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Your Digital Inheritance?
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Apr 05, 2006 12:11 PM
from the actually-kind-of-important dept.
from the actually-kind-of-important dept.
eldavojohn writes "I wrote a journal entry musing on the idea of passing on accounts and digitally stored information from generation to generation. Has anyone done this or inherited anything? Does anyone else plan to do this? Is there a slip of paper in your deposit box at the bank with websites, account names and passwords?"
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best fake quote ever ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:best fake quote ever ... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:best fake quote ever ... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:best fake quote ever ... (Score:5, Funny)
I have a "friend" whose grandfather died, and when he had to help his mother clean out his grandfathers stuff, there were erotic pictures of my "friend's" grandmother (At least the pics were from the 40's, and not from when she was 80). Traumatizing.
But it does bring up a good point- Perhaps have a box where you keep your porn that says "throw out w/out opening if I die" or at least have a deal with a friend that whomever dies first, the other will do a porn sweep.
One of the reasons I have always hoped that I get a message from God a day or two before I die, is because I would freak out if I had to look down (or up) after death and watch my mother in law clean out my wife and my sex toy stash.
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Re:best fake quote ever ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Pah! Why feel ashamed of your porn/toy collection?
Dildoes number heavily among the oldest known human artifacts - even the single oldest well-preserved artifact, the "Venus of Willendorf", some scholars have argued may have served as an artificial phallus (go ahead and look at the "hair" on it and tell me it doesn't resemble some form of sex toy, "ridged for her pleasure"!).
I have porn. I have toys. I have no shame regarding them... If my own mother found them while plant-sitting, I'd proudly say that yes, I use them to great personal/mutual pleasure with my SO.
I just don't get how a sexually reproducing species turned into a culture of such pathetic prudes! Humans... Like... Sex! We spend a disproportionate amount of time seeking it, we spend virtually all of our free time from our late-teens through late-twenties doing it, we'll lose sleep and food over it. Wherein lies the "shame" of having "accessories"?
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Coupling - "porn buddies" (Score:5, Funny)
Jeff: Close? We're porn buddies!
Susan: Porn buddies?
Jeff: Oh, yeah.
Susan: Is this code? Were you in prison together or something?
Jeff: No, no, no it's simple; it's a safety precaution, like a scuba driver swims with a buddy in case he runs out of air.
Susan: Okay, okay. Are you telling me that a porn buddy stands by with oxygen?
Jeff: No. Many years ago, me and Steve exchanged house keys--
Susan: Are you sure this isn't code?
Jeff: It isn't code.
Susan: Alright.
Jeff: In the event of Steve's death the first thing I would do --upset though I will be-- is go straight to his house and remove all the pornography before his parents can find it.
Susan: You're kidding!
Jeff: And he's pledged to do the same for me. That's how close we are!
Susan: You two have seriously made plans to destroy each other's dirty mags?
Jeff: Who said, "destroy?" Remove.
Susan: you wouldn't keep them?
Jeff: It's a perk.
Susan: Oh, Jeff.
Jeff: That's the beauty of it, you see. Your best friend's dead, but there's a bright side!
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Sounds like a movie plot. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sounds like a movie plot. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Sounds like a movie plot. (Score:5, Funny)
*sniff* Now you know the terrible secret.
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My Digital Legacy (Score:5, Funny)
Why yes, in fact, there is!
And imagine their surprise as my offspring open up my safe deposit box only to find a piece of paper with my Slashdot login & password and a note about trying to only post comments that are informative, insightful, interesting, or funny.
So what's the value of a 3-digit /. UID? (Score:3, Funny)
Do famous UID's appreciate?
Will CleverNickName's progeny inherit a ton of
How manu UIDs have shuffled off this moral coil? Should there be a virtual graveyeard for the UIDs of the deceased?
Is there historical value to the early musings of UID so-and-so, who went on to become the first Supreme Hegemon of the Terran Aliance?
Will far-future biologists marvel at the distended rectums of
Re:So what's the value of a 3-digit /. UID? (Score:3, Funny)
Put it on Ebay and find out, stranger thangs than that have sold for absurd amounts, why not a low /. UID?
