Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: What Should Happen To Your Data After You Die?
Nerval's Lobster writes "Death is Nature's way of telling you it's time to get off the Internet. But when you finally shuffle off this mortal coil, you leave something behind: all your email and other digital assets. That's a huge problem not only for the deceased — once you're on the wrong side of the Great Beyond, there's no way to delete those incriminating messages — but also any relatives who might want to access your (former) life. And it's a problem Google's seeking to solve with the new Inactive Account Manager. (In an April 11 blog posting, Google product manager Andreas Tuerk suggested that Inactive Account Manager wasn't a 'great name' for the product, but maybe the company shouldn't be so hard on itself: it's a way better name than, say, Google Death Dashboard.) Inactive Account Manager will delete your Google-related data (Gmail, etc.) after a set amount of time, or else send that data to 'trusted contacts' you set up before your untimely demise. Which raises an interesting, semi-Google-related question: What do you want to have happen to your data after you die? Give it to loved ones, or have an automated system nuke it all? Should more companies that host email and data offer plans like Inactive Account Manager?"
I don't care, I'm self centered and dead option?
It will be like you never existed
1. Husband dies, google releases data, wife finds out husband spent all excess cash on cam whores.
2. Google deletes husband's data, treasure map / account numbers are lost.
3. Husband makes another unrelated gmail account, a set time later, wife is notified husband is dead while eating dinner with him.
Google just can't win here can they? :)
Is he a slashdot staffer?
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Let's say you die and your wife (this is a hypothetical situation for some!) finds all your gay sex pictures and home movies. That sure would help the grief process!
Taking everybody with me.
My git repos, some of which just mirror other projects, others which are private to me, would be opened up to the public, except for code that isn't mine to relicense as GPL. Other data released publically via webservers would include archival data of various rare tv, books, etc that I have collected.
Emails, banking stuff, and all that would go to the appropriate family members.
I bequeath my collection of Japanese tentacle porn and pregnant dildo bondage.
12345
The same on my luggage!
If you die in the matrix you die in real life, it must be the same the other way around.
Assuming I don't die an untimely, unforeseen death, I had always planned on consolidating my data, and preparing it to be buried with me. I don't want to burden my family with having to sort through things. Plus in the future, in the case that reanimation is made possible I can have my stuff again, or in the more likely event that future paleontologists dig me up, they will have lots of history/information to figure out what made us primitive humans tick.
Remember how everyone is supposed to have their 15 minutes of fame, like Andy said?
So my figuring is this - there are more celebs and notable people than ever before, thanks in part to the web.
Therefore the gross overall amount of fame has increased, while time has remained constant, so people will have less than 15 minutes of fame. Gotta be down to about 10 minutes, or less by now. Right?
So my plan is to go about making everyone else famous. The more fame and notoriety of ordinary clods applies downward pressure on minutes of fame. With luck I can get it down to less than 10 seconds. People could then look back upon my shameful, scandelous existence and forget about it almost immediately as they move on to what World Famous Slashdot Poster #218171 has had to say lately.
(c=
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
All that I ask is that my browser history is nuked. The world would be a better place without knowing the websites I have been to. I should have a bracelet made that says, please delete my browser history if I die.
YOU'RE WINNER !
Another lame blog
"What Should happen to your data after you die?" is a question so vague as to be vacuuous.
Fairly obviously, just like any other flavor of cruft you accumulate during your time as a successful combatant against entropy, different flavors of data are best disposed of in different ways. We've only had more-or-less-all-of-recorded-human-civilization to work on this problem...
The new issue on the plate isn't so much 'OMG! 'Data' is a mysterious and fundamentally novel category!!!' but "Shit, huge swaths of 'my data' are locked in various 3rd party locations, and often very, very, poorly segregated by category." By way of analogy, if my bank safe deposit box was where I stored family heirlooms; but was also the location where I received reams of junk mail, recordings of a substantial percentage of casual conversations, and my collection of hideous donkey/tentacle hentai, writing my will would get a trifle more complex.
