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I have a question for the community here. Aaron writes "I ask that the contents of all my hard drives be made publicly available." Should we unmask his secret B

by dreeves 14y ago

I have a question for the community here. Aaron writes "I ask that the contents of all my hard drives be made publicly available." Should we unmask his secret Beeminder goal? http://beeminder.com/aaronsw http://beeminder.com/aaronsw (Assuming it's nothing embarrassing, or even helps shine light on what's happened.)

praxeologist 14y ago
I think so, and that is not just me being curious. Some data he kept private on a site seems about the same as his own hard drives. Some good might come of it, who knows.
jmillikin 14y ago
I would vote against exposing his goal because we don't know why he had marked it private, unless there's some explicit indication that he would also like all of his online accounts made public. You could contact Sean B. Palmer, as specified on the linked page: "For other stuff, email Sean. I'm sure he'll do something reasonable." Regardless of whether you open his goal, you should freeze his account in some way to prevent someone from logging in. If the contents of his hard drive are made publicly available, that will expose his login cookies (and potentially passwords), which means members of the general public would be able to access his Beeminder account. They might also gain access to email, which could be used to do a password reset and thus gain access.
- dreeves 14y ago
  Smart, done. Thanks so much, John. (Now I'm dreading the skull and crossbones watermark that's going to appear when he derails on his public goal -- especially for how that will look to people not familiar with Beeminder. Maybe I'll suppress that too.)
- rdl 14y ago
  I assume "contents of his hard drive publicly available" was intended to mean essays or other work. Maybe not even personal email (since the counterparties are still alive). Almost certainly not passwords. Now I'm sort of thinking of updating my "if I die" scripts (since I've added machines since I wrote them). Although I hope to never die, or at least to not die for ~60-80 years, there's always the truck/bus/gunfight/etc. risk.

by dreeves 14y ago

praxeologist 14y ago

I think so, and that is not just me being curious. Some data he kept private on a site seems about the same as his own hard drives. Some good might come of it, who knows.

jmillikin 14y ago

I would vote against exposing his goal because we don't know why he had marked it private, unless there's some explicit indication that he would also like all of his online accounts made public. You could contact Sean B. Palmer, as specified on the linked page: "For other stuff, email Sean. I'm sure he'll do something reasonable." Regardless of whether you open his goal, you should freeze his account in some way to prevent someone from logging in. If the contents of his hard drive are made publicly available, that will expose his login cookies (and potentially passwords), which means members of the general public would be able to access his Beeminder account. They might also gain access to email, which could be used to do a password reset and thus gain access.

dreeves 14y ago
Smart, done. Thanks so much, John. (Now I'm dreading the skull and crossbones watermark that's going to appear when he derails on his public goal -- especially for how that will look to people not familiar with Beeminder. Maybe I'll suppress that too.)
rdl 14y ago
I assume "contents of his hard drive publicly available" was intended to mean essays or other work. Maybe not even personal email (since the counterparties are still alive). Almost certainly not passwords. Now I'm sort of thinking of updating my "if I die" scripts (since I've added machines since I wrote them). Although I hope to never die, or at least to not die for ~60-80 years, there's always the truck/bus/gunfight/etc. risk.