Dead Man’s Switch Beta

Earlier this week Dead Man’s Switch released a beta version. In an email to users founder Stavros Korokithakis announced the beta and hinted at new features to come.

The new version only contains about the same functionality as the old one, for now, but we would appreciate your help in testing it. We have planned for it a multitude of features, such as configurable intervals, file attachments, different ways of checkin, etc, but we need your help to make sure that everything is working properly.

We can only speculate that the underlying code received a rewrite to serve as a foundation for new features to come.

DataInherit Password Import For Firefox

The folks over at DataInherit tweeted about a quick and easy way to get started with their service by exporting saved passwords from Firefox. It’s a great way to get started, but also a great opportunity to remember those accounts that you may have forgotten about. Detailed instructions are available on their website.

World Without Me

World Without Me is a new digital estate planning and posthumous email service that’s in closed beta right now. Based in India, the service offers “Dispatches” as emails scheduled for the future (not just at death) and a “Vault” for storing usernames and passwords. More interesting is the “Footprint” component, which is an aggregation and archive service for social media:

It’s your Journal that treasures everything you did and thought about. Archive you digital footprint to create your autobiography on the go. Aggregate everything digital of significance (Facebook status updates, Tweets, Emails, and Documents) and share it with only the ones that matter.

Our email boxes are full of messages from new digital afterlife services. We’ll be adding those to our growing Digital Death and Afterlife Online Services List soon. If you have any industry news to share, feel free to drop us a line.

You probably remember my previous posts about Dead Man’s Switch and the e-mails I’ve received from the service.  Here’s a follow-up to the last e-mail.

Subject: Dead Man’s Switch is REALLY worried about you

Hi, Are you okay? You haven’t answered our last two emails. If you don’t answer this, your emails will be sent out in one week.

To update your status, visit the following address:

http://www.deadmansswitch.net/update/

Hope to see you there,
Dead Man’s Switch staff

There’s only one more week before my test e-mail gets sent out.  I’ll be sure to post when it gets to me.  Stay tuned.

Re-posted from Field Notes

You probably remember my previous posts about Dead Man’s Switch and the e-mails I’ve received from the service.  Here’s a follow-up to the last e-mail.  It seems that I didn’t successfully confirm my continued existence, so here’s my next notification:

Subject: Dead Man’s Switch is worried about you

Message: Hey there, where have you been? You didn’t answer our first email. If you don’t answer this, you will get one more warning in a week before all your emails are sent out.

To update your status, visit the following address:

http://www.deadmansswitch.net/update/

Hope to see you there,
Dead Man’s Switch staff

It’s still kind of creepy, but I do like that the subject line shows a bit more compassion.  I wonder what the final notice will say… stay tuned.

As I said previously, I don’t have it setup to send any e-mails in the event that I don’t respond.  Although I may set it up to send one to myself, just to see what type of introduction the service might add to the e-mail message.

Re-posted from Field Notes

A while back I posted about www.deadmansswitch.net.  Here’s the first e-mail they sent me to confirm that I’m still alive.  I like how it’s doesn’t assume that I’m alive, but I was hoping that it would be something more formal.  In either case it’s still kind of disturbing.

Hello you,
this is your plain old regular email to remind you that you should check back with us at Dead Man’s Switch, so we know you’re doing well.

To update your status, visit the following address:

http://www.deadmansswitch.net/update/

Hope to see you there,
Dead Man’s Switch staff

For the record: I don’t have it setup to send any e-mails in the event that I don’t respond.

Re-posted from Field Notes

When the gang here at Capstrat set out to brainstorm some ideas for SXSW 2009, we talked about what “digital will” service might look like. We decided that the basic model would allow a user to write e-mail messages and they would be sent on their behalf posthumously. The user would be prompted to check in from time to time to keep the messages from being sent. It’s like having a jet ski engine stop when you fall off or stopping a train if the operator isn’t touching the controls. It’s called a dead man’s switch.

www.deadmansswitch.net went into beta in late July with a service that does just this. From their site:

This is how this works. You write a few e-mails, and choose the recipients. These emails are encrypted with military-grade algorithms, so you can be sure that no-one except the intended recipient will ever read them. Your switch will email you every so often, asking you to show that you are fine by clicking a link. If something were to… happen… to you, your switch would then send the emails you wrote to the recipients you specified. Sort of an “electronic will,” one could say.

The concept here isn’t new. People have been writing wills and leaving behind letters for centuries, but now we have an online equivalent. I’m not sure how I feel about having a web server send an e-mail asking if I am alive, but the service is designed to give you several chances to verify your continued existence. I also think these guys deserve the award for the most morbid user welcome message on the Internet:

The last time you showed signs of life before today was on Friday, September 19, 2008. Now you can write a new email, or see the ones you have already written:

Of course, the terms of service state that “it comes without any warranty, neither express nor implied (even the actual sending of the messages is not guaranteed, but we’ll do our best).”

What do you think about this? Is it something worth using or too morbid to think about?

Re-posted from Field Notes