Others in this thread have talked about safety deposit boxes and buried crates. I'd add that you can just give some trusted party a normal encrypted USB flash drive, and eliminate the risk of getting absolutely rinsed out in the event of a house burglary by splitting the password amongst an arbitrary number of your other contacts using the Shamir's Secret Sharing algorithm.
Also, unless your arbitrary number of friends are cryptographers, it's a sure way for them to collectively lose your shit.
If you are really paranoid, why not write a service that works like a dead mans switch and when you don't trigger it for n days it sends all the keys to the kingdom to those who should receive them.
At this point I've moved almost everything off Google and basically now only use my Gmail account for logins on websites I don't want to give my real email address to and to keep Inactive Account Manager setup to send the necessary info to get into my 1Password account to my brother if I die.
I have a will setup with all my financial details and have set beneficiaries everywhere but this feels like a good backup in case I forget to update it with something or my family has trouble gaining access using other means.
Google Apps strikes again...
Step 2: keep for N+1 days
Step 3: …*
Step 4: profit!
* where “…” just means “wait”
You can have 2-of-20 which encrypts an encrypted blob whose key you share in your will
If you put at least 3 of these
on top of each other, my Google
recovery code will appear here:
2 £ 3 > ]7 7#A E
Put them in envelopes, write “open in case John Doe dies” on them, and distribute them among friends.
If you distribute enough of them, I think there’s a reasonable chance they’ll recover your data.
As an improvement, distribute them not to your friends, but to their kids (the probability is higher they’ll be sane of mind when you die), and tell your attorney who has one.
I think that’s overkill, though. I’ve done it simpler: I wrote the full recovery codes down a few times and put them in a few places in my house.
I think that’s fine if I assume burglars won’t take them or won’t know what to do with them and I won’t die in a disaster that also destroys my house.
You might not die, but you might still end up in a pretty bad position: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2022/06/ive-locked-myself-out-of-my...
Incredibly unlikely, of course, but you'll certainly feel like a dick if it does happen.
* What to Do Before You Die: A Tech Checklist – https://archive.is/6vjqQ
* Cheat Sheet For If I'm Gone – https://archive.is/lnWX6 –https://github.com/christophercalm/if-im-gone/blob/main/exam... (HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31748553)
Or of course you can use multiple key storage techniques and have a 2 out of 3 or more type setup. It all depends on how valuable the information is.
You can buy a piece of 100x50x3 mm 316 stainless steel (thats 4"x2"x1/8" in freedom units) for around $5.
Engraving it is a simple matter of using a $10 automatic center punch and write the password out in dot punched letters.
If necessary, cut plate in N pieces with a hack saw, distribute among N people.
I always mark bicycles this way, dot punch my last name underneath the bottom bracket shell.
If we are talking just about credentials, you can just print the password and access instructions to a password manager and give it to the people you trust. This is one place were having a cloud password manager might be helpful, otherwise you would need to also provide the access to a device containing the offline manager (or a updated copy of it)
You probably don't need to keep a whole flash drive for credentials. Unless you also want to keep some other files secure without being on other devices