

A solution for the "send email to relatives when I die" problem - markessien
http://www.essien.org/blog/2008/11/24/a-solution-for-the-send-email-to-relatives-when-i-die-problem/

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chime
> This method works because your mum is never going to go into conspiracy with
> your business partner to gain access to your information.

Unless your mom is Lucille Bluth.

I think a better way would be to have one person click 'Mark is dead' and it
immediately sends an email to Mark saying 'Joe says you're dead.' If Mark
doesnt' access the account within x days, then it sends further confirmation
emails to Mom and business partner who also have to confirm that Mark is dead.
If so, then it set 'Mark = dead' and opens the vaults as Mark configured.

~~~
technoguyrob
What if your business partner dies? I thought everyone needs to confirm you
are dead? What if they are dead?

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ggruschow
I had this idea too. I was going to build it until I looked for a good domain.
In the process I ran into: <http://www.ifidie.org/> \-- which had already
implemented it well enough.

Note the idea is applicable to far more than "relatives when I die".. e.g.
root password for the server when you're sick in the hospital. Also, remember
that many people don't want their estate documents to be viewed pre-death
(e.g. don't want people to know how much they're getting), and letting people
know where you put them / how to contact the lawyer in a reliable way is a
hassle in and of itself.

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aaronblohowiak
Have a lawyer and a will.

~~~
kirse
That or just have a service setup to monitor a Twitter feed for updates. So in
the case of Robert Scoble, more than 2 hours and he's probably dead!

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daltonlp
True, email polling to determine live-or-dead status is pretty dumb :)

A company exists that offers after-death services using a multiple-redundancy
scheme like the one described:

<https://www.mywonderfullife.com>

They call the trustworthy people "angels" :)

~~~
Sam_Odio
Ideally, they would also alert you that you've been "marked as dead" and give
you a week or so to claim that you're still around.

~~~
daltonlp
They do exactly this. There are several layers of checks because getting it
wrong is kind of a deal-breaker.

A lot of things happen after confirming someone is really truly dead, and many
of those things can't be easily undone :)

(Full disclosure: I work for the company that developed the site)

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run4yourlives
The biggest problem with this is what happens if one of those people dies - or
simply gets a new email and doesn't tell you - before you die?

Your data is forever locked because of one person. It's even worse than you
not telling the service that you changed your email. At least you should have
known that the service existed.

Burdening your friends and relatives doesn't strike me as the best way t
handle this issue.

~~~
markessien
The solution - if one person does not reply by clicking a button 'he is not
dead', this persons opinion ceases to matter.

~~~
run4yourlives
wha? That pretty much defeats the purpose of having that person on the list in
the first place.

What if nobody responds?

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markessien
1 person has responded - the person who clicked the button. If nobody else
agrees, then I would say the data stays locked. Otherwise the one person could
simply wait for a moment where everyone traveled and had no email access.

~~~
run4yourlives
Which basically means to say that the entire security of the site is based on
the ability of my designates to have my best interests at heart... and also
not to have installed a spam filter, moved, changed email or otherwise become
unreachable to a service that pretty much becomes forgettable after 6 months
or so.

I'd much rather trust myself to manage things, to be honest.

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strlen
I knew a few people who had a "if you read this, I am dead" cronjob setup on
their machine: if they wouldn't log in by a certain time, an email would be
sent saying that they're dead. Of courses there were cases where people would
simply forget about these cronjobs and send email needlessly worrying the
people they cared about (and possibly getting themselves 5150'd).

~~~
josefresco
What about "If you are reading this, there may be a serious problem. I usually
log into my system everyday and since that hasn't happened, please call or try
to find me to make sure I'm OK"

That way it's only slightly alarming to your loved ones.

~~~
strlen
that's different, but do you really need to worry the people you care about
like this? bad news travels fast and if you do need to call for help there are
ways slightly more person than a cronjob (though this sort of a cronjob
message won't get you 5150'd, which generally makes whatever problems one has
worse).

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ivanstojic
I find it more interesting to note that not only has this sparked a
conversation on HN... it has sparked a conversation about the
security/efficiency/problems of the proposed solution.

I guess a lot of us are analytically minded here.

My question is: did you (and if yes, what?) do something to release your
digital assets to your family?

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swombat
I'd be pretty freaked out if I was 60-something and I got an email like that
from one of my children, I think.

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ujeezy
Very interesting idea. I think it would make sense to send these notifications
to the party's estate lawyer, rather than loved ones, just to reduce the
"morbid" factor.

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mattmaroon
Sounds like if one email ends up in a spam folder, the whole thing fails to
work.

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chrisconley
I wasn't aware that this was an actual problem.

