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Ask Slashdot: How To Securely Share Passwords?

Posted by timothy on from the one-day-this-will-all-be-yours dept.

THE_WELL_HUNG_OYSTER writes "My tech-savvy father died suddenly and unexpectedly. He did everything online: bill-pay, banking, eBay sales (and other auction sites), PayPal, investing, etc. When he died, he still had online auctions up for sale, items I had no idea how to fulfill when sold. He still had unprocessed auction refunds, people claiming they returned items and are waiting for a refund. Fortunately, he left Gmail open and logged in when he died, so I was able to configure his account to forward to mine for any future emails he received. He even had his health insurance automatically debited from his checking account (who needs health insurance when they're dead?) I had no way to log into these systems to cancel pending transactions. I called every institution; some were willing to help while others required me to fax/mail death certificates and proof of executorship (which I didn't have yet). Meanwhile, auctions were selling for items I had no idea how to fulfill; debits from his checking account were occurring even though they were irrelevant; etc. You get the idea. How can I share my login credentials with my siblings so they don't have to go through this when I'm gone? I change my passwords every month and never use the same password on more than one site. I don't want my siblings to be able to impersonate me unless I'm dead, so publishing a monthly list to them won't help and would be insecure."

6 of 402 comments (clear)

  1. Dont worry about it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You'll be dead.

  2. Secret Sharing by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 5, Interesting

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir's_Secret_Sharing

    Give shares to relatives and trusted friends.

    --
    Palm trees and 8
  3. duh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Write them down.
    Leave the sheet of paper in your desk drawer, locked if you're paranoid.
    Done.

    1. Re:duh? by davester666 · · Score: 5, Funny

      The CIA has a tiny little camera in there, so that's just not safe.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
  4. We had similar problems by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    We had a similar issue when my father passed away. We quickly realized that we could easily pretend to be him, just tell people his SSN and other personal information, and we were able to handle nearly every circumstance. It was an eye opening experience just how easy it is to pretend to be someone else. This was about 7 years ago so things may be different. I assume that you can still get away with it more often than not.

    What we did was get his personal information, spread it out on the table, and then call up the institution. When they asked a question it was a simple matter of looking up the information as necessary.

  5. Options by Alter_3d · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Check this Wikipedia article
    It contains a list of services you can use to "inherit" your personal info when you die.