Dead man's switch via email

http://www.deadmansswitch.net/

by shard • 18 years ago

42 31 18 years ago

briansmith2• 18 years ago

This is an interesting idea. However, what assurance do you have that this service will still be running when you need it?

baha_man• 18 years ago

http://www.deadmansswitch.net/about/

"Since this service is provided free of charge, 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)."

immad• 18 years ago

If you were going to actually use this service it would be more fulfilling to pay and have some guarantees.

side note: I wonder if they are relying on two-form viral growth :).

brent• 18 years ago

http://www.mylastemail.com/

edit: This is a very old idea.

PStamatiou4• 18 years ago

Sounds like an easy way to harvest passwords and other such important information..

PStamatiou4• 18 years ago

hey I'm just saying... gotta be aware of potential agendas

tomjen• 18 years ago

He specifically points out that you should encrypt your emails.

PStamatiou4• 18 years ago

touché

sh1mmer• 18 years ago

You encrypt them, but then how does anyone decrypt them? Do you have to pre-brief "normal" people about how to use PGP?

It would be nice if there was a service that you could actually trust that would store the information in an encrypted file but then allow the correct people to access it.

netcan2• 18 years ago

Plenty of good uses for a service like this. http://www.raptureletters.com/

whatusername• 18 years ago

I always appreciated this one more: http://postrapturepost.com/

eru• 18 years ago

Won't work - unless providers employ some heathens - all will go to heaven.

And who wants to do business with infidels?

netcan2• 18 years ago

hence: dead man switch

DanielBMarkham3• 18 years ago

This would be better as a paid service, where a large sum is deposited up front and placed into a financial instrument that then would guarantee the delivery (such as an annuity to cover operating expenses)

The owners need a coherent and persuasive argument that they are providing a service just as important as a will or a trust. For that, you can (and should) be charging money. This ain't twitter, it's your legacy.

You could even do tie-ins with life insurance policies and pre-paid burial plans. It'd be a nice add-on and there are lots of existing potential partners in place and with tight customer contacts.

Gee -- now I'm almost at the point where I'm starting to outline a business plan. Better shut up, or I'll want in on the action :)

hugh2• 18 years ago

There already exist plenty of expensive ways to do this. You could, for instance, add it to your will. Or get a safe deposit box, put some envelopes in there, and mention the safe deposit box in your will. Or just leave letters with your lawyers (who are also keeping your will).

DanielBMarkham3• 18 years ago

Agreed. Which means there is already a market with market players involved. I think that's good news, not bad.

So what are your differentiators? Well you're virtual, not physical. So you can be changed easily. Plus you can offer all sorts of interactive multi-media instead of paperwork. You could electronically interact with other services, such as FaceBook or MySpace, where other older services couldn't.

I'd use my differentiators (and there's more than I listed) to explore some market niches.

There's nothing wrong with trying to create an entirely new market with a free service. To me, that's swinging hard for the home run. Or you could just take a good base hit and enjoy what you can get. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer. I do think that we startup types usually think big. "Big" is a very relative term -- a successful entry in an existing market could be a lot better risk/reward scenario than making it all up from scratch.

there• 18 years ago

i can just imagine the e-mails from that service getting blocked by some anti-spam mechanism along the way, causing it to broadcast your message, and your friends and family freaking out thinking you're dead.

BrandonM• 18 years ago

...or the other way around, for your all-important e-mails to get filtered by anti-spam mechanisms and lost forever.

tjmc• 18 years ago

This is a solution looking for a problem. Writing a will allows you to settle your financial affairs as well (or at least try). You can attach a message to your will and it's much less likely to be sent out in error.

What I'd like to see is some way of easily granting access to your online accounts (eg gmail, facebook, flickr) linked to a will. You could keep all your passwords in an encrypted keychain that's synced with an online service and store a master password in your will. That way relatives and friends would be able to access all the stuff that used to be in hard copy letters, diaries and photos.

mattmaroon• 18 years ago

But what if you are a drug dealer, and you suspect your boss is going to kill you. You want to use the old "if anything should happen to me, a friend will mail a package into the FBI" insurance policy, and you want it to be automated?

There have to be at least 10 or 20 people who want this.

maxklein• 18 years ago

Why in heavens name does his link to the open id provider have an affiliate number in it? Lord, this open id thing is getting more sleazy by the minute.

knarf• 18 years ago

One could also use an email with the "will" to a special mailbox as a switch to activate some processes that could do all kind of stuff..

ryan-allen• 18 years ago

The site appears to promise features that don't exist in the app.

From TFA: "The emails are sent in configurable intervals. If you don't answer the first, you will get a second and a third one. If you don't answer those either, your switch will be activated. Of course, you can have your switch postpone its activation (if, for example, you'll be away for some time) by telling it to not try to contact you for a specified period of time."

Yeah, well I can't find this functionality. It's just a sign up + add an email toy app. What a shame, I wanted to have a fiddle with the settings (in my opinion, the most interesting part).

pius• 18 years ago

This is the sort of service that, if you're providing it for free, you really ought to just open source the code so anyone can set their own up.

Dead man's switch via email

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