Lately I started including what happens to my data in case I die unexpectedly in my threat model. As of now I’d like for everything to stay private. All my accounts have a strong password that I store on a keepass datbase that I store only on encrypted devices which themselves are protected only by PIN or Password with no biometrics (I use the pin only on my phone which is set up to get wiped after 20 failed unlock attempts to mitigate bruteforce attacks). As for what I post online, I keep it to a minimum and nothing really personal, preferring only viewing content through clients with no account when possible. I know some services allow to set up what happens after a certain period of inactivity but I was wondering if you guys can suggest anything else. Maybe some program that wipes the computer’s drive after a period of inactivity? Some other tools or some tips I didn’t consider?
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Honestly?
I do not care.
If I am gone, I am gone.
Any digital traces I leave behind no longer bother me and my privacy is now assured.
No one will care what is on my accounts and I think it is hubris for 99.9999% of the population to think otherwise.
EG: Of the approximately 1,000,000 people who have died on earth in the past week, unless you are Mathew Perry, no one cares what is in your protonmail account.
Good point, I am in fact nothing compared whoever celebrity you might think of. In my case though the idea would be of some family member or friend unlocking any device (say for something like looking for a picture together or whatever file they might need) and casually stumbling on something I didn’t want share. I want to have that kind of control where if I shared something with someone it’s because I wanted to, everything else nobody knows about should stay that way. I mean, it’s not like I’m hiding nuke codes or bigtiddygothgf.jpg but still, if I didn’t tell you then you shouldn’t know.
Lastly, yeah I’m dead so it’s not my problem but people will remember me for a little while more so might as well think of that too.
Lastly, yeah I’m dead so it’s not my problem but people will remember me for a little while more so might as well think of that too.
You have never been able to control how the people around you think about you when you are alive and won’t be able to once you pass.
Everyone has their secrets and I doubt that any you have will be that shocking to friends and family.
I am not saying this to mock your preparations just to offer some perspective.
If you didn’t want it shared, why did you write it down? The only way to leave no trace is to leave no trace. Don’t want Alice to know something? Don’t tell Bob. Once the information leaves your control you genuinely have no control over it.
That is true, for real life it’s harder but as for digital, again. Until I’m here I think my data are protected simply because I’m pretty often around my devices and when that won’t be the case I would want it to stay that way.
To answer to your second reply, I do understand that evryone has their own secrets. I know that and I’m pretty sure that whatever secrets the people I know may have won’t bother me. We all have our things that might appear weird, strange or wrong to others and that’s common to everyone. But to me, if I applied that tought there would be no point in being into this foss and privacy movement at all. If I don’t care about my friends knowing my secrets then why would I care that a computer does? I’ve spent the last copule years trying to find alternatives to companies like google and I tried finding trusted software while also minimizing the amount of data I have online (I have around 30 accounts compared to the 100+ I had when I started) so since I’m so invested in this I aim to improve as much as I can.
100% privacy won’t be possble until the day I dig a hole on the bottom of the ocean to live in but for whatever can be done I aim to do it.
I’d sum up all this into something like I’m more of an “everything or nothing” kind of person when it comes to digital stuff, since I put effort into not using the convenient mainstream options, might as well always take it to an upper level.
When Bob is active part of what you don’t want Alice to know, it doesn’t matter whether you “tell” Bob or not, he knows.
You can try and hide it from him, add layers like an onion, but even that isn’t necessarily a failproof guarantee that you left no trace, even onions can be peeled or holes pierced.
It’s no longer your secret then, is it, if someone else is a part of it? That’s part of my point. If anyone other than you knows the secret, you cannot guarantee its secrecy. You can establish some sort of trust relationship and a classification policy. If you’re dead, all bets are off with those things. Some people with intersecting policies, eg doctors or lawyers with professional requirements, will continue to preserve secrets in some cases. Even that’s not a guarantee.
Yes, I got your point. Mine was that many of the things we do (specially online) cannot be protected by trying to keep it “secret” in the way you previously described. Because they often involve a “Bob”, even if it’s one we sometimes don’t even notice.
So it makes sense for someone to try and look for ways to at least get some level of protection from Alices in other ways than just “don’t tell Bob” even if they might not be flawless (you gave some examples of such ways in that last response).
