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I have. I had most of this done already, but about a year ago a friend of mine -- very healthy! younger than me! -- literally dropped dead. It was a bolt from
by ubermonkey 4y ago
I have.
I had most of this done already, but about a year ago a friend of mine -- very healthy! younger than me! -- literally dropped dead. It was a bolt from the blue, for sure, and the trouble that followed for his widow was a wake-up call.
For some reason, he and his wife weren't on a "family" plan with Apple, which meant, from Apple's POV, they were just two customers, and lawyer letters and whatnot would be required to get her access to even his pictures on the phone.
Apple NOW has a feature that allows you to nominate a "digital legacy contact" for your Apple data. If you're on iOS, I RECOMMEND IN THE STRONGEST POSSIBLE TERMS THAT YOU CONFIGURE THIS IMMEDIATELY.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208510 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208510
As for the rest of my digital life, everything is in a password manager, and my wife understands that the master password for said vault is in the safe.
- dstick 4y agoSame here. In fact, I took it one step further and drafted a document that outlines all the important business contacts I have the she would need to contact in case of my death. To liquidate assets, and/or help with keeping the businesses I have running. Online services, hosting providers, etc.
- ubermonkey 4y agoThat's a good idea.
- Firmwarrior 4y agoMan, that's probably the smart way to go.. I just told my wife to take my half-assedly secured computer to one of my tech friends to break into it
- GGO 4y agoHow do you protect against government accessing your safe, getting your master password and accessing all your digital files. If I am not mistaken, Fifth Amendment protects one from incriminating themselves by giving up their own password, but in your case they just need to confiscate and open your safe.
- delecti 4y agoIf the feds want your data and are willing to confiscate your safe to get it, they can probably get your data without confiscating your safe.
- whatatita 4y ago> How do you protect against government In general; you don't. If the gov. wants to make you do something, you're going to have to do it. In many western countries, that's only a vague threat, an many others it's a lot more real. Theoretically, you could have two components to the password: something long and random that is written down, and something easily remembered and personal. A special moment, a place, an anniversary only the two of you would know, etc.
- lupire 4y agoWhat benefit does the long random part provide?
- userbinator 4y agoBruteforce protection.
- mecha_ghidorah 4y agoIt prevents it being guessed. The memorable part protects against someone finding the written down/recorded random portion and using it since they don't have the remembered part, but the remembered part on it's own is somewhat vulnerable to guess work
- ubermonkey 4y agoI don't. If one has something going on such that state-level actors might want nefarious / adversarial access, well, one should be taking MUCH MORE SERIOUS STEPS about personal digital security. Your "regular everyday normal mfer" (as the song apparently incessantly looped on Instagram goes) has no such enemies. My personal digital opsec is designed to keep me and mine safe from likely threats, and the threats I face are pretty banal -- brute force attacks, mostly. I am 100% unconcerned about governmental intrusion into my safe to gain access to, e.g., my online banking passwords.
- modeless 4y agoGoogle has Inactive Account Manager, which is a dead man's switch for your account. Everyone should set that up too. https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3036546?hl=en https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3036546?hl=en
- sinclairX86 4y agoAnecdote: I'm the account manager for most family members. One day my sister was angry with me, removed me as the account manager, and some months later locked herself out of her account after having trashed her phone and forgot her password.
- iwillbenice 4y agoShe sounds like a rational actor.
- w_for_wumbo 4y agoI like that they have this, it means if I ever go missing unexpectedly that there'll be someone who can access my last known location, and access to social media comms to understand why.
- criddell 4y agoI just tried to set that up and got a page that says it’s not available for my account.
- mousetree 4y agoYou must already be deceased to use this service.
- yencabulator 4y agoProbably not available for business & education accounts. Maybe not available in all countries?
- mikeflstfi 4y agoI've done the same with taking the password manager approach and putting the master password in the safe. I've also place a "death envelope" in there that outlines who would need to be notified from my employer and other important contacts. We also have "safe opening" class every so often.
- butterlesstoast 4y agoWow this was quite possibly the most helpful Hacker News comment to date.
- heliodor 4y agoWill your paper in the safe survive in the case of a house fire that kills you?
- LorenPechtel 4y agoIf it's a fire-rated safe, probably. Good point about paper, though, electronic media likely wouldn't survive. I'm going to update my records--the main stuff goes in a cloud account, but paper in the safe with the credentials.
- heliodor 4y agoNow that I read it again, the comment was about storing the master password in a safe, in which case, you could stamp it into a metal plate or some other solid that has a high enough melting point. Steel seems like a good choice of melting temperature, with titanium even better. Or try tungsten, for a much higher melting point.
- kbelder 4y agoMy neighborhood burned up a couple years ago, and safes were fairly worthless, fire-rated or not. Papers were ash, precious metals were all melted. Many safes had shattered, or were so degraded they could be broken with a kick. Just a warning... I'm sure some safes can withstand intense housefires, but it seems like most claiming so, can't.
- HermanMartinus 4y agoThis doesn't give the contact access to your keychain. Only messages, files, photos, etc. In order for them to inherit things like cloud passwords you'll need to set that up yourself somehow.