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

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40hz:
Deadman's Switch reborn as a web service? Here's an article addressing a few of the things that cropped up here:

http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/66554.html

Wrapping Up an Online Life When Real Life Ends

By Peter Svensson
AP
03/22/09 4:00 AM PT

When someone dies unexpectedly, a loved one may naturally want to inform the departed's friends and acquaintances that they've passed away. That's not always easy when that person had a widespread network of online relationships. New sites are popping up to organize and ease the task.
--- End quote ---

DDRAMbo:
Woo-hoo, my babies back online...Whew!
Anyway, this situation reminded me of one of my best friends. He lives alone, is a computer programmer, and has a Ton of porn on his computer. Not the nasty stuff, more like Playboy pics, in the Millions! He comes from a family of hawty-tawty edubacated's that he's damn sure will Not accept him if they knew about his little cache of babe pics. So recently when his brother the dentist (and kids) stayed for awhile, he had to bump up his computer security to 'red' level to hide it all. But if he were to kick off, the general level of security (can you say, "weak-ass OS security" in here?) that he's using would most assuredly no keep his rels from exposing his exposing collection, which would then cause his father, and possibly mother, to have a heart attack, his brothers to burn down his house, and in the process my rare collection of Commodore 64 disks that he's storing for me would be destroyed.
Well, far be it for me to encroach on some good-ole family ravings and destruction when they discover their son's perversion, but lest my collection be harmed, maybe I should consider the protection of my own software stash if he should croak. I'm sure there are many people with items stored at their friend's places that might have issues with the rels if they didn't know about them. In any case, and in particular this case, I'm thinking that his solution should be to keep a copy of his financial data on an external server, make the info relatively easy for the rels to get at, and Really tighten down the security of that collection, just in case. And possibly a living will. And a note about my collection (and maybe throw in that stand-alone William's Defender game machine ;).

4wd:
Well, far be it for me to encroach on some good-ole family ravings and destruction when they discover their son's perversion, but lest my collection be harmed, maybe I should consider the protection of my own software stash if he should croak. I'm sure there are many people with items stored at their friend's places that might have issues with the rels if they didn't know about them. In any case, and in particular this case, I'm thinking that his solution should be to keep a copy of his financial data on an external server, make the info relatively easy for the rels to get at, and Really tighten down the security of that collection, just in case. And possibly a living will. And a note about my collection (and maybe throw in that stand-alone William's Defender game machine ;).
-DDRAMbo (April 23, 2009, 03:53 PM)
--- End quote ---

Wouldn't it be a lot easier to just store the 'artistic' collection on an external encrypted HDD?

Just unplug it when people come to visit, (to avoid "what's on here?" questions), and if he snuffs it then the relatives won't be able to access it anyway.

DDRAMbo:
If you had a bevy of babes waiting for you in the basement, would you prefer to chain them to the wall and leave them locked in a sound-proof room until you wanted to visit them, or would you rather they partied like there's no tomorrow and were readily available for you to enjoy? I think he's considered the irksome and I might add not so reliable notion of encrypting them to lock them away from prying eyes. But the enjoyment and access factors clearly outweigh the element of security. And I guess if it is understood that the privacy of his personal computer and all it's records is to be respected by the rels, there's going to have to be a clear record Somewhere of what Is available to the rels prying eyes.
I'm sure that there are many people with porn and other things that they wouldn't want there rels and friends, or possibly even business associates to find on their computers, so this more general problem has to be taken as seriously as specific records that Should be revealed to pertinent individuals upon the death of the owner. On-the-fly encryption methodologies aren't any more reliable than the computer system that they're run on. Would you trust an amassed precious collection of software, data, etc. to Any such system running on a Windows machine? In actuality there are three levels of security in most systems of this secure sort, and none of these involves an on-the-fly encryption system. The first is a secure building with good security to even get into in the door. The second is Trustworthy personnel, and the third is your basic username-password system, and that's all. In fact, my freind works for such an institution where he is highly trusted and the level of security to access the most sensitive data he has access to is a simple username-password system, and the data is worth millions of dollars!

CodeTRUCKER:
Hmmmmm.... I am surprised no one has considered the security of what we call around here... a safety deposit box.

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