Ask Slashdot: What's the Best Way To Preserve a "Digital Inheritance"? 191
First time accepted submitter ron-l-j writes "The last few months a digital inheritance idea has been floating around in my head, and I am sure the thought has crossed your mind as well. With Google talking about the inactive account program it made me wonder, how do I make sure my children get my iTunes, and amazon movies? I have plenty of mp4 movies on my server that will just set itself to admin with no password after I do not log in within a 6 month time frame. But what about the huge amount spent on digital content every year? What's the best way to make sure your "digital inheritance" gets passed down?"
Make a list (Score:5, Interesting)
I keep all my media files on a shared server. Everyone in my family knows the password.
For all my accounts, I use passwords with the same 6 character prefix, and varying suffixes. The suffixes are listed on an appendix to my will. They are also on an XD card that I keep in this keychain fob [amazon.com] in my pocket.
But I only record the suffixes because both my wife and daughter (age 14) know the prefix. So if the prefix were 7xU32w, then the list might say "correct horse battery staple", but the real password would be "7xU32wcorrect horse battery staple". If anyone outside my family saw the password list, it would be worthless to them because they don't know the prefix, nor do they even know that there is a prefix.
Re:Children don't like their parents music (Score:4, Interesting)
Train them right from the beginning. I have the iPod dock playing music for my son every morning. I make it a point to only have "good" music on there, and we goofy dance to every up-beat song we can. Hopefully he'll have a nice smile on his face, and fondly remembers to good times he had with dad, whenever he hears these songs.
Make a memory, not an old man ranting point about today's music.
Digital Photos (Score:3, Interesting)
There's already an app for that... (Score:5, Interesting)
My way: all of my passwords and secret documents are in an encrypted folder which I update along with my will. Included are final farewells, secrets, where the bodies are buried, and so on. The key is split (look up PKI key splitting) into 5 parts. My girlfriend, father, buddy at work, and two of my friends each have a part. For security reasons, those are just examples. Four of those parts together are required to unlock. At my death each one turns in their part to the executor of my will who already has instructions on how to get it put together.
It is not a good idea to naively split a 10 char password into two 5 char pieces, and assume that brute force will be necessary to guess one of those parts. That is a very dangerous assumption if you are not an expert with the particular algorithms used.
Re:The answer is... (Score:5, Interesting)