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Comment by IAmGraydon | Hacker News Reader

Why would you give it to anyone? That’s not how a dead man’s switch works.

Isn't it? A dead man's switch is a device that triggers an automatic action upon your death. Information and instructions given to a lawyer fits that definition.

Assuming the instructions are in the form of: if you don't hear from me once in some time period, then release the info. If instead they are instructed to release info when they confirm my death, then you could just be made to disappear and death could never be confirmed.

> ... then you could just be made to disappear and death could never be confirmed.

I don't know how it works in the US but there are definitely countries where after x years of disappearance you are legally declared death. And, yes, some people who are still alive and, say, left the EU for some country in South America, are still alive. Which is not my point. My point is that for inheritance purposes etc. there are countries who'll declared you death if you don't give any sign of life for x years.

I see. I guess I think of it as something that triggers automatically if you don’t reset it every day and doesn’t rely on another person. For example, a script that publishes the information if you don’t input the password every day.

And then it's published if you experience a temporary power outage. If it's important that it's only released if you're actually dead, putting it in the hands of a person is your only real option.

How could it be published without power.

The switch runs on a secret VPS. Otherwise they can just unplug your Internet connection and be safe.

A 'human dead mans switch' may well be more reliable than technology, so long as you pick the right person.

And you could even use SSS (Shamir's Secret Sharing - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir%27s_secret_sharing) to split the key to decrypt your confidential information across n people, such that some k (where k < n) of those people need to provide their share to get the key.

Then, for example, consider n = 5, k = 3 - if any 3 of 5 selected friends decide the trigger has been met, they can work together to decrypt the information. But a group of 2 of the 5 could not - reducing the chance of it leaking early if a key share is stolen / someone betrays or so on. It also reduces the chance of it not being released when it should, due someone refusing or being unable to act (in that case, up to 2 friends could be incapacitated, unwilling to follow the instructions, or whatever, and it could still be released).

Then you just make those friends a target. They only need to buy-off or kill 3. It is unlikely the general public would know of them, so it likely wouldn’t be reported on.

I wonder if having some sort of public/semi-public organization of trading parts of SSS's could be done.

Right now, as an individual, you'd have pretty small number of trusted N's (from parents definition). With some organization, maybe you could get that number way up, so possibility of destroying the entire scheme could be close to impossible with rounding up large number of the population.

This reminds me of an idea to create a "global programmer's union"

Turn it around: require a 3/5 quorum to disarm the public-release deadman switch. Buying off 3 people whose friend you have just murdered isn't going to be trivial.

You think that people will be less motivated to do what they’re told after someone has proven a willingness to kill?

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