Agreed. You'd definitely need some prescribed technical measures that only strong laws could enact. The stumbling block would always be that what you want is a

Agreed. You'd definitely need some prescribed technical measures that only strong laws could enact. The stumbling block would always be that what you want is a "Delete it all, right now, and don't argue" remote API call. No commercial provider will ever give you this at present. Practically every line of code running online services is designed to avoid that and do the exact opposite. The only practical solution I can see is that you somehow obtain a certificate that allows that capability and keep it _very_ _safe_. Nonetheless, there will be some people who let their "digital self-destruct" cert get loose and then complain when a prankster deletes them. This problem adds weight to the idea that it's better to manage your own digital affairs, then it's as simple as @monthly "if [ ! -f "$STILLALIVE" ]; then ssh me@myhost find ~ -type f -exec shred {} +; fi"