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Hacking My Mother’s Phone to Save Her Memories

nytimes.com

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Re: Hacking My Mother’s Phone to Save Her Memories

#61

Post by jacquesm »

rjohnk wrote: post #28
joshstrange wrote: post #6

I wonder how long (if ever) it will be until we have really good mechanisms for handling digital affairs after death. 1Password has the emergency kit [0] which I really should fill out and store alongside a will but I would need to write one of those first. It's just something that seems so.... antiquated? That's not the right word but writing a will feels like it will involve talking to a lawyer and not be cheap/eas…

I've been diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer. While I hope to be around for awhile yet, I'm getting things ready for my wife to take over our digital life. Setting things up for easy backup and retrieval, ect. One of the things I've started is a Word document with instructions on how to backup, what to do if the computer crashes, how to handle 1Password, what subscriptions are important ect. It'll be printed out an…

Wow that sucks. Strength to you.

Re: Hacking My Mother’s Phone to Save Her Memories

#62

Post by skinnymuch »

jorgesborges wrote: post #39
docker_up wrote: post #26

After going through my dad's computer while trying to fix it for him, I realized that there are a lot of things I really don't want to know about my parents. Everything I know about them is enough. Digging through their texts, their browsing history, their emails, etc is not fair in my opinion, and better left unread.

This sort of experience is fundamental to developing an appreciation for privacy. It just feels bad on a pretty basic level to have your privacy violated, or to uncover things you weren't supposed. Here's my two big transformative privacy moments. I'm fifteen and talking online with various strangers from all over the world, as one did at the time, and one night at 3am one of my closest friends calls me as a joke. It…

The dad story sucks. My parents spied on me when I was in high school too. That was the first time I learned to use Linux. However. It didn’t really do anything to me. I was furious at the time. But now a decade later it doesn’t matter at all.

I don’t think I’d care if someone close to me goes through my stuff if i die. And I don’t think my parents or brother would care if I go through their stuff if they pass away before they can set up how to deal with their digital stuff.

The only ramification I can think of would be my father being sad at seeing some of my behavior which he would view as immoral because of his conservatism.

Though on the other hand. I stumbled across two secrets of a close relative because of some physical disks being left behind when they went off somewhere. I’ve never brought it up to anyone. I do wish I never knew them. And I do believe many people would negatively judge what was seen. That would be unfortunate.

I guess I don’t think being so black and white with privacy like HN usually is, is so obvious. Like how I don’t value my privacy if I die that much.

Re: Hacking My Mother’s Phone to Save Her Memories

#63

Post by skinnymuch »

xgulfie wrote: post #53
docker_up wrote: post #26

After going through my dad's computer while trying to fix it for him, I realized that there are a lot of things I really don't want to know about my parents. Everything I know about them is enough. Digging through their texts, their browsing history, their emails, etc is not fair in my opinion, and better left unread.

I have a similar story. I bought a used NAS at a garage sale. The woman said it was her husband's, who had passed away a couple months ago. I took it home and fired it up. It didn't have a password on it or anything. So I went looking through photos of the backyard, birdfeeders, and thought "wow it's so sad this stuff was just given away". I felt bad for the family who might be missing all his photos. Then after a fe…

Wow that was really risky taking it to the police. You never know what a bad person might do or what story they might push for.

Re: Hacking My Mother’s Phone to Save Her Memories

#64

Post by rjohnk »

jacquesm wrote: post #61
rjohnk wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer. While I hope to be around for awhile yet, I'm getting things ready for my wife to take over our digital life. Setting things up for easy backup and retrieval, ect. One of the things I've started is a Word document with instructions on how to backup, what to do if the computer crashes, how to handle 1Password, what subscriptions are important ect. It'll be printed out an…

Wow that sucks. Strength to you.

Thanks. Ripe old age of 36 too. I'm optimistic though.

