Digital Death

[richlevy]

Apparently, much like a friend going to your apartment after your death to clean out your porn before you mom makes one last visit, there are services that clean up or close out digital loose ends.

Now I don't think I've ever reached that level of embarrassing behavior on the Cellar, but I want it known that my digital remains should be permanently placed in the Dwellar NSFW thread. I may even supply a frontal and posterior of myself so my friends can admire my life and my enemies can kiss my ass!

So while my dear family cries
bury my hard drive deep
Spare their tearing eyes
all those pictures of naked sheep

I smell a greeting card contract here!

From here:

This distributed deathlessness means we’ll all need a little cleanup on Aisle Me. The aspects of life we archive online, be they valuable, heritable, or simply embarrassing, require posthumous management (and, in some cases, eradication) lest our friends and loved ones and executors be embarrassed or inconvenienced by our lingering digital detritus, a trash-strewn wake of left-behind liabilities. At least three companies — AssetLock.net, Legacy Locker, and the charmingly named Deathswitch.com — have arisen to keep customers’ passwords, usernames, final messages, and so on in a virtual safe-deposit box. After you’re gone, these companies carry out last wishes, alert friends, give account access to various designated beneficiaries, and generally parse out and pass on your online assets. Digital remains that are not bequeathed to an inheritor are incinerated, closing the book on PayPal accounts, profiles, even alternate identities (especially alternate identities: You don’t want your mother knowing about, or worse, playing, the wife-swapping giant badger you became in Second Life).