
Dead Man's Switch - coderdude
http://beta.deadmansswitch.net/
======
wccrawford
Interesting, but potentially disastrous, depending on your email contents, if
the company messes up.

For this, I'd rather have a lawyer, a safe, a bank box... Anything that would
end up dealing with my friends and family if I died.

~~~
corin_
I concur, with the following additional reasons. First, depending on what you
meant by "mess up": there's a chance they're not trustworthy (would read
something you don't want read), and there's also a chance they screw up (and
lose what you want sent - or send it when it shouldn't be sent).

Perhaps an even bigger thing for me is that an email seems so... off-hand,
informal. I think if a friend/relative/etc died and an email was automatically
sent to me from them I would feel a lot less... less something, can't quite
think of the word, than if I got a properly written letter. Less sentimental I
guess, less appreciative of it.

~~~
StavrosK
Hey guys, I read the entire frontpage and somehow missed this story: I made
Dead Man's Switch, and the beta is the second iteration, hosted on GAE. I
certainly didn't expect it to be HNed so early.

These are all valid concerns. This isn't meant to replace wills or lawyers,
it's just something to tell your friends to maybe look for you in the
mountains if you don't respond in X days.

Some people also had the idea of using it to monitor infirm/elderly people, so
I wrote this second version to hopefully have more flexibility to interface
with phone/sms/etc.

I'll be glad to answer any questions you may have!

~~~
coderdude
Sorry to spring this on you, but it looked interesting and I figured HN would
dig it. Hopefully you're getting some good feedback though.

~~~
StavrosK
I am, thanks! Luckily everything is going fine so far, and GAE is a champ.

------
pxlpshr
We've been working on a product very similar to this for a long time. Traction
is difficult, and few people respond well to fear mongering and/or
premeditative thoughts that their life may be in danger. In addition, top of
mind is also a challenge because the nature of an emergency creates an
overload of emotion and therefore often confusion.

The social venture fund I work for provides this product for free because we
service underserved and often low-income people in high crime areas around the
world. Unfortunately we haven't made the product itself more accessible but we
are working on an Android app that will function on some of the cheapest
Android phones.

<http://www.buddyguard.org>

------
rheide
I've actually been looking for this for a long time. I like to travel around
and often wonder what will happen to my digital legacy (code, internet bank
accounts, subscriptions to all kinds of things, scanned documents). My
previous solution was to e-mail an encrypted file to my parents and give them
the password to it on a note, which was then put in the safe. I'll try the
site but I'm a bit wary of whether or not it actually works. After all, if you
disappear off the face of the planet then you won't be able to check that it
actually works.

Edit: it also seems like a perfect target for hacking, as people may write
information there that evil people could profit from greatly.

~~~
StavrosK
I would recommend that everyone encrypts the emails that go on the service, as
obviously we can't do it ourselves (we have to actually be able to read them
to send them out!).

~~~
ChuckMcM
I guess you create an email, encrypt it with a 2048 bit AES key. And set it up
to mail to your 'back up'.

Then you go and create 32 throw away email accounts and have each of them
running their own aliveness test on a TOR proxy which is mailing you their
queries.

When you go 'off line' the 32 mail their part of the key to the recipient, DMS
mails them the main letter. :-)

Not a serious suggestion but it would be fun as a plot device in some cyber
fiction.

------
s2r2
Something similar could be constructed using Shamir's Secret Sharing (for
example) [1], where the involved parties would have to communicate (and thus
know each other) to retrieve the secret from their parts. The linked service
surely is easier to handle but such a scheme would not depend on any trusted
host (except yourself as you know the secret and share the parts). Possibly a
combination of both would be great, to ease the communication issue and still
keep security high.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir%27s_Secret_Sharing>

~~~
Sniffnoy
I'm a little unclear on what problem you're trying to solve. Are you saying
you should wait for a second place to set up such a service, sign up for both,
and use a simple secret sharing scheme[1] to ensure that only once both go out
does anyone know the original message? Or does that not solve the problem you
were talking about?

[1]Which in this case would probably just be -- since in this case you don't
want it to be reconstructible without all the pieces, and there's not much
need for there to be more than 2 -- picking a random string of bits, sending
that to one and the XOR with the original to the other.

~~~
cjdavis
Here's how it would work: You decide how many different friends and family you
are going to send your secret message to, and how many of them will need to
agree to unlock the message together. Let's say you pick 15 recipients and 8
need to agree. Then ANY 8 of the 15 messages can be combined to decrypt the
secret.

No 3rd party service needed at all.

Couldn't you encrypt the results again with different numbers? So you could do
interesting things like 'my wife AND (any 3 of 50 others)'

~~~
s2r2
'my wife AND (3 of 50)'

You could take k=54 and give your wife 51 keys.