I concur. Once I’m dead I give zero shits who looks at what on my devices. Have a blast folks.
Yeah and I’d like to think like that too. Issue being that if I think “once I’m dead it’s not my problem anymore” then it would also automatically turn into “once I’m dead nothing I did mattered so why living in the first place?”. I will be dead, I won’t be able to care but people who were around me will for both what I did and who I was. Again, I have nothing REALLY important to hide but I might in the future so why not just get ready now and get used to this kind of digital lifestyle.
Just encrypt what you don’t want to share and leave open what you do. Bit locker or equivalent.
*I don’t care who finds my porn, I’m dead. *
thirty years from now, old friends and family gathered for something. one suddenly interjects, ‘remember that weird video jah348 had on his phone’ yeah.. :;quiet chuckles:: awkward pause. conversation continues where it left off.
Hard to implement, but I would like to have a dead man’s switch that just erased every single trace of me, then post an obituary that says: 404 - person not found.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=v2FsCkYVfhw
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
To those that “Humpf, don’t care, my data dies with me”, PLEASE remember the significant people in your life will have to deal with admin stuff after your death. And it’s on you to make that process a misery or not for them.
Maybe make sure they have at least access to whatever’s needed to deal with stuff after your demise?
If you don’t have friends and family or hate all humans, don’t mind me of course.
What administrative stuff?
Bills still need to be paid.
Bank accounts need to be accessed.
Doors need to be opened.
Etc…etc…
Sure there are ways around most of this. Presentation of a death certificate usually will get you access to most things eventually. But sometimes that takes time and a lot of administrative for the family.
At least that is what I have heard, thankfully I haven’t had to deal with a family death personally.
You’re the second person writing about this. I think it varies by country? Like… for how I see it, other than my car I don’t plan on having other loans. As for bank accounts and other financial stuff I think there is some kind of process that starts once the death has been announced in some formal way. Everything else should just be forgotten. Like just do what people did in the 50s or sum. There was no common technology in which to store important stuff. Just do the same things as back then for whatever matters, everything else is in my phone and pc shouldn’t be so crucial.
In the US it can even vary by state. Dying without a will or transfer on death assets can be a nightmare for the deceased family. My father died without a will and my mother and I spent a year jumping through hoops and dealing with lawyers trying to get everything straightened out.
I encourage everyone to take a look at their local laws related to the subject. You may be surprised at how things would work out without some planning on your part.
That’s true, though personally I find a sort of warm feeling about the idea of my messages and content I produced being available for my descendants, beyond just my bank account.
I wish I had a way to see how my great-grandparents were. What their life was like. That I could check out conversations they had in a public forum. Or see what hobbies they had… but life back then left no traces, so their thoughts were lost to time after my grandparents and my father went away. If they wrote any letters they were lost. So I’d be ok if one day one of my descendants has a way to see what accounts I used and they come upon this message when wondering about me. Like a time-traveling high-five from past-me to my relatives.
I see the curiosity. For me though unless it’s some pictures we took together (which I would have shared with them in the first place) the rest is stuff only me and whoever was involved should remember. As I said in another reply, if I didn’t share it it’s because I didn’t need/want to in the first place.
My watch will have ended. Give zero fucks about the things in my life left over that will erode in two generations, if not sooner.
If you want to make sure the data’s never recoverable, just use a password in addition to your hardware keys to unlock your computers. So when you die it’s completely gone forever. No one will ever decrypt it
If you want to make sure people can open your archives after your death, but only after your death, you could look at bit warden’s emergency release functionality.
You could also implement Shamir’s secret sharing, on some print out paper, so that two or more people would be required to collude to unlock your secrets. And if they’re trusted people in different jurisdictions, you know they’ll only do that after you’re dead. Then they could use that to get to your digital legacy, your crypto wallets, your decryption keys etc. https://github.com/cyphar/paperback
Wow this paperback thing is a cool idea. I was looking to not share anything but I’m sure I can apply it to other cases.
Yeah it’s really neat. There’s a couple other projects. But I think this is the most polished.
If you do use it, for long-term archival, make sure you get acid-free paper heavy stock. And use a nice quality printer. You might want a laminate it as well. Just to be safe I would print out two copies of everything, and only laminate one copy. And store them in separate folders wherever you’re going to store them. That way if there’s any issue if the lamination process the original data would just survive in the paper.
