you'll ruin the joke.

Last will and chain contingency

[Barny]

1. Teleport without error to my own pocket dimension
2. dispell all negative effects on me
3. teleport a friendly cleric in to rez

On a little more realistic scale, how about you make a will?

IN THE EVENT OF DEATH EACH PERSON NAMED WILL RECEIVE THE ENCLOSED USB DRIVE WITH THEIR NAME ON IT... not overly difficult, and there are real legal comebacks if it is processed and you are not in fact deceased, instead of just looking like a tool.

Jewish Mother Dead Man's Switch

[LunchSpecial]

If I don't check in with my Jewish mother every few days she'll go crazy and call everyone I might have once talked to.
I didn't set this up, it was genetics.

What if...

[jones_supa]

What if after your death your relatives just walk in and happily unplug your Linux boxes (having no idea how they even work) before your cool scripts even get a chance to run. :S

Snow Crash

[locokamil]

Took my cue from Snow Crash and got my dead man's switch wired to a W80 warhead.

Re:what I tell the guy with the gun

[Barny]

And after all that torture, all that pain and death, everyone who receives the message deletes it as spam....

Mine is...

[KClaisse]

A vast series of Rube Goldberg devices which are mostly comprised of AOL cd's. At the end of the device, it presses the speed dial on my phone and plays a prerecorded message. I really want to test it out! I can only dream of the day...

Right on time

[linvir]

Good day for this story. somethingawful has a great article about this today. Quoth the website:

Section Two: Arranging my Funeral
When my body is prepared to my satisfaction, gather my people around it to weep and mourn and say their farewells. In the unlikely event that by the time of my death I have not become the leader of a people, please find those who love me best.

Go and read it.

First Post

[Anonymous Coward]

If i don't check in every 10 minutes on slashdot i automatically send first post messages
to every new subject...

kind regards,

Re:Too Effective?

[caluml]

Forcing the door drops power.

What the hell are you protecting there?

Might I suggest a button...

[David Horn]

Might I suggest a button that you have to push once every 108 minutes? You could even link it to a computer and enter a sequence of numbers in to reset the timer...

Re:What happens when you forget?

[Ceriel Nosforit]

So you won't sell your account until you're dead, huh...

Excuse me, I need to make a few phone calls.

You've got a nice account, by the way. Very nice...

Re:Why should I care?

[Rob T Firefly]

If I die and I have no family members and no friends, why should I care what is going to happen to my PCs, my servers, or my bank accounts?

Obviously, you should then entrust said property to the first complete stranger off the Internet who shows an interest, you wonderful lovely person you.

Re:Feed the worms

[kalirion]

Maybe it will continue after your death, but considering the fact that the universe is merely a figment of my imagination, I predict that my death will have a greater impact.

16 Mexicans

[solareagle]

"Every Setpember, 16 Mexicans have a great party celebrating the revolution of Mexico but the fact is, that the revolution was not complete. " Is it the same 16 Mexicans every year? If you are one of only 16 Mexicans to attend this great party, you really need a Dead Man's Switch giving some one else your party spot!

Re:What happens when you forget?

[Anonymous Coward]

Every Setpember, 16 Mexicans have a great party Doesn't sound like much of a party to me ...

My karma is my dead man's switch

[guruevi]

Whenever I'm close to computers and electronics, everything works smoothly. If I leave for more than a few days, the whole environment starts coming down, and it's not something I programmed, just something that happens.

My first job, I got fired, the next week the whole AD environment went down for hours on end
My second job, I quit, the next week, all firewalls went into some type of crash, the network was overloaded by a broadcast-zombie and there was some type of virus
I left home, went living somewhere else, the computer of my dad smoked, he had to buy a new one
Another job, I was a freelancer, I left, next week I got bunches of nagios alerts
Another job, I was a sysadmin, I got laid off, next week, nobody could receive e-mail and some type of update made it that networking got in trouble
Last job, I was a sysadmin, I got fired, yesterday somebody told me that the whole network was down (>30000 nodes)

My DMS

[Kazymyr]

...will encrypt all my personal data with quadruple-ROT13. That'll show'em!

Not if I can help it!

[Cybrex]

I'm wearing a DMS of sorts right now. It's a bracelet that contains post-mortem instructions to chill my body to 10 C, do CPR, push an anticoagulant, and the 800# of the cryonics company with which I'm signed up.

Of course, the most important single word on the bracelet is "REWARD". :-)

I've also made sure that my wife (who is in the process of signing up) and my friends (some of whom are also signed up) are on board with this, and willing to go to bat for me if the coroner decides to get uppity.

Re:It behaves in a very unprofessional manner

[Rob the Bold]

The place seemed full of dead man's switches but it reality was probably just a finicky cobbled together collection of systems that required intervention when cron jobs/scheduled tasks could have done it (and later did).

This leads to this observation: Any sufficiently finicky cobbled together collection of systems that requires intervention is indistinguishable from a Dead Man's Switch.