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I will tell you a good reason to trust password managers. I know a lawyer who does estate planning. When you start talking about "what happens when I die", pass
by milesvp 5y ago
I will tell you a good reason to trust password managers. I know a lawyer who does estate planning. When you start talking about "what happens when I die", passwords are a class of problem that has only gotten worse in the last 2 decades. There are legal ways for estate executors to request passwords, but it is a pain, and can be time consuming. She tends to recommend password managers because they tend to be more consistent than written down passwords in a safe. Further, having a password manager, where someone can be designated as a trustee makes executing a will considerably easier.
Now, none of the above necessarily makes password managers safe. The increasing legal scrutiny that password manager providers face, means that they will tend to be relatively safe, but they're still a single point of failure. At some point you need to decide what trust level you want though, security is a lot about tradeoffs, and ease of access is always at odds with keeping things safe.
- zie 5y agoI'm pretty sure even after death, it's still technically breaking the law to use someone else's password. So I'm surpised a lawyer would be so open about it, though I agree it definitely makes life 90% easier when it comes up :)
- briHass 5y agoYeah, I can't think of many reasons why an executor would need the passwords of the deceased. Banks and other financial institutions have a protocol for this: send them the death cert, and they distribute to beneficiaries or as directed by law. There's no need to log in as that (dead) user, and it could make things complicated if withdrawals or transactions are made that go against the beneficiary rules. Maybe you need the password for crypto wallets, but that's on the deceased for not thinking of another plan.
- rosndo 5y agoIt’s not illegal to use someone else’s password even if all of the parties are alive. Unauthorized use of someone else’s password may be illegal.
- zie 5y agohow does one go about getting authorization from someone deceased? That's a neat trick! :)
- rosndo 5y agoWe are discussing a lawyer who does estate planning, that’s something people do before they die.
- zie 5y agoBecause of the recent badness that has happened around people dying(identity theft, etc), the SSA and everyone else gets notified when deaths happen, and lock & flag accounts, etc. Using a deceased person's password, even with this supposed "authorization" is a terrible idea. There are laws and rules and standards of practice for dealing with this stuff and they should be followed. This lawyer is at best, giving bad advice and at worst, encouraging breaking rules and regulations. What we all should do is build in plans for our deaths around the time we hit 18, and make sure our heir(s) know what's up. i.e. I have these insurance policies, these bank and credit and investment accounts, etc. One solution, Fidelity has a free service available for people to help with this: https://www.fidsafe.com/ https://www.fidsafe.com/ A piece of paper of course works just as well, assuming your heir(s) know where in the world these papers are.