~~~
Sniffnoy
Works for this simple case, but I think iterating the procedure is more
general. For instance, suppose there are 6 people -- A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, B3,
and you want it to be recoverable given any 2 of the A group and any 2 of the
B group; I'm pretty sure that can't be handled with a solution like the above.

~~~
s2r2
I think your right. One (k,n)=(2,3) scheme for each group to unlock the
(2,2)-scheme for the secret.

And the wife just needs to remember one key this way...

------
prpon
A cousin passed away few years back with cancer. It wasn't sudden but wasn't
expected either. (He was 37 and responding well to treatment). His wife was
completely uninterested with regards to finances and bills.

He was quite meticulous and wrote down every single account he owned, details
like account number, login, password in an excel spreadsheet. It was a lot of
help for her.

I worry about security of such a system. I also worry about security of online
services for using such a system. I also worry if my wife would be able to
locate that file.

Are there any schemes that work for you?

~~~
quanticle
Well, the best thing would be to write up all that, print it out, and put it
in the same safe-deposit box that holds your will. Of all the storage media we
have, paper is still the best proven for long-term retrieval.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Never, never put your will into a safe-deposit box. That cannot be opened
after you die until you have an executor. Which happens after the will is
found.

Just make a couple copies, leave on in your desk, in your office, in your
bedside table, with your lawyer. They are not secret documents, not something
you have to lock up.

------
dgunn
There are a surprising number of services that do this. No one seems to have
gotten any traction though. We decided to make it a video service instead of
an email service.

We're actually launching our version this friday. If you read this after Aug
19th, it will be at <http://senotable.com> but right now it's at
<http://beta.senotable.com>. Bugs are basically worked out now if you want to
check it out. We'll probably advertise the launch on HN Saturday.

------
kalleboo
It would be cool if this service could monitor your Twitter/Facebook/etc for
signs of life to cut down on the link-clicking required, and to add more
resilience in the case of spam filtering.

~~~
StavrosK
That's a very good idea! I'll see if I can have some basic Twitter integration
soon.

~~~
LokiSnake
Might also be nice to have a very simple push notification enabled mobile app
for active reminders in addition to passive checks via Twitter. It'll be way
less actions from a user's point of view compared to email when on the go.

~~~
StavrosK
Ah, very good idea. It'll be simple to make, too, which is good.

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chad_oliver
I've been thinking about this a bit after the shootings in Norway, and the
deadly earthquake in my city a few months ago. I think that I have two
requirements in order to be able to die happily: that I have said everything I
need to say, and that other people can understand me (think 'speaker for the
dead', so that people can understand what was important to me and what I
believed in). I have many things I want to do before I die, but if these two
needs are provided for, I can honestly die without regret. Everything else is
just dependent on me living out my convictions.

Certainly we should regularly tell people that we love them, that they are
important to us, etc, but I think being able to say a final goodbye is an
entirely different thing. I hope my brother understands how much of a role
model he is to me (and I will try to make sure he does know), but even so I
would appreciate the chance to say so, one last time. My parents know I love
them, but I think they would treasure a post-mortem letter saying exactly
that.

However, I agree with everyone who pointed out that emails are a bit
impersonal. I would prefer to be able to hand-write letters, and have them
automatically posted via regular mail. I think that would be a pleasant
surprise.

------
chrisgoodrich
This seems scary. The risk of the confirmation emails being interpreted as
spam or not seen is just way too high.

Due to the sensitivity of the information being sent out, there is zero margin
for error. Even an after death personal message is pretty hefty if it's a
false positive.

I would much rather prefer a service that requires my family to get to the
info from a will or lawyer to gain access to my sensitive info.

I'd be interested to hear about the business model to this.

~~~
wtn
Whitelist them.

------
postfuturist
I've often entertained the idea of creating a piece of software to tend to
certain things after my passing, beyond just sending out a batch of emails. It
could reply to emails with canned responses for certain people, even a little
AI to respond to questions. Sounds pretty narcissistic now that I think about
it. Who really wants to be pestered with emails from dead people?

~~~
andre
check out the Daemon and Freedom books..... along those lines, just 1000x more
so. <http://thedaemon.com/>

------
cek
Better idea: Live your life in such a way that you have no regrets. Tell
people how you feel, when you feel. Don't burn bridges.

~~~
ctdonath
Non-sequitur.

To the contrary, it may ensure bridges are there when you aren't, and may tell
people how you feel when you're not around to.

Example: there are a lot of people whom I care about, but who - with no ill
will involved - we've drifted off in our own directions as life tends to. We
have vague contact info, and lacking that have mutual friends who can pass
things on if need be. Come my demise, I may want a mass-emailing to thank
them, ask for casual assistance for my dependents, and generally give a warm
farewell. When I went in for heart surgery, I let one of the group know, in
case it didn't turn out well; going in wasn't enough to warrant interrupting
everyone and writing paper letters, but if I didn't come out someone needed to
spread the word ("Hey, remember Carl? he's gone now, but says 'hi, thanks for
the memories'"). Not worth printing up stacks of physical letters and
burdening someone with putting then-required postage etc., but makes it easy
to let people know how you feel when it's too much overhead all around now
(hey, that's a big reason why people hate Facebook: too many updates), but
when it is important to do so is exactly when you can't.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I'm thinking the parent comment was still right. Why not say those things now?
Its not 'interrupting everyone', its keeping in contact. Its important to do
that now, especially if you haven't in a while.

~~~
ctdonath
When you're talking about upwards of 1000 people, it becomes an interruption.

------
skimbrel
That's one hell of an SLA to commit to.

------
elliottcarlson
I remember a service like this at least 6 years ago, possibly much longer -
would be interesting to see if they are still around and if they ever had to
"activate" for anyone.

