Digital Legacy - How do you deal with it technically?

[Hel OWeen]

So folks, I've been thinking about this for quite some time and haven't come up with an idea that seems feasable to me.

We are the first generation that has pilled up a significant amount of digital assets / properties that needs to be dealt with after our earthly existance ceases. This ranges from logins to obscure nerd forums such as FHC across to accounts for more serious :cough: social media networks and finally ends in real valuable assets such as online shop accounts / banking accounts / digital wallets.

Now - there's a dilemma: best practice for all of the above is to keep it as secure and secret/safe as possible. But after you passed away, this should be easily(?) accessable to your heirs.

Even if we start from the easy assumption that there's a master login to all those account data (i.e. some kind of PW safe) - how do we pass that on, along with the master database?

Two ideas that come to mind: deposit at some kind of notary or an electronic dead man switch. Both share the same problem: you need to update it on a regular basis. Which is easy with the dead man switch, but harder with the notary. But the later is more fool-proved to of your any fuckups. You for sure do not want to let that switch on error, sending out messages beginning with "If you read this, I'm dead ... "

So, share you plans/ideas for this situation.

And to add some current RL implications to this thread, I refer you to the recent lawsuit here in Germany, where parents demanded access to their dead daughter's FB account, but lost the appeal: https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...account-berlin

[Smuggo]

Not sure a collection of memes and shitposts will be that valued by me heirs.

[Lancehot]

Choose your most worthy posts & get them engraved in stone. Stick to ten for brevity's sake.

[Straight Hustlin]

I don't know if this counts but my friend and I have a pact where if one of us dies the other gets their PC but has to burn the hard drives.

[Hel OWeen]

I dont even plan for life so frankly i dont give a fuck what happens when i die. ~I dont have kids though and probably wont so your mileage my vary with my technique

Same her, but someone of my family will still inherit because of legal regulations here. And while we (as in "our generation") may still inherit that small (or bigger) sum of money from that unknown aunt across the ocean, the generation of our kids will perhaps not.

And I for sure would like to avoid that companies/banks keep that assets, if I die just because no one even knows that I have some (RL valuable) assets there.

[Jolin]

I've been trying to plan to pass on my steam and gog acount details. That's all I really care about. All my other social media accounts can go die in a fire. Given the volume of games I have, my kids probably won't have to buy any games until Full HD VR becomes a thing

[Smuggo]

I've already been actively removing many aspects of my digital identity. Taking down photos and other info on FB for example, so I imagine before I die there will be much less of it out there to worry about anyway.

[Hel OWeen]

I don't know if this counts but my friend and I have a pact where if one of us dies the other gets their PC but has to burn the hard drives.

Well, that's a plan at least - still thinking if it counts as the "passing on" requirements. It technically does, I give you that.

[spitroast]

The only stuff I have digital worth keeping are photos, home videos and a vast collection of music which are encrypted with my private key and uploaded to an Amazon Glacier bucket, both as a back up to my home storage and in case I snuff it. It costs about 5 quid per terabyte per month and it's a huge peace of mind tbqfh. I've left instructions on what to do with it all (and a few copies of my personal key - digital and printed) in an envelope on my desk.

[Timaios]

I've already been actively removing many aspects of my digital identity. Taking down photos and other info on FB for example, so I imagine before I die there will be much less of it out there to worry about anyway.

"much less out there publicly available" you mean.

But there are lots of things out there that have value (monetary or otherwise), and when we're at an age to die, there will be more. Store credits. Paypal account balances. Virtual currencies. EVE account logins with high SP characters / assets. And so forth. Even now I think someone could pay their rent for many months by liquidating my EVE characters and their billions of ISK, were I to die.

I have no idea how to actually pass all that on, technically. Some services do have plans for such, I think Facebook allows the family to turn the deceased person's page into a some sort of obituary / remembrance site? Or was that just something they suggested at some point?

[Lancehot]

Now you mention it, I wonder if one day there'll be a case where the beneficiaries go to court over who gets which rare items, or the like. Or disputing the valuation of a steam account - since you can't divide the library between them.

[Miriam Sasko]

I've got a bank deposit box. Among other things, it contains an envelope with my relevant account infos.

