Slashdot Mirror
Arranging Electronic Access For Your Survivors?
smee2 writes "In the past, when a family member died, you could look through their files and address books to find all the people and businesses that should be notified that the person is deceased. Now the hard-copy address book is becoming a thing of the past. I keep some contact information in a spreadsheet, but I have many online friends that I only have contact with through web sites such as Flickr. My email accounts have many more people listed than my address book spreadsheet. I have no interest in collecting real world info from all my online contacts. The sites where I have social contact with people from around the world (obviously) require user names and passwords. Two questions: 1. How do you intend to let the executors of your estate or family members know which online sites/people you'd like them to notify of your demise? 2. How are you going to give access to the passwords, etc. needed to access those sites in a way that doesn't cause a security concern while you're still alive?"
He passed away in August, bout 16 days after my birthday. A few months back when he was still within his wits, he sent me a text file called "Bob's favorite things.txt". In it was a list of sites with his user name and associated passwords with the instructions, "Please archive and terminate these after I'm gone. Notify any friends on this list of my passing." It wasn't the happiest email I ever received from him but I understood. Most were just social networking site stuffs, a few email addresses he kept, an FTP site to some of his attempts at digital photography and so on.
Thankfully it was a small list and when he finally passed away I got on his laptop a few days later and followed his requests. Sent out emails to his contacts notifying them of what happened and that I will keep the accounts open for one month to await a response and provided a link to the obituary so that way they wouldn't have to search to confirm.
Not sure if this answers your question but I guess when all else seems to complicated, just mail a text file to someone you trust.
This is what my father did. USB stick, text file, safe deposit box, instructions I was to receive that upon his death. Text file had a list of user names and passwords, along with email addresses I was to contact. Simple and easy. Made dealing with the rest of the arrangements easier...
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
Incidentally, related questions have been the topic of previous "Ask Slashdot" stories:
What Does Your Dead Man's Switch Do
Your Digital Inheritance
What Happens To Your Data When You Die
I think the take-home message from most of those discussions is that you need to make preparations. Just like with everything else in your life, you should ideally keep things organized enough so that your survivors can deal with it, both in terms of wrapping up your estate, and keeping the things that matter. So this means keeping a list of passwords and encryption keys somewhere (e.g. in a safe deposit box), and even instructions about what to do with various accounts. Your data should also be organized so that your family can make copies of things like photos and find nostalgic things that you've written.
Another point to consider is the things that you don't want your survivors seeing. If you have any secrets you want to take to your grave, be sure to encrypt them. And for the sake of your children's sanity, hide your porn! (Or label it so they can avoid it!)
I keep a USB drive in my home safe with my death kit on it. I encrypt that, copy that to CD and send it to my lawyer every few months. My sealed Will (at a different attorneys office) has a copy of the decryption key in it, and the will includes instructions on accessing the data.
I include the following:
- Personal information
-- Passwords file with usernames and passwords to all of the websites I use, personal computers and other electronic devices
-- Accounts file with basic information to all of my financial accounts, morgtages, life insurance,
-- Utilities file with all of the information about my utility services
-- Export of my address book
-- Death threats and persons of interest file (my work takes me to interesting places...)
-- House book with things like the keycode for my house, and all of the other stuff related to my house that only exists in my head otherwise
-- Auto book with copies of titles, etc
-- Letters to send
-Work file
-- Current copies of all importiant work related papers
-- Copy of my current Quickbooks file
-- A write-up of what someone needs to do in my job, along with sugestions of who to assign.
-- A copy of my personal file, complete with life insurance info
-- A usernames file with all of the UID and Passwords for running my buisness
-- A TO SHRED document, containing a list of files to be shredded upon my death
Fire proof safes are often designed to protect paper by releasing foam that deprives the environment of oxygen necessary for it to burn. The internal temperature of the safe can and often does exceed several hundred degrees; Easily enough to destroy any electronic equipment. Check the design before you buy, or when you need it most you may find it was lacking.
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