Re: Hacking My Mother’s Phone to Save Her Memories

#65

Post by zrail »

mulmen wrote: post #51
zrail wrote: post #24

In a related vein, I created a thing called VMSave a few years ago to let people easily save outgoing voicemail messages, something that the carriers make significantly harder than it should be. It’s saved almost 15,000 messages so far. https://vmsave.petekeen.net

This is really neat. I despise voicemail and never use it but for those that do it would be wonderful down the road.

Thanks!

Re: Hacking My Mother’s Phone to Save Her Memories

#66

Post by xgulfie »

notzuck wrote: post #57
xgulfie wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a similar story. I bought a used NAS at a garage sale. The woman said it was her husband's, who had passed away a couple months ago. I took it home and fired it up. It didn't have a password on it or anything. So I went looking through photos of the backyard, birdfeeders, and thought "wow it's so sad this stuff was just given away". I felt bad for the family who might be missing all his photos. Then after a fe…

I would have gone to the police with my lawyer, I would have asked for everything I say to be recorded. You were trusting the police to do the right thing bye you. Risky strategy.

Yeah in retrospect I should have just put a drill bit through it. But at the time I was just very afraid and wanted to do "the right thing".

Re: Hacking My Mother’s Phone to Save Her Memories

#67

Post by baroffoos »

MrGilbert wrote: post #22
the_snooze wrote: post #4

I'd feel a bit weirded out at the prospect of someone going through my digital records after I pass. Not so much for my own embarrassment (I'd be too dead to feel that, after all), but to protect the trust and confidentiality of everyone I've communicated with.

At the end, it doesn't matter if you go through the digital or "analog" records. I had to do the same after mom & dad passed away. I found a lot of open questions I'll never get an answer for. Ultimately, this made me a more open and honest person towards my siblings. They should never find something "surprisingly" in my digital or analog records. It also changed a bit how a communicate online. I never write somethin…

Yeah I totally want my relatives hacking my devices and browsing through a collection of furry porn.

Re: Hacking My Mother’s Phone to Save Her Memories

#68

Post by mirimir »

Seeing the title, I thought it'd be about Mom who dropped her phone, had a stroke, or whatever. And was still alive. That'd be sweet.

But for dead Mom? That's just plain creepy. Those kids might have learned all sorts of things that, in retrospect, they would have wished they hadn't. As in, for example, who their real Dad was.

Me, all of my machines and backups are full-disk encrypted (LUKS). With >64 character passphrases. So my memories will die with me. Except for those that I share online, anyway. And I do plan, as I get older, to share more freely. Given that there'll be less time to find me.

Re: Hacking My Mother’s Phone to Save Her Memories

#69

Post by solstice »

zrail wrote: post #24

In a related vein, I created a thing called VMSave a few years ago to let people easily save outgoing voicemail messages, something that the carriers make significantly harder than it should be. It’s saved almost 15,000 messages so far. https://vmsave.petekeen.net

So it saves the "hi, this is John Doe. I'm currently not available. Leave a message after the beep!", correct?

Re: Hacking My Mother’s Phone to Save Her Memories

#70

Post by Thorrez »

autoexec wrote: post #41
mholt wrote: post #18

Not quite what I expected when I clicked on this, but anyway. I would never treat my phone as my only copy of my data. I don't consider phone storage to be permanent OR a backup. If you're into preserving your memories that are locked into your online services and apps like Google Photos, Facebook, Twitter, etc, I've started a project called Timeliner which downloads your data to your own home computers: https://gith…

I've been looking for something like this for Reddit. I'd love to be able to pull down all of my comments there (ideally with context). The only things on my phone that I don't regularly back up are text conversations. I've seen tools that forward all your texts to a gmail account, but I'm not really looking to give all that data to Google assuming they aren't already reading them off my device.

Last I checked reddit only shows your your last 1000 comments. So it's impossible to get your older comments. I don't know how they do this in light of GDPR's data portability requirements.

See

https://www.reddit.com/r/help/comments/6ynrth/why_does_reddi...

https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/30a7ap/does_redd...

But what you can do is download every single comment on reddit, then search through that to find yours. See https://www.reddit.com/r/pushshift/

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