digital estates

[cellio]

What happens to your digital life -- your email, your online games, your social-networking sites, your online banking, etc -- when you die? Some companies are selling services akin to safe-deposit boxes, so your heirs will be able to get your passwords and stuff. It's an interesting idea, but I think it has some (human-engineering) flaws.

The article raises privacy concerns, but that's the least of the practical issues to my mind. I don't know how I would blend encryption and the ability for a non-tech-savvy recipient to use it, but I think that problem could be solved. (Aside: the non-technical user is going to need a lot more than just a list of username/password pairs.) The much bigger problem I see is maintenance. How many passwords do you have? How often do you change them? Are you going to remember to update the records in your digital safe-deposit box every single time? Only for the important ones, you say? So when you created that throwaway account on eBay to buy one item you didn't bother, and then later you started selling there and didn't think to add it? Until the stored copy is as easy to use as clicking "remember password" in your web browser, it's going to be hard for people to use such a service properly. (And even "remember password" doesn't always do the right thing when you change a password.)

There's also a behavior issue on the other end: the service, of necessity, relies on someone asking for the stored contents. How does the heir know to do that? Can he do it via a phone call? I'm picturing my mother trying to deal with something like this for my father's accounts -- my mother who has never so much as used a web browser or sent email. It's a foreign world to her. Would she realize that it could be important for her to access my father's email? (Would she know if his email provider is auto-billing his credit card until he says to stop?) Or would she assume there's nothing there that matters, if she even thought about it at all?

All that said, the article does make me realize that this sort of thing is important. If something were to happen to Dani, I wouldn't know where all his digital homes are and which ones matter. Having this information available -- if we can also remember to keep it up to date, of course -- would be valuable. But we don't need a service with unproven security and high subscription fees for that. I think it's time to buy a pair of $5 thumb drives to keep in the drawers with the passports and insurance papers.

See also: duplicate entry with its own comments (oops).

Comments

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

You're going to delete the post that already has five replies? Why not just edit it?

[magid.livejournal.com]

Cellio may be posting via email from work (or something similar), which allows easy posting, but not easy editing.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Ah. I had not thought of that.

[cellio]

Correct. When I sent the second copy, the first one didn't yet have any comments. By the time it arrived, there were five replies and I knew this just wasn't going to work out. :-)

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

The other issue I see is that I don't yet feel confident that any internet company will outlive me.

[cellio]

All the more reason that the keystore has to be a living document, not something you send off once and then forget about.

[ariannawyn.livejournal.com]

This was a problem for me when Johan died. He was using his Yahoo account for business. I was the executor of his estate including his business, but Yahoo absolutely refused to give me access to his account. I never did get access and I still wonder what I missed. I even got my lawyer involved, to no avail.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's horrible. I'm so sorry.

This gives me further impetus to give a couple of people a couple of letters....

[cellio]

I remembered you having that problem, but didn't remember that you had been unsuccessful in the end. That really sucks. :-(

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

wispfox has an "in case of death" note that includes access to her online identities. I like your idea of sticking the info on a thumb drive...I need to make one of those for myself, for all the reasons you mention. (...and bug my parents for such a thing! I doubt they've even thought of it.)

As for maintenance, using a system like 1Password can help with this; you're giving access to a keychain, and it *is* as simple as clicking "remember password".

The problem, of course, is you need to absolutely trust the person with access. Rare in this day and age.

[profane-stencil.livejournal.com]

This is something I've had good reason to think about lately. In fact, while paralyzed on the floor, waiting for the paramedics to break in and haul me away, I started thinking of all the accounts Song and Andrea wouldn't have access to if I died or lost a chunk of my brain.
I still haven't decided how to save that kind of information for when I'm gone (or similarly unable to share it). But I recognzie I have to, which puts me far ahead of my people, I think.

[profane-stencil.livejournal.com]

Some people that is.

[cellio]

Yeah, most people don't think about this stuff at all. Heck, most people, I gather, aren't all that organized about the more routine stuff (insurance policies, medical power of attorney, etc). I've known for decades where my parents' fireproof box is and what's in it. It doesn't include anything digital so far as I know, though, and I should poke my father about that.

[rectangularcat]

what i would do is use a program like keepass and keep track of my passwords and save a copy of it on a usb drive. all that you'd need to do is put in your letter of wishes (goes with your will, where you stipulate funeral arrangements) what the master password is and the location of the drive. you'd have to back up the password database once in a while but it's a no brainer.