release important information after your death with this service

[nudone]

i'm sure somewhere on this forum there is a brief thread asking for a service that would do something like this http://www.deathswitch.com/

if you fail to log in after a period of time your stored information will automatically be released to people you have specified using the deathswitch service.

i can't remember if the previous thread mentioned any services like the above so i might be repeating what has already been stated.

I'd consider this service useful if it included more than a simple email forwarding service. there are people i'd want to pass on information to that do not use computers so a physical mail service (or even telephone service) would be required - does anyone know of such a company offering such things?

(if there isn't such a service then perhaps we should start one.)

edit:
forgot to mention that i found it amusing to see a 'human league' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Human_League photograph being used as a bit of stock photography on the deathswitch site.

edited to attach picture:

[tomos]

forgot to mention that i found it amusing to see a 'human league' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Human_League photograph being used as a bit of stock photography on the deathswitch site.

that's very odd, isnt it!?!

[nudone]

maybe it's all a scam. afterall, you won't know that your payment subscription was wasted after you've died 

[TucknDar]

Did anyone test this yet? does it do what it says?

[Ralf Maximus]

This service would be more useful if there was some kind of USB device that could kill me if I fail to log in for a period of time.

Any pointers?

[Veign]

This is in an area of something I have been giving a lot of thought to for the past several months.  What I have been thinking about is all the websites, software and other internet assets that would be lost due to its owner death.  How do you preserve assets that others, in your family, may not know what to do with when you die.

I think of it with my stuff.  I have 8 online application, 5 full blown websites that support a specific community, 7 freeware applications and many code samples in my dev library.  What would happen to this stuff if something happened to me.  I would want the stuff passed along to someone else who I thought would keep the stuff alive, for free, as I intended.

I thought there was a need for a web service where keys (passwords), files (source code) and instructions where kept in a highly secure, encrypted state with a list of other users who would get parts or all of the information upon something happening to me.  The service would be marketed as a way to preserve the assets of the internet and keeping the original developers intent alive even after their death.

I really don't like the "I will try and contact you and if you don't respond then you are dead approach" since I would be asking people to entrust very sensitive information to the website service.  I think a two-key process would work better where both keys have to be turned to mark you as dead.  Then you can give out these keys to people within your family or, for a simple charge, put the keys within the service who you turn the keys upon proof of death.

Anyway, just another though in my head which will make my Ideas section of my blog. (actually going to repost this information there).

[nudone]

good points, Veign.

[cranioscopical]

This service would be more useful if there was some kind of USB device that could kill me if I fail to log in for a period of time.

Any pointers?

Some kind of track pall, perhaps?

[justice]

why not put  it in your will

[icekin]

One way to keep source code going is to plan for it to be released as open source after a person's death. I think death switch can be implemented for free through a few modules and a CMS. I don't know how the subscription idea can be patented then. Lastly, I find it amusing that the deathswitch labels itself hacker-proof. Nothing is hacker-proof, maybe 'hacker-resistant' is more likely.

[TucknDar]

thankfully I never do anything useful computer-related, except to me of course, so nothing important will lost

[nudone]

why not put  it in your will

i thought that myself. i think the reason for using a dedicated service (or something like it) is that it would be immediate (or soon after your death). whereas waiting for the will to be read out (or acted upon) could take days/weeks/months.

[Veign]

why not put  it in your will

A will still would take someone with knowledge of 'doing things' and could require a higher level of knowledge of who you are giving it to.

A service provides an immediate action with no interpreting of a will or going through escrow.  Plus its much geekier to have an online service distribute your electronic assets.

[Ralf Maximus]

A service provides an immediate action with no interpreting of a will or going through escrow.  Plus its much geekier to have an online service distribute your electronic assets.

"So, Mr. Bond, are you ready to talk?"

"Never!"

"Then you shall die!  Activate the laser!"

"Kill me now, and my will stipulates that your top secret plans for world domination will be released to my heirs, with instructions for publishing them to the internet!"

"Confound you, Bond!"

[tinjaw]

"Confound you, Bond!"

LOL 

[Deozaan]

Anyone who knows any little bit of coding could program something like this for their own private use and host it somewhere. Can't really see paying $20 a year for the rest of my life to have a machine tell people my secrets I was too afraid to tell while I was alive.

I can't imagine there's a big market for something like that.