It's a bit of a pita to keep updated, but I'm more comfortable with that than with a digital SPOF, even if my main mail address is a SPOF for a fair number of middling important accounts.

[Hel OWeen]

I've got a bank deposit box. Among other things, it contains an envelope with my relevant account infos.

OK, that's a variation of the notary/escrow thingy. Unfortunately my "real" bank account is still in my hometwon, where I grew up, which is miles away. That makes it even more impractical for me. And the other bank accounts I have are at online-only banks and provide no deposit boxes for obvious reasons.

[Ralara]

Luckily I've never said anything online that would be controversial so I don't need to worry about this.

[Smuggo]

Now you mention it, I wonder if one day there'll be a case where the beneficiaries go to court over who gets which rare items, or the like. Or disputing the valuation of a steam account - since you can't divide the library between them.

I doubt it because 40-year old PC games are worthless.

People fight over stuff with either sentimental or monetary value and nothing you own digitally is likely to have much of either so this would only happen among the most petty of petty heirs.

[Straight Hustlin]

Now you mention it, I wonder if one day there'll be a case where the beneficiaries go to court over who gets which rare items, or the like. Or disputing the valuation of a steam account - since you can't divide the library between them.

I doubt it because 40-year old PC games are worthless.

People fight over stuff with either sentimental or monetary value and nothing you own digitally is likely to have much of either so this would only happen among the most petty of petty heirs.

Not really these sort of questions are already coming up with digital libraries like iTunes and Amazon digital videos.

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[Smuggo]

Now you mention it, I wonder if one day there'll be a case where the beneficiaries go to court over who gets which rare items, or the like. Or disputing the valuation of a steam account - since you can't divide the library between them.

I doubt it because 40-year old PC games are worthless.

People fight over stuff with either sentimental or monetary value and nothing you own digitally is likely to have much of either so this would only happen among the most petty of petty heirs.

Not really these sort of questions are already coming up with digital libraries like iTunes and Amazon digital videos.

Sent from my XT1565 using Tapatalk

People would go to court over cheap media? The cost would not make it worthwhile at all.

[Straight Hustlin]

Now you mention it, I wonder if one day there'll be a case where the beneficiaries go to court over who gets which rare items, or the like. Or disputing the valuation of a steam account - since you can't divide the library between them.

I doubt it because 40-year old PC games are worthless.

People fight over stuff with either sentimental or monetary value and nothing you own digitally is likely to have much of either so this would only happen among the most petty of petty heirs.

Not really these sort of questions are already coming up with digital libraries like iTunes and Amazon digital videos.

Sent from my XT1565 using Tapatalk

People would go to court over cheap media? The cost would not make it worthwhile at all.

Their going to court over the estate anyway so one more item doesn't really matter. Also more pertinent is that these services tend to not allow any sort of transfer of ownership, even to spouses. I recall reading that Apple is in court over this

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[untilted]

Now you mention it, I wonder if one day there'll be a case where the beneficiaries go to court over who gets which rare items, or the like. Or disputing the valuation of a steam account - since you can't divide the library between them.

I doubt it because 40-year old PC games are worthless.

People fight over stuff with either sentimental or monetary value and nothing you own digitally is likely to have much of either so this would only happen among the most petty of petty heirs.

Not really these sort of questions are already coming up with digital libraries like iTunes and Amazon digital videos.

Sent from my XT1565 using Tapatalk

isn't one of the biggest issues that more often than not you don't have any legal capacity to inherit these things at all?
after all it's not a physical item in your possession (like e.g. a record or book) but rather you are licensing access to a digital copy, which usually will be tied to you as legal persona.

the whole notion of a "digital inheritance" also assumes that access to these things is permanent (just like it is with physical items in your possession) ... but in practice no-one can foresee if the service you use right now will exist in any form or capacity in the (maybe even not so) distant future.

[Approaching Walrus]

I've already been actively removing many aspects of my digital identity. Taking down photos and other info on FB for example, so I imagine before I die there will be much less of it out there to worry about anyway.

Yeah, same here. The only thing I might expand is my professional social media accounts.