
On the Internet, Nobody Knows You’re Dead - dmoney
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=4290
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philwelch
My mom died a few months ago, and I spent a fair amount of time on this kind
of thing. Actually having her computer and access to her online banking made
things a little easier for us.

I had a deadman switch for my blog once--a post postdated to a week from now,
that I would keep going in and postdating. I learned two things. The first is
that I should not be trusted with a deadman switch I have to remember every
week, because it ended up posting. The second is that no one actually reads my
blog, because no one actually thought I was dead, or called me, worried. (My
cell phone number was in the post.)

~~~
quizbiz
I'm sorry for your loss.

~~~
dan_the_welder
I spit coffee, because I thought you were consoling the OP on his own death.

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tokenadult
"I’ve often wondered what would happen to my blog here if I got hit by a bus
or was assassinated by agents working deep cover for EA. I mean besides the
fact that I wouldn’t update it anymore. What is the protocol for when a
blogger dies suddenly? Do you log in and post a notice for their readers? Do
you take it down? I Googled around for old articles talking about deceased
bloggers, and sure enough when I searched for their blogs they were gone. Some
of the people seemed semi-famous, enough so that you’d think someone would
have taken up the job of caring for it. The most prominent case I found was
Cathy Seipp, who seemed to be a widely-read political writer of some sort, and
who died of cancer at 50. I searched for her blog, but the only thing I found
was blank. She’s only been dead for two years and already her blog is gone."

There are some good ideas in this blog entry about how to prepare for a loved
one's death, in the event the loved one has a big online presence. Something
to talk about, if you care about someone whom many people Google up.

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emontero1
His post reminded me of the discussion we had about Cory Doctorow's "When I'm
dead, how will my loved ones break my password?" (link:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=681753>). The fact is we haven't thought
about what happens to the online presence of the deceased since the web is
still relatively young. This is indeed a complex situation that I'm sure will
grab more and more of people's attention in the near future.

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dryicerx
It would be a valuable service to provide online to arrange in case such a
unfortunate event does happen. Similar to life insurance, except for your
online presence.

This could work as a authoritative service for other social networks that can
disable/lock out the profiles and services used when triggered.

~~~
weeksie
Like credentials in escrow. You'd have to have a service that was massive,
like a Verisign/Thawt . . . actually an existing SSL certificate provider is
perfectly positioned to enter the market.

When you die there's a list of next-of-kin that are contacted with your
credentials to various sites, and maybe a prepared (editable or non, depending
on preference) obituary.

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akkartik
Stating the problem thus makes it intractably hard. Look at it from the other
side: you will die one day, and you need to make preparations for your death
that include your online possessions and presence.

I keep a list of passwords and instructions with my will. That's all there is
to it. Think things through once and you never have to do it again.

~~~
abalashov
What if you desire to change your passwords, or one of your existing passwords
gets compromised and you need to change it?

~~~
akkartik
Yeah I remember to update. Also if I create a new account I care about.

It's not _0_ maintenance, but after I spent a day thinking things through I
rarely spend more than a few minutes on this.

~~~
abalashov
It's certainly pragmatic, but most people find it a rather morbid
preoccupation for someone young and healthy.

~~~
akkartik
_That_ I can never understand. I'm a control freak. I'm a spider, and I'm not
going to let a small thing like death limit the reach of my web.
(muhahahahahaha..)

I am accomplishment-oriented rather than experience-oriented [1], and perhaps
a lot of folks on HN are the same. I derive daily motivation much more from
having a sense of accomplishment and impact on the world, than from
experiential pleasures, or even from having learned something. If you feel the
same, it behooves you to think about the impact you will have on the world
after you're gone, and how to best channel it. It's only experience that ends
when you die.

[1] Citations please? I remember reading something like that dichotomy, but I
can't find it.