We may have had it easier historically because preserving the ephemera wasn't even an option, without substantial effort; but the major issue is really with the fact that everybody hates sorting shit, and various 'service providers' seem to adore tying as much data as possible to a single account, with efficient segregation of different flavors of data anywhere between 'a hassle' and 'overly contrary to the TOS'.
There should be a giant online cemetery where a person's online presence can retire when the body withers. Oh, wait... we already have one and it's called the Wayback Machine. Maybe there just needs to be more explicit cooperation with it about things like forum user profiles and social networking accounts? And maybe better funding?
Let your family decide what they want to do with your data. Write down all of your passwords (if you're like me, you've got about a dozen) along with your usual accounts on a piece of paper and put them in a safety deposit box. When you pass and they go through your deposit box, they'll come across your credentials and decide what they'd like to do with your digital data. Some people would like to read it, others would prefer not to.
This strategy has an added bonus; if they ever come across a site that you belonged to, they've got a login that'll probably work.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
The issue is, that like with annuities and death benefits, many people do not remember to update the record as beneficiaries move out of their lives. It seems likely that for something as low priority as a gmail account is to some people, data could indeed inadvertently make it to a person who would use for no good.
If it were an actual death scenario, they should handle it like anyone else. The firm receives a death certificate with the name of the legally certified agent, and whatever assets are sent to that agent. No need to reinvent the wheel.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Or its a sneaky way of Google finding the email address of the person your trust the most?
Probably your spouse.
What is so fucking complicated about this?
I was sorting out a will recently and even my non-clued up solicitor (US=lawyer) recommended putting passwords in my sealed will. Apparently, this is a standard recommendation from the law society for every will written in the UK.
Without a doubt, every other country on planet Earth must have it's lawyers recommend something similar.
What is the story here?
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
It refuses to take my alternate email or notify others without giving my mobil number... I don't have one!
This appears to be a data harvesting effort
Slashdot. Olds for nerds, stuff that doesn't matter.
If I'm old and wrinkly but don't lose my (admittedly odd) sense of humor, I'd be tempted to rick-roll my family.
As a final farewall, he's a few pictures of my wrinkly butt. The code to the account with your inheritance is hidden somewhere in there...
St Peter asks your for all social media passwords.
I, for one, would want to make sure those accounts no longer exist.
I have stave IV lung cancer, and maybe a few weeks left to go. Since I was an only child, both of my parents are gone, and I never married or had children, I basically have nobody who would want to have my data.
So, I am basically just erasing myself from existence. There is very little on the Internet with my name on it to begin with - no facebook, LinkedIn, or any other social media like that. I do have a few hundred family photos from when I was much young that I scanned in. When I am close, I will say my goodbyes to my parents (again) and delete those, too.
Death is a profound experience. When you realize yours is coming and there isn't anything that can be done about it, you begin to want to disconnect from the hive and spend your last days alone to ponder your life and existence. It's not something I expected - when I was first diagnosed I thought I would want to party as much as possible until I passed - spend as much time with friends as I could. But, that turned out not to be the case.
I'm really too weak at this point to do much of anything except sit around and talk or surf, but when I left my job and cashed out my life insurance, I did spend some time volunteering and giving money away. I didn't feel any need to take pictures, or develop memories. It felt much more like a final responsibility to dispose of my wealth and give it to people who could do something good with it.
Now I really only get online to talk about my imminent death and try to pass on what little knowledge I have about the subject when the topic comes up. The truth is, death makes you grow old. I'm 40 and feel like I have lived 90 years.
Anyway, your data may mean something to someone - why wait until you die to pass it on? Give it to people now - especially those good thoughts that you think might make them happy. There's no reason for you to make someone think "why couldn't he have said this to me while he was alive??" That's just cruel.
Life is short. Shorter than you think.
and bits to trash.
What should happen, at a minimum, is that your data gets packaged up and archived for maybe a hundred years, and then open sourced.
Basically, what a lot of historical people have always done with their personal papers.
