Post-Suicide Account Cracking?

An anonymous reader writes "A good friend of mine had her younger brother apparently commit suicide last week. He was a young, promising CS major who was close to being accepted into a very prestigious school. He was very into Linux as well as PHP/MySQL coding. He left absolutely nothing behind for the family as far as a death note or explanation, and there is some possibility that this was all somehow a tragic accident. The family is in a situation where proof of accidental death would change how this was viewed in terms of paying for parts of the funeral. More importantly, some members of the family are hoping to find something, anything, that might explain why this all went down. Since I'm the most computer-skilled person the family knows, they have asked me if I could help them try to find some information. My possible approaches are: his Linux laptop, his university, Gmail And Hotmail email accounts, and a second MySpace profile that apparently has been tagged as private. How ethical would it be to, say, try to crack his root password in a situation like this? I wouldn't attempt to crack a man's account for his wife because she thinks he is cheating on her, as his life is his own business. In death, would you have the same respect for a person's private thoughts? Secondly, If I contacted places like Google, MSN, the university, and MySpace, what are the odds that they would give me access to any of his accounts? I have links to obituaries and such to prove that he is indeed gone. Would it be a matter of not giving it to me (maybe only to the family), or is this something that they would not do at all? Any opinions on if I should do this and if so, how I should go about it?"

Comments

I have said it before

[hansraj]

dead people don't really care, one way or another.

Re:I have said it before

[Applekid]

A subpoena could probably compel them to provide you with access. From the question it seems like it's related to a life insurance policy that doesn't pay on suicide, which is the norm. So, the family ought to do a cost-benefit analysis about renting lawyer time for said subpoenas versus getting what they stand to gain by proving it wasn't a premeditated suicide.

Re:I have said it before

[johndiii]

From what I've read about similar cases in the past, you would need a power of attorney from the individual in question to get access to things like gmail and hotmail accounts. If he had a will, his executor might be able to get in.

A subpoena would probably get you in, but a court is not going to issue one just because a person is dead and you want to make the family feel better. If there is some grounds to suspect some kind of criminal activity, or that his death might be murder, a subpoena might be issued - but it would get the police into those accounts, not his friend. If the friend could think of some grounds to sue his estate, discovery might require access to the accounts, and generate an appropriate court order. But for the case as stated, he's likely out of luck.

I've left passwords and relevant access information so that this is not an issue. I do not have a problem with my family getting into my mail accounts, for instance, and they might need to pay some final bills. Some people, on the other hand, would have a problem with this. The accounts should not just be open to anyone who can prove that they guy is dead.

I'm not a lawyer, of course. :-)

Re:I have said it before

[bechamp1]

Unless there's evidence that a person purposely overdosed on cocaine, the death would probably be ruled "accidental".

I spent a morning on a coroner's jury hearing inquests a while back, and it was kinda interesting.

Here's a description someone wrote up of their experience, and it was pretty similar to how mine went:

http://www.omnux.com/kvandivo/jury/

Re:I have said it before

[ProfessionalCookie]

It's all the other people that have email in his inbox, personal messages on his myspace etc. Breaking into someone's account, dead or not, doesn't just involve them- it involves everyone who trusts them.

Unethical.

Not to be indelicate...

[syntap]

A good friend of mine had her younger brother apparently commit suicide last week.

... but that sounds like a lot of words to describe a hit job. The political correctness is awesome though!

sanitize his history and records

[jollyreaper]

In the military, there's the tradition of cleaning up a dead guy's locker before sending it home to his next of kin. Remove all skin mags, letters from local girlfriends if he has a wife back home, that sort of thing. Get rid of anything that might make them think less of the dead, they're already broken up about it as is. I'm sure the last thing this kid's family would want to find out about is his furry porn collection.

Re:Gmail, Hotmail, MySpace

[ThirdPrize]

A friend of mine died last year and, as long as you can provide the proper paperwork, his family got access to his hotmail account. i guess as long as they can tie the death certificate to the person in the e-mails then its not a problem.

Re:If you saw your friend again

[Nimey]

If he saw his friend again, he'd be more worried about protecting his braiiiins.

when my daughter was murdered

[drew30319]

My daughter was murdered by her ex-boyfriend two years ago. I had recently given her a laptop in preparation for college and after the police were finished inspecting it for clues it was returned to me.

Fortunately she had stayed logged in to her myspace account and I was able to use the "reveal asterisks" hack to reveal her password. That password led to other accounts & email accounts which then led to more passwords.

Eventually I could access everything - to include the killer's accounts. It was very helpful for me to be able to know that my daughter was exactly who I thought she was and at the same time gain insight into the punk that murdered her.

If there is the opportunity to give your friend some closure then I don't feel that a moral dilemma exists. The dead are just that... dead. The ones that are grieving and in pain are the living. If you can do something that may assuage their grief I feel you should.

Just be aware that what might be revealed has the potential to cause more pain - but that's really your friend's decision.

Good luck, and my condolences to your friend.

Re:Gmail, Hotmail, MySpace

[rijrunner]

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=14300

Re:Cracking root password not necessary

[matt me]

Passwords in Firefox and Thunderbird are not encrypted, merely obfuscated. in edit / preferences / security / saved passwords in firefox it will display all passwords saved.