It’s a great way to do your backups. You can store your encrypted data backed up in the cloud to multiple places. But you can store your keys offline with Shamir’s secret sharing.
Honestly, nobody is going to care enough to try to understand the overengineered hell/beauty that is my home data centre where I keep all my stuff. I’m at peace with the fact that stuff is as good as bit rot if I kick the bucket for some reason any time soon
None. I don’t feel any need for the privacy of my corpse.
I don’t really care about what happens to my body or my stuff after I die. Growing up in a hoarding home, my goal is enjoy what I have now and minimize what others have to deal with when I’m gone.
If I go unexpectedly, the people in my life need easy access to my stuff to ensure they’re not fucked by rapacious corporations trying to profit off “sorry thesmokingman died someone didn’t cancel the electric so you owe a ton.” Any assets I have (after student loans, of course) should be easily accessible. The people close to me might want some token of me or some insight into what data I like to hoard. I’ve got a dead man’s switch with my password manager that goes to specific people. They can have it all.
If there’s no one in your life, by all means, nuke your shit. If there are people in your life, why do you care what happens to your things when you’re dead? You’re dead.
I assume most of that will be taken care of eventually. The only loan I have is for my car and either it’s gonna be paid off soon or I have insurance that will pay it for me be it the case I die next week. For the rest there is nothing really. I guess there is some way for my family to get into my bank account (after all even if I left my device unlocked it’s not like they could access the account easily). Other than that it’s mostly personal accounts and data. Maybe I’m missing something but I don’t really plan on taking other loans or whatever else that won’t be automatically be taken care off after sending some kind of notice about my death.
The biggest reason I set up a dead man’s switch was for incapacitation over death. I don’t live anywhere near my family (who I trust to manage my affairs; not the same for everyone) so when the ‘Rona hit I wanted to make sure my life wouldn’t end if I got hospitalized for months on end. I feel that there is value in considering that possibility especially if you’re already considering an unexpected death. What about your rent/mortgage, your electric bill, your subscriptions, the things that keep your life moving? Some you want paid, others you want canceled without screwing your credit score (if you live in the US). If I miss a rent payment, I get evicted in a month.
On the other hand, if you’re dead, why make it harder for the people that have to clean up for you (“taken care of eventually”)? My family knows how to delete my presence from everything once they have access to my stuff so I can’t exist as a digital zombie forever.
Shared passwords in BitWarden with important notes. Easy to keep up to date.
I’m not sure how to get started and am also reading this for suggestions.
I don’t particularly care if people find my porn or whatever, since I’ll be too dead to look relatives in the eye after they saw that. But I like the idea of being kind to whoever is left dealing with the administrative issues surrounding my death. Like swedish death cleaning, except the mess is loan payments and pictures of my pets.
While online I have most of my items under lock and key, my personal computer at home is set to boot automatically with my password (since the attack vector of “having the feds raid my home” is fortunately not an issue for me). So in the rare case that I’m no longer available, my family can just get my user names and passwords from my computer
Maybe some program that wipes the computer’s drive after a period of inactivity? Some other tools or some tips I didn’t consider?
I’ve been toying with the idea of writing a dead man’s switch in the form of a telegram bot that monitors my profile for automatic account deletion, if thats even possible. I’d have it send my partner an email with everything she needs to get into bitwarden and to cash out hidden assets. Having it trigger a mass deletion instead would fit your use case.
I don’t post pictures or personal info online at all, but I do want my family to have access to personal storage of pictures and poetry etc so I do have a piece of paper that contains a master key they can use to get further access to my stuff. My kids all know where it’s stored so they can get in.
I don’t have any data anyone else would care about after I’m dead. My friends and family have some pictures and videos. What else would they want? My code?
You immediately reminded me of this song: https://youtu.be/FUPstXCqyus?si=e-YTy6fC-bu9ERfa
Lmao the first part is really like “why yes I do have a keepass database locked with a password, key file and hardware key inside of a password protected zip inside a veracrypt container inside a pin protected USB which I keep inside a safe of which I melted the keys and now unlockable only with a PIN”
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/FUPstXCqyus?si=e-YTy6fC-bu9ERfa
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