The historical value of a lifetime of data for everyone who dies would be immense. And for fans of Caprica, maybe they'll bring "you" back.
Check out the radio 4 (truly excellent channel)'s recent episode on our digital legacy (ep3 of Out of the Ordinary) - it discusses not only what happens to your data after you die (eg people can still send you emails and unless they know you're dead just assume you're ignoring them), but also your online presences (eg your facebook page that is still active). Then there's the issue that accessing your old data might help your grieving relatives (assuming you use a different email account for porn) or hurt them if they log on to the net and facebook helpfully sends to suggestions you connect with your dead friend, whose account is still active and un-closeable.
Who do you want to be able to read your old emails when you die? Are the dead entitled to privacy? Jolyon Jenkins reports on the increasingly contentious issue of our digital legacy.
As we lead more of our lives online, we leave behind an ever bigger digital footprint when we go. There are the public parts - the blogs, the tweets, the forum posts - but also the private things such as the emails stored on servers owned by companies like Google. Sorting out the digital legacy is becoming as onerous as being a traditional executor.
But it brings entirely new problems: in the case of people who have died suddenly or mysteriously, relatives sometimes feel that they are entitled to get access to the email accounts of dead person to try to find a clue to what was happening in their lives. But many email providers resist handing over this material because of a confidentiality clause in their terms and conditions. Jolyon Jenkins talks to the Stassen family in Wisconsin who took both Facebook and Google to court to gain access to the accounts of their son Benjamin who committed suicide. He also talks to Esther in Kenya who similarly would like to get into her dead sister's email account to try to find a clue to her unexplained death. But unlike the Stassens, Esther has had no luck.
These are uncharted waters, where analogies with old technology quickly break down, where the principles are unclear, and where important private and personal matters seem to be left to the discretion of big corporations.
There can be real money tied up in your 'cloud presence' now. Books, movies and music for example. That should be transferable somehow, just like dead trees and CD's.
Other than those and the family pictures, nuke the rest.
If bitcoins are not recognized as "real" money how is inheritance protected?
Does your iTunes account just get closed when the credit card company tells Apple you died? It could take thousands of dollars of songs, movies, books and apps away from your family.
The name needs a few more words. Instead of IAM, the acronym should be IAMNOT.
I am leaving everything to my AI avatar. May the "Lord" have mercy on his/my soul, err, mind.
So, ummm... do they actually delete your data? Or just your account? I didn't think they ever delete data.
A good friend of mine recently died of a heart attack quite young. It was quite a shock, and there's not much to remember him with but I do have many years of MSN Messenger chat logs that I always made a point to keep for some reason. I haven't gone through them yet, but I would like to soon.
I wouldn't mind if my data was left up after I'm gone, in case anybody cares to see it. If you've ever contributed to a site or an online community, I think that information is nice to see for your still living loved ones. The memories I have with my friends online are sometimes just as good as the ones we've had in person, especially with people I don't get to see as much anymore.
I think having something available like "Inactive Account Manager" is a good idea. It could be set up to either nuke, or give an estate executor legal access as desired by the account owner. Some of us may not want to leave the people we leave behind hanging.
While I tend to agree, on personal aspects, with the guy that's stage IV, I was thinking more of business type things. I sell real estate, I would hate to go out thinking I left someone unable to complete a sale or purchase and thus be unable to get on with their own lives because something happened to me. Maybe you're a coder and the project will die with you without the research you've accumulated. I don't think that because we're dying, we stop caring.
When I'm gone, I want all my ones and zeroes scattered in the Seas of the Web.
As I've been surfing these realms during my life, there will come a time to return the gifts I've been given to the waves and the tides and the vast waters that are the Internet.
(Also, I'd prefer that to happen in the Bay of Drama: http://xkcd.com/802/)
In America, you can always find a party . In Soviet Russia, the Party always finds YOU!! So I decided to encrypt ALL my data. The data I am going to give to my heirs will be encoded with some key on bootable flash drives and entrusted to 3 different persons, each having 2/3 of total key length. Any 2 of them (but no single person) will be able to decode them. If the Party finds any one of them while I live it will be impossible to obtain the data.
