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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?"
a USB drive in the fireproof safe next to any important papers. Passwords for things they don't need to see are not on that drive. If you are worried even more, get a safety deposit box at the bank. Keep it updated and all will be ok. Then, on the other hand, some people don't care... the world can figure it out on their own.
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You write a will. Just as you list ALL financial accounts, you also list ALL social networking accounts. Including your passwords for these sites. Instruct your executor to email/post as you to all about your death. Yeah, I know, writing down passwords is not the brightest idea, but hey these are social networking accounts, not truly important things. I.E. Don't give out the key to your house, but do give out the key to your mailbox. Your account number and similar financial information that you have already given to your will is FAR more important. Therefore if you are trusting your executor with all that financial info, you should be able to trust them with a password. If you are truly paranoid, give them a key to a safe deposit box instead of your actual passwords, then keep a copy of the passwords in the safe deposit box.
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Obviously, if you change your passwords, you have to change what's in the safety deposit box, so there is some upkeep there.
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
I'm relatively young, so I haven't put a lot of thought into this, but my best friend knows all the personal account names and passwords I use for everything. He would be able to get into any of my accounts with a few guesses. I don't have a comprehensive list of everything, but the main stuff would get worked out.
And before you security nuts go crazy about telling other people your passwords, keep in mind this is a person I trust above anyone else...even my own close relatives. If I can't trust him, then I must live a truely miserable life of denial full of people who dislike me. I also don't tell him any of the admin passwords at work, as A) other people have acces to those, and B) They aren't my passwords to give out, even though I know he would do no harm (hell he'd probably manage the network better than half our admins...)
Oh, I also know pretty much all his passwords too...so...yeah, he better not try anything :-)
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Write everything important in a TrueCrypt file system, email it to those who you would want to have it. Then pay for a safe deposit box, in the box put the password(and keyfiles as you see fit). The executor of your estate will be able to gain access to the box and if you add them as a signer it would be trivial, just don't let them have the key until you are dead.
Make sure the survivor leaves a link to the obituary for the local paper, you'd have to go thru too much trouble to fake that one. At least that's what I'd do.
"The only constant in the universe is change." - Unknown author
Sometimes is ok to just let the account expire.
If its someone important, they will find out your dead from loved ones or other connections. If its some random person you met on the internet, do they realy need to know? While social networking is all the buz, is that the best place to tell someone about a persons death?
Im a gamer, not a grammer major. This post is full of spelling and grammer mistakes.
I thought about this a couple of years ago when I had a health scare, this is what I came up with.
USB stick (or whatever it will be in x years) in a safe at home.
I have a paper will, with the usual stuff, plus an email address, and what to write in the subject and body.
The person that receives my will is instructed to email this address upon my death.
I have a rule on my mail account that matches the specified text in the email.
This email then triggers a whole load of actions:
Unsubscribes from mailing lists.
*Emails a personal message to people on my contact list.
*Sends an email with the relevant passwords to the relevant people.
*Sends an email with my finances, spreadsheets, important information to the sender.
*Sends an encrypted key to specified person which can access my harddisk.
*sends a list of things to shred!
This pretty much covers everything I need, including getting the relevant passwords to the right people, and auto emailing a personalised message to my contacts.
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I can't even think how long the list of possible 'failure points' to your system.
you go missing- airplane crash- fall under a road paver- into a wood chipper- vat of acid- really unlucky gun shot while you were holding out your hands begging for your life...
You have to be freaking kidding if that is your i'm dead- you are covered methodology.
it'd be like having your life insurance policy in your wallet at all times.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
So then it would be EXACTLY like the movie.
I would end up just writing a bash script that called wget to post my login details to the site once a day from cron. Which, of course, would outlive me, and render the entire exercise pointless.
Just create a watchdog script to watch for Slashdot DNS requests. If one hasn't happened within a few days, delete the bash script entry from the crontab.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
How about a completely low tech solution (that I use):
A piece of paper, with your passwords inside a sealed envelope stored in a fireproof safe? The only downside is that you have to trust your executors (and snoopers) that they won't open it until you die. Just seal it and sign it across the back flap.
My wife and I did this with out e-mail passwords. That's pretty much the key to any other site that we ever access.