Nothing wrong with being prepared....Legacy Locker
By Eddie Lopez. Wednesday, 15. April 2009, 14:21:59
Update- CNN article
As I'm getting married in a matter of months, my fiancee and I were discussing the increasingly more relevant* conversation of "what about our online accounts in the event of our untimely demise?" (we're very romantic)
Answer: "Legacy Locker" is a pretty good solution (assuming you're a trusting fellow). Particularly when they reminded just how far my digital reach is...
Do you have an email account? Or two? Or three? Do you buy or sell stuff with eBay, Amazon, PayPal, Yahoo! Stores, or elsewhere? Do you blog, or use Twitter, or put up videos on YouTube? Do you share or backup photos with Flickr, Photobucket, Snapfish, Kodak Gallery, or Shutterfly? Do you maintain your identity at LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, or Plaxo? Do you have credits in the iTunes store, or at PartyPoker.com?
Yes! Yes I do! ...and I'm sure my fiancee couldn't keep up with all those passwords if I had just shared them. It's pretty obvious that you share a banking account password or something, but consider all the above that you'd prefer not just lost in the big bit-bucket in the sky (my son is Eddie Jr, and I have a lot of domain names and email addresses I'm sure he'll appreciate in time) I had thought in the past with updating my will with username and password info, but there's no way I would be able to keep it current & updated. Their FAQ addresses this and most of the "why shouldn't I just..." questions I had.
Security is the biggest concern of course, I would be wary about putting my entire digital life in some other company's hands, so I'd like something that still captures the simplicity of updating the system, but keeps the desire to hack Legacy Locker's servers and/or have a rogue employee run off with my data to a minimum. Maybe a local client that encrypts my information before upload and generates a key that I can have put in a will or otherwise make easily accessible to my beneficiaries.
Anyway, I know it's not the most jovial post ever, but it certainly is a neat idea. Be prepared!
*Increasingly relevant because I'm opening more and more accounts as I get older- not because I'm getting closer to needing this service. Well, I guess technically I am, but...come on man!.. you got me thinking about it. Thanks.
WIDGETIZE
infinity-1 # 16. April 2009, 03:45
Website name, a few words about it's purpose, URL + username + password
and then have it sealed with my will or put it in a safe place with my important documents.
Of course, details will change so you need to update it from time to time.
Usability angle: you have to consider that some relatives who might inherit your estate may not be Net savvy. Can they find and make use of the information in the form it is left? Will they realise its importance? Some people assume that everytihng that happens online is just messing around, they might not realise your whole life, your friends (who you would want to be informed of your demise), your money, are only accessible via the net. So you need not just passwords etc but clear instructions about what to do with them, what their importance is.
Eddie_Lopez # 20. April 2009, 14:04
Yeah, I'm also hoping though that my children will be more net savvy than I am, but I certainly wouldn't trust my mom and dad to know what to do with my twitter account