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Dead Man's Switch

beta.deadmansswitch.net

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61–70 of 101 posts

Re: Dead Man's Switch

#61

Post by JoeAltmaier »

quanticle wrote: post #55
prpon wrote: post #50

A cousin passed away few years back with cancer. It wasn't sudden but wasn't expected either. (He was 37 and responding well to treatment). His wife was completely uninterested with regards to finances and bills. He was quite meticulous and wrote down every single account he owned, details like account number, login, password in an excel spreadsheet. It was a lot of help for her. I worry about security of such a syst…

Well, the best thing would be to write up all that, print it out, and put it in the same safe-deposit box that holds your will. Of all the storage media we have, paper is still the best proven for long-term retrieval.

Never, never put your will into a safe-deposit box. That cannot be opened after you die until you have an executor. Which happens after the will is found.

Just make a couple copies, leave on in your desk, in your office, in your bedside table, with your lawyer. They are not secret documents, not something you have to lock up.

Re: Dead Man's Switch

#62

Post by StavrosK »

lawlit wrote: post #58
StavrosK wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can just send us an email and prove that you own the account and we'll change your email for you, it's not that big a problem.

Do you have a policy for how users can _prove_ that they are who they're claiming to be ? Can you handle having _too_many_ users under the terms of that policy ?

The only proof we have is the email validation, but the service doesn't claim to actually be a will. It's more about emailing your friends or family one last time.

I don't understand the question about too many users, can you clarify?

Re: Dead Man's Switch

#63

Post by JoeAltmaier »

ctdonath wrote: post #52
cek wrote: post #33

Better idea: Live your life in such a way that you have no regrets. Tell people how you feel, when you feel. Don't burn bridges.

Non-sequitur. To the contrary, it may ensure bridges are there when you aren't, and may tell people how you feel when you're not around to. Example: there are a lot of people whom I care about, but who - with no ill will involved - we've drifted off in our own directions as life tends to. We have vague contact info, and lacking that have mutual friends who can pass things on if need be. Come my demise, I may want a m…

I'm thinking the parent comment was still right. Why not say those things now? Its not 'interrupting everyone', its keeping in contact. Its important to do that now, especially if you haven't in a while.

Re: Dead Man's Switch

#64

Post by andre »

postfuturist wrote: post #56

I've often entertained the idea of creating a piece of software to tend to certain things after my passing, beyond just sending out a batch of emails. It could reply to emails with canned responses for certain people, even a little AI to respond to questions. Sounds pretty narcissistic now that I think about it. Who really wants to be pestered with emails from dead people?

check out the Daemon and Freedom books..... along those lines, just 1000x more so. http://thedaemon.com/

Re: Dead Man's Switch

#65

Post by fishtoaster »

StavrosK wrote: post #42
corin_ wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I concur, with the following additional reasons. First, depending on what you meant by "mess up": there's a chance they're not trustworthy (would read something you don't want read), and there's also a chance they screw up (and lose what you want sent - or send it when it shouldn't be sent). Perhaps an even bigger thing for me is that an email seems so... off-hand, informal. I think if a friend/relative/etc died and…

Hey guys, I read the entire frontpage and somehow missed this story: I made Dead Man's Switch, and the beta is the second iteration, hosted on GAE. I certainly didn't expect it to be HNed so early. These are all valid concerns. This isn't meant to replace wills or lawyers, it's just something to tell your friends to maybe look for you in the mountains if you don't respond in X days. Some people also had the idea of u…

Have you considered setting up an api? If I used this, I'd worry that if I forget to respond to the emails or something. Letting me hook it into other events that indicate I'm alive, such as logging into my laptop, etc, would prevent this.

It'd really be a one-action api- send a post request to some url to keep me alive, with some level of authentication.

Re: Dead Man's Switch

#66

Post by zethraeus »

I think I've seen services like this before, and either way would rather get a physical person/company with some recourse for acting incorrectly to do it.

But, take a look at the favicon. The broken lemniscate is bizarrely poignant/morbid for a 16*16 pixel square. Neat design.

Re: Dead Man's Switch

#67

Post by palish »

StavrosK wrote: post #42
corin_ wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I concur, with the following additional reasons. First, depending on what you meant by "mess up": there's a chance they're not trustworthy (would read something you don't want read), and there's also a chance they screw up (and lose what you want sent - or send it when it shouldn't be sent). Perhaps an even bigger thing for me is that an email seems so... off-hand, informal. I think if a friend/relative/etc died and…

Hey guys, I read the entire frontpage and somehow missed this story: I made Dead Man's Switch, and the beta is the second iteration, hosted on GAE. I certainly didn't expect it to be HNed so early. These are all valid concerns. This isn't meant to replace wills or lawyers, it's just something to tell your friends to maybe look for you in the mountains if you don't respond in X days. Some people also had the idea of u…

I'm not sure the elderly would respond very well to your application's (perfectly awesome!) name.

Re: Dead Man's Switch

#68

Post by StavrosK »

palish wrote: post #67
StavrosK wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey guys, I read the entire frontpage and somehow missed this story: I made Dead Man's Switch, and the beta is the second iteration, hosted on GAE. I certainly didn't expect it to be HNed so early. These are all valid concerns. This isn't meant to replace wills or lawyers, it's just something to tell your friends to maybe look for you in the mountains if you don't respond in X days. Some people also had the idea of u…

I'm not sure the elderly would respond very well to your application's (perfectly awesome!) name.

Haha, hmm, you're right there. However, that is the standard name of any device that triggers when the user loses consciousness or is otherwise incapacitated.

Re: Dead Man's Switch

#69

Post by StavrosK »

fishtoaster wrote: post #65
StavrosK wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey guys, I read the entire frontpage and somehow missed this story: I made Dead Man's Switch, and the beta is the second iteration, hosted on GAE. I certainly didn't expect it to be HNed so early. These are all valid concerns. This isn't meant to replace wills or lawyers, it's just something to tell your friends to maybe look for you in the mountains if you don't respond in X days. Some people also had the idea of u…

Have you considered setting up an api? If I used this, I'd worry that if I forget to respond to the emails or something. Letting me hook it into other events that indicate I'm alive, such as logging into my laptop, etc, would prevent this. It'd really be a one-action api- send a post request to some url to keep me alive, with some level of authentication.

You can load any webpage on the site, and it will keep you alive. It's as simple as doing a POST on the form, but it should be trivial for me to implement a simple API, so I'll write this soon!

It will probably be something like:

    https://www.deadmansswitch.net/api/checkin/?username&password
However, GAE can't do https on that domain yet, and I don't feel very secure passing credentials like that, so I might have to issue API keys. Still, not very hard, thanks for the suggestion!

Re: Dead Man's Switch

#70

Post by StavrosK »

zethraeus wrote: post #66

I think I've seen services like this before, and either way would rather get a physical person/company with some recourse for acting incorrectly to do it. But, take a look at the favicon. The broken lemniscate is bizarrely poignant/morbid for a 16*16 pixel square. Neat design.

That's the company logo, I didn't get around to changing it yet:

http://www.stochastictechnologies.com/

I hadn't noticed how well it fits until you pointed it out, I think I'll keep it.

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