Agents Simon has gotten me hooked on boingboing, and I came across this article about how to ensure someone will be able to access your encrypted data once you've died (there's a link to the actual article in the Guardian there). This has occured to be in the past, and it probably occurs to anyone who had a password for anything sensitive. What will happen to it if you suddenly died before being able to tell anyone the password? Even though I don't really have anything important that I need to store, I think I do have a safeguard, that I won't mention here, because the security of that safeguard will be compromised if I do mention it, but it really makes you think about how hard it is to do something like this. The author's initial solution was quite convoluted, and really, it came down to how much you trust your significant other.
Whenever I think about how much I could trust someone I'm married to, I think about Mr and Mrs Bristow from the TV show Alias, in that they were both secret agents, but during their marriage, he was unaware that she was sent to seduce him in order to find out his secrets. In later episodes, they are forced to work together, but there is always this underlying sense of whether they can trust each other - as they must in order to complete the mission, but the one who betrays the other is more likely to come out alive than the one who gets betrayed.
On the other hand, if you can't trust someone you consider your significant other, then who can you trust? The first solution that occured to me was to give it to someone who wouldn't know what it was, and so wouldn't be able to use it against you. But then you come against the problem that if they don't know what it is, then how will they know to use it if you die? Not just that, but if they don't know how important it is, what is to stop them for throwing it away/forgetting it/telling other people? Not to mention the problem of updating, in the event that you change your password. "Hey, remember that word I told you last month? Well, I just thought of a better word: s923id0!jd}#5da1+5jsxpf5." Yep, smooth. If you change your password regularly, then updating it with your keeper would become an increasing security hazard, as something like that would appear suspicious. Especially considering that picking someone close to you would be bad, as they would be the natural target of someone looking to break your code, but if you suddenly started regularly visiting your cousin twice-removed that nobody really likes, but gets invited 'round for Christmas every few years, someone's going to wonder what's up.
Also, relationships tend to phase in and out for me. The people that I couldn't be separated from in primary school I never see now (although I still talk to one on occasion). The friends I grew up with in high school aren't nearly as close as they were at the time. My friendships at uni seem to grow and fade as their lives move to intersect with mine on occasion, or pull away, as our interests and hobbies change. Other than family, I don't really know anyone that I've kept in constant contact with in my life. Family is difficult. I can't be sure that my parents will outlive me, and even though I know I'd do anything for my siblings, lately I really can't tell if the feeling is mutual.
I do know of one solution that does work, but isn't very practical: have nothing worth hiding, which is how I'm operating now. And in case I do drop dead tomorrow, this blog will be in the hands of Dante, although since he doesn't want to post any more, I guess it'll have to suffer the same fate I did - which I don't think is that bad, as the blog was meant to be a way for me to get my thoughts down, and if I'm dead, well, presumably I'm not having any new thoughts.
(And that was meant to be the end of the post, but as a slight aside, I was reading about how blogs actually make money, and obviously, there are billions of blogs that fade into the ether never to read any kind of level of prominence, but apparently the biggest moneymaker for blogs (other than getting a book/TV deal/other misc. job out of it) is to sell stuff through them. There's the whole issue of blogger's integrity, but if you think about it, a few cents for the however many minutes of entertainment you manage to get out of a blog post is a good price - and it's not even out of your pocket. That being said, if I were to start selling stuff on my blog, well, I wouldn't even know what kind of stuff I'd sell, and I don't even have the audience for it anyway, but maybe I'd sell Heinz Big Red Tomato Chips! Though I don't want money in exchange for people clicking links, I just want more chips!)
Whenever I think about how much I could trust someone I'm married to, I think about Mr and Mrs Bristow from the TV show Alias, in that they were both secret agents, but during their marriage, he was unaware that she was sent to seduce him in order to find out his secrets. In later episodes, they are forced to work together, but there is always this underlying sense of whether they can trust each other - as they must in order to complete the mission, but the one who betrays the other is more likely to come out alive than the one who gets betrayed.
On the other hand, if you can't trust someone you consider your significant other, then who can you trust? The first solution that occured to me was to give it to someone who wouldn't know what it was, and so wouldn't be able to use it against you. But then you come against the problem that if they don't know what it is, then how will they know to use it if you die? Not just that, but if they don't know how important it is, what is to stop them for throwing it away/forgetting it/telling other people? Not to mention the problem of updating, in the event that you change your password. "Hey, remember that word I told you last month? Well, I just thought of a better word: s923id0!jd}#5da1+5jsxpf5." Yep, smooth. If you change your password regularly, then updating it with your keeper would become an increasing security hazard, as something like that would appear suspicious. Especially considering that picking someone close to you would be bad, as they would be the natural target of someone looking to break your code, but if you suddenly started regularly visiting your cousin twice-removed that nobody really likes, but gets invited 'round for Christmas every few years, someone's going to wonder what's up.
Also, relationships tend to phase in and out for me. The people that I couldn't be separated from in primary school I never see now (although I still talk to one on occasion). The friends I grew up with in high school aren't nearly as close as they were at the time. My friendships at uni seem to grow and fade as their lives move to intersect with mine on occasion, or pull away, as our interests and hobbies change. Other than family, I don't really know anyone that I've kept in constant contact with in my life. Family is difficult. I can't be sure that my parents will outlive me, and even though I know I'd do anything for my siblings, lately I really can't tell if the feeling is mutual.
I do know of one solution that does work, but isn't very practical: have nothing worth hiding, which is how I'm operating now. And in case I do drop dead tomorrow, this blog will be in the hands of Dante, although since he doesn't want to post any more, I guess it'll have to suffer the same fate I did - which I don't think is that bad, as the blog was meant to be a way for me to get my thoughts down, and if I'm dead, well, presumably I'm not having any new thoughts.
(And that was meant to be the end of the post, but as a slight aside, I was reading about how blogs actually make money, and obviously, there are billions of blogs that fade into the ether never to read any kind of level of prominence, but apparently the biggest moneymaker for blogs (other than getting a book/TV deal/other misc. job out of it) is to sell stuff through them. There's the whole issue of blogger's integrity, but if you think about it, a few cents for the however many minutes of entertainment you manage to get out of a blog post is a good price - and it's not even out of your pocket. That being said, if I were to start selling stuff on my blog, well, I wouldn't even know what kind of stuff I'd sell, and I don't even have the audience for it anyway, but maybe I'd sell Heinz Big Red Tomato Chips! Though I don't want money in exchange for people clicking links, I just want more chips!)
No comments:
Post a Comment