If you die, your 100+ accounts are a nightmare for your family | Hacker News Reader

If you die, your 100+ accounts are a nightmare for your family

cnn.com

17 pointsBrajeshwar18 comments

This feels like a paid ad for eg MyWishes. I can't imagine this is a natural story someone felt was newsworthy

Perhaps, but it surely can be a problem. Your partner must surely be informed about all account details, but e.g. children? My father has a list somewhere. I hope he keeps it up to date, because I'll be the one that can figure out how to cancel them.

Solution: use a password manager, and write down your key/password details on a piece of paper that you store in physical vault - the key to which you can instruct to provide via last will & testament.

How do you handle Multi factor? Even with my passwords you need my phone and sms typically to get into my accounts.

Write your phone's PIN on that paper. This is my plan as well.

1Password stores the MFA details as well. Your phone/email passwords and all can be stored in there as well. Since my parents are aging, we have a bit of experience with this process.

Why in the world would I want anyone to dig through my private matters while I'm dead?

Why would you care when you're dead?

If you don't care what happens after your death, then your accounts becoming inaccessible doesn't matter, and there is no reason to do anything at all.

Most of us think that way when we're young and/or have nothing.

As you get older, build up assets, have a family, etc, you then realise that you have a choice: pass on what you have built to your wife, children, nephews, friends, etc or let the government have it all when it passes to 'general revenue'.

Now that's your choice, pass it on to loved ones, or throw it away. Most of us would rather it went to the Retired Pussycats Home than let the government get its dirty hands on it.

Without your Will, the government can take the lot. (That rarely happens, but it's a good possibility. You know: Admin Fees, Storage Fees, Consultants Fees, Legal Fees, Fees for this, Fees for that. Amazing how quickly all those little fees can add up.)

I meant it more in the sense of who cares what people think of your private matters when you're dead; you certainly won't. That said, this comes off as a bit overly... Libertarian?

I'm not particularly young and in fact do have assets. Perhaps more assets than most. I expect to have no need of them when I'm gone and don't particularly care what happens after that. I will write down a few passwords and general guidelines for whoever is left, but I figure they can do what they want at that point.

Then this entire thread is irrelevant for you. If you have stuff you want to keep private and not share with your family (e.g. diary, pr0n stash) then don't put it in your password manager.

What do I care? I’ll be dead by then.

Totally agree, the only things could eventually photos/videos for family/friends. Every account will be deleted after inactivity anyway.

The IT solution for such succession issues is something most people do not want, especially the giants living on walled gardens.

The first part is be LOCAL FIRST for anything, living the FDE key available in a safe, secondly having digital IDs, the PGP/GNUPG model, where anyone have a pair of keys, the public formally recognized by the State, and allowing third parties to accept the heir + notary as valid means to transfer an account properly. Aside all home systems must be IaC style, so anyone can manage them reading a single config repository NOT needing to know the current state of things outside the repo.

The main issue though is that anyone use computers, but only very few know them, as a result most of the population is digitally illiterate to a point of being unable to do all basic stuff they need to do.

Absolute Rule: Keep ALL the critical information written down, in a known and accessible place. Unless your family is swimming in IT pro's, who are physically and mentally available in the moment of need, assuming that they'll know (or can figure out (or can find (or will even suspect the existence of))) the details and how-to-use is simply delusional.

The last friend I lost left 4 pages of "how to access, if I pass" information for his siblings. After two weeks of work at his house, with all his devices in hand...that still was not enough for them to get into several important things. And this was a family with PhD's, who'd spent their careers in hard science research.

This story will naturally separate the young Hacker News readers from the older ones .. lol

s/if/when

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