Cheat sheet for if I'm gone • Hacker News Board

Re: Cheat sheet for if I'm gone

#111

Post by RalfWausE » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 11:28 AM UTC

lentil_soup wrote: post #90

RalfWausE wrote: post #35

To add another layer: It could also youself who might need such an 'cheat sheet': My dad suffers from an previously undiagnosed heart problem which escalated pretty badly last year, with a multi month long stay in hospital, coma etc.. He is now back and well, but time in a coma can do bad fuckery to your brain, in part to ones memory... He simply lost some significant parts and now he is pretty good occupied untangli…

A similar situation can arise under duress. On the contrary to what people claim online, in dangerous places you want to cooperate with criminals, not get in between them and your stuff. Under that type of stress it's very easy to forget passwords which might make criminals believe you're not cooperating. Having some things writen down (probably not all?) has come in handy for me personally.

It sounds like an interesting (the horrifying kind of interesting) story looms behind this post...

But besides this, yeah, this may also be a valid case for some simple recovery strategy.

Re: Cheat sheet for if I'm gone

#112

Post by zs234465234165 » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 11:29 AM UTC

Am I the only one that opened this hoping it was a dang post?

Re: Cheat sheet for if I'm gone

#113

Post by dlsa » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 11:39 AM UTC

Good idea. Also needed as part of a disaster recovery or continuity plan. Eg every business should have one.

For those who use a domain with a catchall on it for various purposes... do you have a plan for dealing with what happens if you die and all those many many aliases inadvertantly get handed to some new domain owner?

Re: Cheat sheet for if I'm gone

#114

Post by hamter » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 11:42 AM UTC

Dashlane actually has a deadman's switch feature. You can give it a list of accounts who can request access and if/when they request access you have 24 hours to decline them. After that they get access.

Too bad they got rid of their native apps....what a pain. I wish 1password had a feature like that.

Re: Cheat sheet for if I'm gone

#115

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 11:42 AM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #98

sema4hacker wrote: post #21

A friend of a relative had their house burglarized over a weekend. The burglars took their time and took apart everything, cutting all pictures out of their frames, etc. If a written password existed, they would have found it. The "give it to an attorney" plan would also worry me, unless I knew exactly who/what/when/where/why/how access was controlled and GUARANTEED (after all, an attorney's system could break down a…

> The burglars took their time and took apart everything, cutting all pictures out of their frames, etc. If a written password existed, they would have found it. That seems astonishingly thorough, as if it must have been targeted? The burglaries I've heard of locally just grab the most reachable items, especially car keys. > GUARANTEED The thing with giving it to an attorney is you would have an contract, and I would…

[deleted]

Re: Cheat sheet for if I'm gone

#116

Post by philliphaydon » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 11:45 AM UTC

theshrike79 wrote: post #108

philliphaydon wrote: post #33

BitWarden has an emergency access feature. https://bitwarden.com/help/emergency-access/ Essentially you grant another BitWarden user as an emergency access user. They can request access, and you have 7 days to decline access. After 7 days it grants them access to your vault.

Better not go for a 8 day off-grid adventure if you don't trust your emergency access user a 1000%

Would be a bit weird to give someone you don’t trust emergency access.

Re: Cheat sheet for if I'm gone

#117

Post by ellen364 » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 11:49 AM UTC

I wonder about the legal position of recipients of these cheatsheet. In particular, how much trouble can they get into for using the passwords?

Say probate is taking a long time, so someone logs into the bank account and withdraws money for everyday essentials. That’s probably one reason the deceased person left the cheatsheet. But what happens when a bank notices money being withdrawn from the bank account of a dead person? Presumably it gets flagged as fraud. And if the estate is still going through probate, the person withdrawing money might not have a legal right to do that.

Re: Cheat sheet for if I'm gone

#118

Post by yosito » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 11:50 AM UTC

I live an internationally nomadic lifestyle. Most of the info in this doc doesn't apply to my life. I also have no dependents, so if I die, it's up to the corporations to deal with the loose ends I leave. I don't really have a reason to leave them a cheat sheet.

However, recently I've heard some horror stories from friends about losing access to their phones or being detained in immigration or other places with little access to the outside world. So I've created a document with important information in the case of emergencies that I've shared with trusted contacts. It includes how to access copies of my identity documents, contacts of key people in my life, my last known address, upcoming travel plans, contact information for my clients. I'm considering automating some parts of it, but for now it's basically just a text document in a cloud drive.

Re: Cheat sheet for if I'm gone

#119

Post by giancarlostoro » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 12:07 PM UTC

petercooper wrote: post #94

Also consider what happens if someone is incapacitated but not dead. Getting into email, bank, etc. is one thing, but what if you own property with someone who is suddenly and irreversibly brain damaged? I strongly recommend filing a lasting power of attorney in advance if your risk of this is non-negligible. My mother is living a nightmare due to it right now as she assumed being someone's spouse would let you take…

Not sure if anyone on HN knows: do wills work for medical emergencies too? Because I would assume you could setup an emergency power of attorney for such a scenario. It is ridiculous that you cannot sell your home if your spouse is incapable of consenting.

Re: Cheat sheet for if I'm gone

#120

Post by petercooper » Wed, Jun 15, 2022, 12:15 PM UTC

giancarlostoro wrote: post #119

petercooper wrote: post #94

Also consider what happens if someone is incapacitated but not dead. Getting into email, bank, etc. is one thing, but what if you own property with someone who is suddenly and irreversibly brain damaged? I strongly recommend filing a lasting power of attorney in advance if your risk of this is non-negligible. My mother is living a nightmare due to it right now as she assumed being someone's spouse would let you take…

Not sure if anyone on HN knows: do wills work for medical emergencies too? Because I would assume you could setup an emergency power of attorney for such a scenario. It is ridiculous that you cannot sell your home if your spouse is incapable of consenting.

I imagine it varies by jurisdiction. Here in the UK you can create something called a "living will" but it's mostly about how you want to be treated in terms of your health (think DNR type stuff) and living arrangements and isn't legally enforceable on its own like a regular will – certainly not for something like selling jointly owned property: https://www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/money-legal/lega...

I imagine if we ever get around to accepting euthanasia as a society the idea around a living will need to become formalised. For decades my dad was very clear he would prefer to be dead than exist in the state he is now but sadly the law insists he, or whatever is left of him, must suffer.