3 ms·

My problem with this approach, and many of the other ones (including my own, at the moment), is that 99% of my relatives wouldn't know how to access such a syst

by toyg 5y ago

My problem with this approach, and many of the other ones (including my own, at the moment), is that 99% of my relatives wouldn't know how to access such a system in case of death or emergency. This is why the trustee for post-life access to my info is actually a friend who works in IT like me; but I've not sorted out pics yet.

progman32 5y ago
This is a problem I'm trying to solve as well. My main repository is ZFS, which IMO is a no-go for postmortem access. I don't trust that online accounts, especially paid ones, will not be locked out due to inactivity or lack of payment. It may be several years between departure and access. I have 3 separate use cases: casual access to shared memories for which I'm the family steward (photos, videos), motivated access to personal important documents, and motivated access to other personal files. I'm not about to leave an unencrypted drive full of personal info in a family member's house, as the risk of theft is strictly greater than just having one copy. My current plan is to use EXT4 + Luks to satisfy the last 2 scenarios, which I think stands a reasonable chance for anyone slightly techy (most modern Linux distributions will simply prompt you for the container password when you try to access the encrypted drive) and is likely to enjoy long-lived support for at least a decade or 2. I have a techy person in my family, not sure I'd do this if I didn't... For casual access to shared memories, I plan on leaving an unencrypted partition. While it lasts, these media are also available on a family-only photo album I put up on AWS. I'm considering using a laptop as the vessel for the encrypted drive, with a suitable Linux distro pre-loaded and instructions on the desktop/printed out and kept in an adhesive document pocket stuck to the machine.

3 ms·

My problem with this approach, and many of the other ones (including my own, at the moment), is that 99% of my relatives wouldn't know how to access such a syst

by toyg 5y ago

progman32 5y ago
This is a problem I'm trying to solve as well. My main repository is ZFS, which IMO is a no-go for postmortem access. I don't trust that online accounts, especially paid ones, will not be locked out due to inactivity or lack of payment. It may be several years between departure and access. I have 3 separate use cases: casual access to shared memories for which I'm the family steward (photos, videos), motivated access to personal important documents, and motivated access to other personal files. I'm not about to leave an unencrypted drive full of personal info in a family member's house, as the risk of theft is strictly greater than just having one copy. My current plan is to use EXT4 + Luks to satisfy the last 2 scenarios, which I think stands a reasonable chance for anyone slightly techy (most modern Linux distributions will simply prompt you for the container password when you try to access the encrypted drive) and is likely to enjoy long-lived support for at least a decade or 2. I have a techy person in my family, not sure I'd do this if I didn't... For casual access to shared memories, I plan on leaving an unencrypted partition. While it lasts, these media are also available on a family-only photo album I put up on AWS. I'm considering using a laptop as the vessel for the encrypted drive, with a suitable Linux distro pre-loaded and instructions on the desktop/printed out and kept in an adhesive document pocket stuck to the machine.