21–30 of 194 posts
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 as easily as any other).
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…
edit: I see other commenters shared this idea too.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The answer is shamir's secret sharing algorithm. Give a chunk of your password to N friends who you trust, with instructions to recombine it.
I've been (lightly) thinking about this with regard to digital identity. One of the few use cases that I find very compelling with regard to blockchain/web3 tech is as a means of ID/auth much in the same way that many sites now offer options to log in with FB/Google/etc. One big obstacle (I imagine, I haven't really looked into this that far) is that of the password reset. Some non-trivial amount of people will forge…
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…
You could probably use Shamir Secret Sharing so you'd need to have k out of n parts to recover the information. Downside is that this complicates what is supposed to be simple. edit: I see other commenters shared this idea too.
And then the rest is the set of URLs which point to the various things, having a key/URL in the keystore, which own the DNS, the VM, the mailboxes, the bank accounts, you-name-it
the keystore also has QR codes to restore the 2FA. It has the unlock for the devices which are live on the 2FA codes, but can recover most of them. The exception is a single bank token which seems to use the secure region on my phone to bootstrap its one-time state, and so you have to re-initialize through the bank.
Since the only account of merit is a joint account, either I'm survived by the person who has access anyway, or we're both gone and legally the account is frozen.
What it also says is "FOR GOODNESS SAKE DO NOT TELL I AM GONE" because they will lock things up: Better to gain access, learn what you need torrid or not, and then let them do it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The answer is shamir's secret sharing algorithm. Give a chunk of your password to N friends who you trust, with instructions to recombine it.
That has failure modes, though, especially death on one of the N (might seem unlikely but I just had to help a friend unfuck a family member's finances after he died in a car accident next to the one trusted associate who had all his logins saved in an account locked behind 2FA secured by his iPhone which he didn't leave the unlock code to with anyone). I know there are other schemes where you only need M of N to tur…
My partner doesn't even know what Github or markdown is. I'm better off writing it in plain English and putting it in a bank safe.
keepass database with passwords and secrets, paswword protected archive of 2FA qr codes, on usb drives, in two locations.
Master key and phone pin in the safe at the bank
The "how it works" section has more information [3] but it essentially boils down to trusted individuals requesting access - which can be manually approved by account holder or they are automatically granted access after a pre-defined wait time.
Bitwarden (paid version) also claims this - "If your premium features are cancelled or lapses due to failed payment method, your trusted emergency contacts will still be able to request and obtain access to your Vault. You will, however, not be able to add new or edit existing trusted emergency contacts."
[1] - https://bitwarden.com/help/emergency-access/ [2] - https://github.com/dani-garcia/vaultwarden/wiki/ [3] - https://bitwarden.com/help/emergency-access/#how-it-works
The valuable part of this document is reminding us what to remind them of. I would add: Do you have any private investments? Convertible notes or stocks? Should have a login for AngelList or whatever platform if it’s through one. Then other assets like bank account, brokerage account, deeds to house and car. And I agree this is stuff that — if possible — should be shared and discussed in real time.
The big problem with this that I don't have a good answer to... we've been told to use a password manager and have it secured with a long passphrase... and now we write down the username/passphrase on a piece of paper or somewhere else easily accessible - how to adequately secure that? Maybe encrypt the passphrase under an m of n scheme and distribute to family & friends that you can trust to not collaborate unless y…
Leave it in escrow with a lawyer, along with a copy of your will. If you are super cautious, leave an encrypted copy (or half the passwords etc) with one lawyer/escrow, and have a separate lawyer/escrow hold the decryption key/other half of the passwords etc. Along with easy instructions on how to decrypt! End of the day, if I die at an old age, my heirs will also be old and possibly not into computers/tech. I prefer…