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Comment by throw0101a | Hacker News Reader

> And without care. Everyone's precious photo albums will go with them to the grave.

If you're in the Apple ecosystem, please set up a recovery key so that your loved ones can access your photos and other things in case something unexpected should happen:

* https://support.apple.com/en-ca/109345

More generally: open Notepad (or whatever) and put the URL, username, and password for e-mail† account and bank/credit card accounts (and phone PIN), print it out, and put the paper in a sealed envelope and show its location (on top of fridge?) to a trusted friend/family.

† If someone can access your e-mail / SMS, they can probably reset any other account(s).

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This needs to be published by everyone who has a blog and shared with friends and family everywhere.

I know first hand the mess from my friend who died of cancer at 38 leaving behind a wife and daughter with not only only accounts being locked out but a sprawling home lab that they did not understand. Even things like smart lights became a stumbling block when they could not control them. The router was a virtual machine on a rack mounted server in the basement. Had to unwind a lot.

>Even things like smart lights became a stumbling block when they could not control them. The router was a virtual machine on a rack mounted server in the basement. Had to unwind a lot.

A possibly unpopular opinion is that people should think long and hard about things like smart lights so that they can have cool mood lighting or whatever. I'm needing to have a lot of electrical redone because of a kitchen fire--microwave offed itself in the middle of the night, scary--and I told my electrician "no smart stuff." Which he was totally on-board with. I honestly think it's pretty much a gimmick for most people.

A safe deposit box isn't expensive and can store a hard copy of your passwords and other personal information.

Although fewer bank branches have them and passwords change/get added. And anything that requires manual effort to update often won't get done. Heck, updating my tech info at home has been on my to-do list for at least a year.

Or even free with a checking account. Depends on the branch. I think the right strategy is to store the high level passwords that do not change much and then an annual backup archive of all the family photos, tax returns, and most important documents on a hard drive in the box.

> A safe deposit box isn't expensive and can store a hard copy of your passwords and other personal information.

It may be necessary for other people to get 'authorized' to get access to it.

If you have access to one, it's certainly useful in case something happens to you residence, but one should also probably have access to something more convenient (especially in the case of incapacitance).

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