~~~
StavrosK
This service has been around since 2006, probably earlier (I can't remember
when I first built it), so this might be the same one.

------
monkeypizza
I always wondered why aggrieved FBI / CIA agents don't use this type of
service to mail out their uncensored memoirs to 100 different newspapers &
underground conspiracy nuts.

Obviously this site is a huge target for government organizations who have a
lot of secrets - whenever a service like this springs up I bet the first order
of business is for someone to install a permanent tap on it, and a way to
block the emails if need be.

------
SoftwareMaven
Perfect, right up to the point Google kills my account for using my nickname
(yes, hyperbolic and no longer accurate, but the point holds).

~~~
icebraining
This doesn't use Google Accounts, it's a standard form. You just need to trust
DMS, not anyone else.

------
lawlit
What if my email provider, let's call it @MySuperAwesomeEmailProvider.com just
goes out of business and decided to stop the service. Then I can't answer to
the emails you will "life-ping" me with. And I won't even be able to change my
email address on your system because I would have lost my account password.
And then the next day, I don't think I would be able to go out.

~~~
StavrosK
You can just send us an email and prove that you own the account and we'll
change your email for you, it's not that big a problem.

~~~
lawlit
Do you have a policy for how users can _prove_ that they are who they're
claiming to be ? Can you handle having _too_many_ users under the terms of
that policy ?

~~~
StavrosK
The only proof we have is the email validation, but the service doesn't claim
to actually be a will. It's more about emailing your friends or family one
last time.

I don't understand the question about too many users, can you clarify?

------
amurmann
I like the idea of having a service like this. However, I am worried about
having one centralized service for this kind of thing. Interested parties,
like certain government agencies will have a high interest in hacking it. I
hope no one who really needs a dead man's switch as an insurance will use this
service, if it ever get's big.

------
zethraeus
I think I've seen services like this before, and either way would rather get a
physical person/company with some recourse for acting incorrectly to do it.

But, take a look at the favicon. The broken lemniscate is bizarrely
poignant/morbid for a 16*16 pixel square. Neat design.

~~~
StavrosK
That's the company logo, I didn't get around to changing it yet:

<http://www.stochastictechnologies.com/>

I hadn't noticed how well it fits until you pointed it out, I think I'll keep
it.

------
JimboOmega
I've been working on a similar concept for a while too. I can only hope that
mine turns out better (not that this one is bad - rather, if this one is
better than mine, then mine is pretty useless!)

------
MichaelGG
A way to deal with the issue of it accidentally triggering, as well as get
quicker triggers, is to provide a list of family/friends that can verify your
non-existence.

------
jsherer
Sounds like an interesting idea. But, like others, I am skeptical relying on a
"beta labeled" web service to handle this for me.

~~~
rufibarbatus
The beta is for a "new and improved" version. If you remove beta from the
address, you can access the current let's-call-it "stable" version.

I played around with this a while ago. Didn't think the way it's implemented
solves the problem as I perceive it. (Plus, the risk of these confirmation
emails ending up in spam felt a bit like a downer.)

~~~
StavrosK
I want to eventually integrate Twilio so it can call you and have you enter a
PIN to check in, rather than email, or something to that effect (maybe reply
to an SMS?).

That's for a bit further ahead, though.

~~~
rufibarbatus
The twilio thing sounds like a good idea. Given the mechanics, the more means
of communication you have, the better you're protected against false
positives.

I'm still a bit unsure about the part where "you're responsible for asserting
that you're still alive." I'd like break it down to its basic premises and see
if they actually make sense. :-)

------
bcl
I would never trust my last words to a web service. Instead I have a 'So Long
and Thanks for all the Fish' letter in my safe.

------
Lambent_Cactus
This is the start of an entertaining thriller. Someone should be working on
the movie rights.

~~~
FreebytesSector
There was already a book named Daemon that uses similar concepts. I highly
recommend it.

------
datums
I hope they process bouncebacks and disable the service for the bounced user.

~~~
StavrosK
We don't, because your account might have been canceled at your death, so
disabling your DMS account would be the last thing you wanted.

------
mhb
How do they make money? Targeted ads? Cemetery plots? Tombstones?

~~~
StavrosK
The first version didn't, it was just for fun. The second will include a paid
account with more features, such as custom sending intervals, phone
integration, etc.