Re:My Digital Legacy (Score:3, Interesting)
Taxes (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Taxes (Score:5, Insightful)
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Generation without a past (Score:5, Interesting)
Kind of.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Interestingly, he still about 50-100 spam emails per day.
Re:Kind of.... (Score:5, Interesting)
IMHO, it's better to walk away from death than to wallow in it.
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Re:Kind of.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Kind of.... (Score:3, Funny)
So is this his slashdot account or yours?
--
Q
Re:Kind of.... (Score:4, Funny)
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No way (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmm (Score:4, Interesting)
My music is the only non software thing that I have paid for, file wise, on my computer.
But truth is, I sincerily hope all my software is obsolete by the time I die!
Anyone remember the case of the guy who died in Iraq, and his parents wanted his Yahoo password to see what was in there for sentimentality? I believe Yahoo ended up having to give the password to his parents...
When I was deployed however, my wife and I sent some emails that I definately wouldn't want my parents seeing, so I think this guys p-word should have stayed private....
Re:Hmmm (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hmmm (Score:3, Interesting)
I am screwed (Score:5, Funny)
In case of my death... (Score:5, Interesting)
I also have plans of sending out a "dead man's switch" email.
The worst things I have seen are the web pages of the recently departed. There are static pages out there that only the owners can change due to privacy and passwords.
Re:In case of my death... (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, why would she be billed for this account? If he set it up, on his card, as the owner (which is the crux of your statement), what is she involved for? If it was her car
Longevity (Score:3, Interesting)
The mind reels (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess that's not so bad; we aging I.T. types can soon get jobs in legal offices maintaining their legacy equipment.
-Kurt
Re:The mind reels (Score:4, Interesting)
I do think it would be a neat idea, though, if we had something like the Library of Congress for computing. Or at least data storage. Manufacturers, send in two units of your storage device, and one set of associated signal-processing equipment which produces a standard output. Keep them in some big warehouse somewhere. Maintainance would be a bit of a problem, I suppose (I'm thinking of some old open-reel decks I've seen where the rubber parts have slowly "melted" into puddles in the bottom of the cases). Oh, well -- you have to admit that would be a cool facility to visit, though.
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Subpoena (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering that they can subpoena your diary, and use it against you in a court of law, the only place safe to keep your passwords is in your head. And then, what with keyloggers, it's only safe if you don't use it also.
Website (Score:4, Insightful)
What about a bit of money invested with instructions specifying that that money is to be used to continue payments for web hosting/domain registration for any website(s) that you have now and want to continue on after you're gone? This is something that I've considered, but to date, haven't acted on.
If you have a blog, maybe it'd be worth considering a plan to have it export it to static HTML and just having that hosted at Geocities/GooglePages, unless you plan on posting from beyond the grave.
Somehwere in the distant future... (Score:5, Funny)
Ah yes, a truly magical moment (Score:5, Funny)
What about inheriting DRM'd files? (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright must be limited; apparently it can be a hell of a long limit, but Constitutionally it must be limited in the U.S. And everyone knows that digital files don't age--as long as you keep them on fresh media they will sound just as good (if not better) 300 years from now. Yet there are no limits placed into DRM systems, nor sunset provisions to remove the DRM when the copyright expires.
This seems to me to be a system that actually prevents compliance with a Constitutional mandate. Why hasn't this been an avenue of legal challenge to DRM yet?
Re:What about inheriting DRM'd files? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What about inheriting DRM'd files? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's right, because the purveyors of DRMed material are not going to allow any of that material to enter the public domain. Endless copyright extensions is the name of the game. Don't think that it's some kind of oversight on their part -- remember that if the content's copyright expires, then it would no longer be a DMCA
Re:What about inheriting DRM'd files? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet there are no limits placed into DRM systems, nor sunset provisions to remove the DRM when the copyright expires.