As long as it doesn't embarrass or incriminate my friends or family members, why would I give a shit? I'd be dead.
The Tibetans cut up their loved one's remains and fed left them out for the vultures. Not unlike what will happen in the state and corporate databases that will outlive us all.
In the digital age you will never die, your data will just age out. The IRS, then the census bureau will be the first to back up what little of you was relevant to their raison d' etre. Your remaining relevance will fade with changing social fads to which your personal data was related. Your bank account will cease activity. The other corporations you did business will be cannibalized or go bankrupt, and your former account number will be reassigned to a new customers. Your social network connections will dwindle to a digital dribble. Your twitter account's silence will go unretweeted.
The coup de grace won't come until all the listservs you signed up for cease to operate. Then the dark daemon will back up your account at 2:34 AM local time and wait...
every so often the pining routine will be called, along with Ray Kurzweil timeout, waiting for you to be authenticated... again.
Then Major Tom will enter stasis.
Whatever provisions you write in your will should be followed.
I don't care, I'm self centered and dead option?
If you were REALLY self centered, then obviously you'd want many people to be able to read your brilliant thoughts long after you are gone.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I also have no will. I want everybody to genuinely be grieving.
Once the legal battles and government intervention grabs much of your assets, they'll be grieving plenty.
Having no will is what lawyers would term a "Dick Move".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I realise that we all like to make jokes about Slashdot readers being nerds and never having a girlfriend, but seriously... by the time most of us die, we will be married with kids and grandchildren.
If you're a newbie geek, under 20, maybe even under 30, chances are you might be single, sure.
But don't believe the stereotype. You won't be single forever.
Once you get over 30, and your attractive-to demographic becomes 25+ , CHICKS DIG STABILITY. Yeah, sure, your dream girl at school rejected you for some sports moron, but now that sports moron is working for minimum wage, he doesn't look so attractive any more. Over 25, people start looking for stability, for a partner who can provide a good steady income, for someone they can start a family with.
If you're over 30 and have a steady job that pays well enough to afford a car that doesn't break down and somewhere to live that has more than one bedroom, that is pretty much all you need to get hitched. Just join a club that has members of the opposite sex in it, and stuff will just happen. Relax, you're male, your biological clock is not running out, theirs is.
After that, you just write down a master pass-phrase to a master email account (e.g. the email account which is the registrant for your vanity domain), seal it in an envelope and ask your bank or whoever drew up your will to look after it. Then your family inherits your data by using that master email account to unlock everything else.
I've written a complete Handbook For The Recently Bereaved for my missus, that contains a complete list of where my will is, who our phoneline and utilities are with, who my various pensions are with, where all our family photos are stored (all she knows right now, is that when she clicks a symbolic linked directory, the photos just appear), etc. But if it came down to it, as next of kin holding my death certificate, she wouldn't need a master pass-phrase, she could just use a lawyer to get the hosting company to hand it over. And she knows enough of my geeky friends to find someone who'll help her track down where our data is stored (if you're reading this, dear, that little black box on my book shelf, that is what is called a "NAS" and it has two hard drives both containing identical "mirrored" copies of all our family photos and home videos; there's also a portable harddrive at my parents house with a backup, and if my parents are dead, I'll have moved that drive to my sister's house).
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
I think there should be a default setting where all your information is made public after 100 years and immediately becomes public domain. All our photos, and most private conversations become publicly searchable and usable in any way whatsover. This will provide future generations with a wealth of historical and research information like we have never seen. Besides the historical value... this may also assist in other research such as disease and mental illness or just understanding human behaviour. I think it is very selfish to be concerned about privacy 100 years after youre dead.
Perhaps in the future some budding entrepreneurs will come up with an idea of setting up a company that collects the deceased's data with their sophisticated web crawlers and preserve in their specially designed vaults (micro SDs:)). Just like people keep their loved ones ashes ! One copy for them and one copy for the family! What do you think?