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Comment by mongol | Hacker News Reader

Does LinkedIn have something like this? I want my successor to post about my demise there, if I die before retirement.

I think this opens another Pandora's box of fake posts from nominated accounts.

Someone nominated their spouse, they are splitting and the spouse makes a fake demise post. Can legit get people to panic if the person in question is famous enough.

Also, if you are careful with your accounts (random 30 character length passwords, 2FA etc) and your nominated successor has not, that's an additional attack vector.

Personal anecdote: The LinkedIn thing happened to me. My skip level manager died in a freak accident (He was 44-45 yrs old at that time) and I noticed his profile until as recently as about a year ago. It still showed him employed at the company. I am sure people got "Congratulate <person> for completing his 5th year at <company>" while his profile was around. His profile has now been deleted. Not sure who did it or how it happened.

For me, LinkedIn seems the best channel to reach out to my network for something like this. I am not on Facebook and I don't think many people pay attention to obituarys in newspapers any more. But I think I have a plan now. I will put the instructions in an envelope and include the password plus the 2FA reserve code with it. I will put the envelope in a place in my home and let my sucessor know about it through an online service I have found and trust.

what service are you using?

I live in Sweden but I found several options offered by funeral homes/ undertaker associations. They are usually called "The White Archive" (but in Swedish) and were free as well.

That all works right up until you die in a house fire

Or if the earth gets hit by an asteroid? How do you take care about your various online accounts then?

I would just pass a note to my relatives with my passwords and they then may delete accounts, or not. I rather care about my real life to be honest, and not my virtual legacy.

You can use www.deadmansswitch.net to send people your credentials (make sure you encrypt them first).

EDIT: I made this.

Give your successor your account deets.

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