I think you'll find that most DRM systems have provisions for removing the DRM, theyre just not provided by the same people that made the DRM to begin with.
more important than some would think... (Score:3, Interesting)
More and more I see the reality that family websites, and other hosting/presences become heirlooms after time. My in-laws already like that my wife and I put some photos up on a website for them to be able to get to, I can see that expanding. Eventually the family website might be the magical thing that is passed down from matriarch to matriarch within a family the way the photo albums are now. Someday my son or daughter may be maintaining the old site and see blogs I posted and get all misty eyed like I do about the stopwatch my grandfather left to me.
Now my porn? Well that I will be encrypting.. for all the reasons mentioned above.
porn! (Score:5, Interesting)
"And now, as expressed in his will, all the porn on Dale's computer will be shown to the mourners."
Now that's a way to go!
If I ever work up the guts I might put something like this in the will.
got the idea from this comic [alessonislearned.com]
(which I hereby shamelessly plug, because they deserve to be slashdotted)
Probably not to my family (Score:3, Interesting)
I own a couple of domains, one is celardore based, and the other is my IRL name. It would be cool to leave some money behind - say enough for domain registration of my IRL name for 100 years, and then have the URL on my tombstone. After it runs out? I won't care.
Online Communities (Score:3, Interesting)
This actually happened with one moderator at one of the forums I frequent [livingwithstyle.com], She passed away suddenly and someone in her family notified the admins on the site. We got a huge collection together and sent a whole bunch of money to her family.
Domain names (Score:3, Interesting)
I can picture it now:
"Being of sound mind and body, I do herby bequeath MutantGoat.com to my heirs....."
-ted
Ick so low tech and no fun... (Score:4, Interesting)
The fun is that there are 3 more caches with only Lattitude and longitude for the next cache....
I so love screwing with people 50 years from now.
how to archive/preserve: tips (Score:3, Informative)
Lawyers who prepare wills are loathe to touch copyright issues in your will (especially when the financial value is hypothetical). That requires getting a copyright attorney. The best thing to do is appoint a dependable/knowledgable executor or trustee (see below).
My suggestions:
1)sign a durable power of attorney to a close friend or family member. That gives them access to bank acccounts and web acccounts. (I don't think executors can do this without a court order). Usually you can download a form from the net for free.
2)Emphasize to executors and family members about the first thing they need to do when you die: FIND OUT WHO ARE THE WEBHOSTS AND ENSURE THOSE THINGS CONTINUE TO BE PAID. Nongeeky people are clueless about this. (also, it might be good checking into webhost policies for handling nonpayment of webhosting).
3)A yearly zip file consisting of contact information of friends, account info, and passwords would be a good idea. I'll leave it to slashdotters to figure out how to safeguard this.
4)I'm a writer/content producer and I created a testamentary trust for someone living after me to archive my creative content. That said, unless you pay lots of legal fees to draw up something more elaborate, it's hard to depend on your executor or trustee to handle the archiving duties well. The best way to ensure that "sensitive information" doesn't get tossed aside or shared inappropriately is to bequeath your computer equipment to someone with the discretion and technical proficiency to know what needs to be done.
5)I should reiterate the necessity of making a good list of people to contact after your death. My siblings and parents have absolutely no idea who needs to be contacted. Some of these contacts would be in a better position to know what to do and what kinds of online content you have.
6)obviously media backups are a good idea.
A current topic for me (Score:5, Informative)
My parents had established trusts which vastly simplified handling of the estate. I had transfered his memorial society membership and pre-selected a cremation facility so when he died, we just had to make one phone call and transport, cremation, death-certificates, etc. were all handled.
Still, the whole death thing has been a learning experience.
When things have been done correctly, handling things is a breeze. The house and larger accounts were in the trust and we were properly named as successor trustees on the accounts. Disbursing them was simply a matter of providing a death-certificate, disbursal instructions and a couple signatures.
When the Ts aren't crossed and Is not dotted, things are more of a problem. My father had a small checking account on which he forgot to list beneficiaries. Although it amounts to less than 0.1% of the estate it was more work to deal with than the large accounts.
