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Is your online life in your will? (Backups, passwords, etc.)

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CodeTRUCKER:
After my L-A-S-T catastrophic loss of my hard-earned data, I have spent a lot of time researching backups and online backup services.  In doing so, something kept crawling up my spine I couldn't identify until today... 

There was not a single word on including online backups in a last will and testament! 
The obligatory search on Google for "online backups and your last will and testament" yielded not a single hit on this subject that I could detect, of course your mileage may vary.

Regardless of your station in life... You, your likes, dislikes, convictions, and even what you do for fun are summarised in what you leave behind to your decendants.  These bits and pieces will be of immense intrinsic value.  I can only imagine what my great, great, great grandchildren will experience when they view, listen to and read the collection of my personal treasures!

Think about how tragic it would be to amass a digital history of one's personna only to leave it to NO posterity whatever!  To be sure there may be items included that you would best leave to oblivion, but I task the reader to take whatever action he/she deems appropriate so their heirs may "eat the chicken without having to spit out the bones." 

The point is if you have never considered this aspect of your eventual probate, you have a very important item for your priority "To Do" list!

"I did some research on the Internet and discovered that 10 out of 10 people die."
                                                                                         - Roger Bennet

(A personal note to my international readers... please excuse me if I have not represented your countries customs correctly in regard to a "will" or "probate.")

Fair winds,
Calvin   

nudone:
good point. we are the first generation that has a digital life of any importance - and i know if i died tomorrow my hard drives would probably end up in the trash not long after (or, at the least, wiped clean by the next owner).

wraith808:
There is a service for this- I can't remember offhand what the url is, but I ran across it in my research about a business idea that I was working on.  I did a search and came up with this one that I hadn't seen before.  https://www.legacylocker.com/

40hz:
There was a program that addressed many of these concerns several years ago.

 It was a Windows application called Dead Man's Switch.

It worked something like that computer terminal with the countdown sequence in Lost. First, you entered a countdown time value. Then, if you didn't reset the counter prior to it running out, the program would perform any (or all) of the following actions:


* Post entries to webpages (this feature was very limited and unreliable at the time this app came out)


* Send e-mail messages to specific recipients (good for sending bank account info, lock combinations, GPS coordinates for where you buried your pirate treasure, etc. Also good for firing off all those final messages you hoped you'd be able send people before you died: "Just wanted to let you know I did know about your little affaire back in 2002 - so there!" )


* Encrypt files on local hard drives (perfect for locking everybody out all those 'technical' jpg collections you accumulated over the years)
I've been told there was also 'nuke' version that had the ability to securely wipe listed files, but I have never been able to locate a copy. I strongly suspect the 'nuker' capability was one more of the many myths that surrounded this piece of software.

Here's the interface for the most famous version, which I believe is still available for download.



The interface is pretty self-explanatory. I'd be careful about using it however. The last release was in 2002, and I don't believe it's been updated since.

A more modern version this app might make a nice coding project for somebody.

Dormouse:
I've been vaguely worrying of this problem for some time. Mostly about important stuff about how to do things, access important data, say what accounts/policies etc exist; very big stuff isn't a problem because other people already have the ability to access the accounts etc. All stuff I'd only want accessible through my secret not-written-down master password. I don't want to trust any company or site that might fly by night when I wasn't watching. I can't asume that my computer will be turned on. I can't assume that there will be anyone technically adept, though there might be. I haven't come up with a better solution than paper or an unencrypted initial set of instructions kept somewhere secure in a bank or equivalent. That would allow me to distribute encrypted files amongst family which would contain instructions about accessing everything - on the net or elsewhere.

A two layer protection.
No family member (or 'friend' of theirs who accessed the file) would be able to do anything with it because it is encrypted.
No member of bank staff would be able to access anything without physical access to the paper; even with access to the paper they couldn't access anything without access to the encrypted files that the family have.

I haven't actually set this up yet, but it is the only system I've thought of that I'd be prepared to trust. atm, I'm trusting my longevity and paper chaos that no-one else is likely to find their way through. I've not wanted to write anything clearly for fear a thief would break in and access it (and everything). It's all very much like a will.

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