Email and electronic access presents an interesting problem. Just try to close a paypal account when you don't have access to the email of the deceased. Fortunately, I had my dad's laptop (and he was using my email server to handle his mail) so I was able to "forget" the password and ultimately to cancel the account. It also allowed me to unsubscribe from his mailing lists and made it easier to transfer control of various web accounts.
Check caching is a pain, too. Turn in your FastTrak transponder, cancel the landline, insurance, cell service, internet service, etc., and submit final insurance claims. Suddenly you will get a bunch of checks made out to the dead person. When you notify financial institutions that a person has died they freeze the accounts and cashing checks made out to the deceased is an exercise in paperwork. You also have to track down things that are on autopay. Then when you cancel them you may ultimately find money appearing in accounts that you thought you had closed. While not "legal", I was told by an attorney that things are a lot easier if at least one financial institution doesn't know the person is dead. Tell them only after you have deposited all the checks.
My advice....
If you care for your loved ones, take a moment in the next couple days to make a list of all of your accounts. Then verify the beneficiary information on all of them.
Make funeral arrangements. In our family this was easy since none of us are into forking over cash to the "death mafia" and so have opted for the least expensive cremation available through the local memorial society. When my neighbor died (expectedly at 90+), her son suddenly realized that he didn't know what to do next so he called the fire department. It's nice to have things pre-arranged so you aren't stuck thinking, "now what am I supposed to do" at an already difficult time. It also makes you less vulnerable to fast-talking funeral arrangers.
If you have assets in excess of $100,000 (in California, anyway), establish a trust. And assets != net worth. You may owe $599,000 on your $600,000 house but the asset still exceeds $100,000 and your loved ones will have to slog through probate which is a royal pain involving $$$, lawyers, courts and time. It's also all open to the public. With a properly drawn trust your successors may not need a lawyer at all and your business will stay private. (We have an attorney for the occasional question but have handled nearly all the estate ourselves.)
Given the overwhelming amount of time required just to deal with a house and two lifetimes of collected stuff, I'm extremely thankful that we aren't dealing with probate, too.
I've seen this happen. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I think this kind of thing is neglected... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds nice, but that idea is utterly defenseless against fraud.
Re:Go ahead, punch me (Score:5, Interesting)
I compose and record music. I struggle with certain kinds of DRM and copy protection, because I would seriously like to be able to put my tools and my work in a time capsule and have it be usable to future generations.
I understand that digital media can be volatile. Plastics evaporate. Magnetic bits realign. Etc. I can handle that, because that makes *me* responsible for the media.
What I *cannot* handle, is any form of crypto that "protects" my work, or "protects" the software needed to reproduce my work. If it's tied to a certain piece of hardware, if it needs to call home, or if it prevents me from making a copy, it is completely unacceptable to me. I take it as far as considering it to be an abridgement of my own rights if the tools and media are not open to me, particularly if they are closed through hard crypto.
I started a Masters Thesis on the work of Bach (I'm a Music Theory major). One thing that fascinated me was the amount of detailed understanding that we can derive from Bach's manuscripts, both the ones he created himself and those that were copywritten. For example we're able to deduce whether Bach had a particular composition complete in his head before he sat down to compose, or whether he sketched out a framework and filled it in over a period of time. We have a pretty good sample, and he had different processes for different kinds of musical ideas. It's even possible to make deductions based on the way he started drawing the staves. Open to debate, to say the least, but regardless of where you stand on the controversy, it is very fascinating to have some visualization into the thought processes of a composer, particularly, Bach.
It's unlikely and ironic that anyone 500 years from now will be able to look with the same level of detail at the writing processes of our contemporaries. It's not even clear that our media will *last* that long, even most contemporary paper and ink self-destructs. When you add DRM to the equation, you introduce yet another risk: That mathematics will not happen to have advanced to a point where current cryptosystems are rendered ineffective. Imagine a future archaeologist needing to break a 1024 bit public key system... I'm not the sort of optimist that believes future generations will know how to do such things in their head by third grade...
rant off.
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