Weird terms and conditions for the cloud storage offered by my bank.

[Mangetout]

@Quercus

2. If you store information in your house, it won’t help if you die in a house fire while at home. Consider some kind of off-site storage for critical info (like the existence list, perhaps?).

Agreed.

3. On the other hand, if your wife is computer illiterate, why are you worried about storing your passwords and such at home, or even in an envelope you give her?

Not sure I understand the question - I’m working on the assumption that she would be able to use the passwords/instructions with the assistance of a trusted friend, but if we write them all down and put in an envelope, this is susceptible to loss or theft.

[SciFiSam]

@Princhester

Your post makes no sense whatever, sorry. Firstly it’s not common (indeed it is positively rare) to buy cars on lease here either. Total non sequitur. Secondly you are explaining that its’ not that simple to transfer ownership of a car. Exactly. So having to get Uncle Fred involved so that he also has to sign forms and produce ID and whatever the heck else helps how exactly?

Sorry this has become a complete hijack, I’ll stop now.

I mean that it’s not that simple dead or alive, and having an executor wouldn’t change that.

Anyway, since even the govt’s money advisory service advises not having your spouse as the sole executor, I’m clearly not talking out of my arse here.

[SpaceDog]

Just as another idea, Google offers a solution to this (if you don’t mind setting up a Google account) Inactive Account Manager.

Basically if you don’t log into your account for X months it gives your trusted contacts access to data that you want them to have (and then nukes the account some months later). The only issue being it’s not quick to grant access but neither are most other ways of accessing peoples stuff (on or offline) after they’ve died.

There are other services that will auto-email a secure secret after you fail to check-in for a set period of time. I don’t have links to hand and don’t have time to find 'em now but they’ve been mentioned before – try searching Lifehacker.com as well, they’ve covered this a couple of times.

[Disgscen]

@Mangetout

My bank reserves the right to rifle through the files I store there, - if I keep the encryption key alongside the instructions on where to find the encrypted data, the potential exists for one of their staff to gain access to everything

I think it would work with three sets of data:

[ol]
[li]Encrypted stuff on Skydrive.[/li][li]Instructions in plain text in a document held by my wife (i.e. in saved email)[/li][li]Encryption key in my bank’s cloud.[/li][/ol]

No, I suggest using a file encrypted using both a encryption key and a password. Your wife has the key, but no password. The bank (or any other trusted party) has the password, but not the key. You continually have access to both, and can make changes as your circumstances and accounts change.

Your suggestion is similar to mine, but I combine the instructions for your wife with the password–there’s no need for a third set of data.

[Meurglys]

Saw this story today and thought of this thread.
Not directly relevant, but a problem worth avoiding!

[Miss_Woodhouse]

USB drive with padlock.

Would something like that solve your problem. One person gets the USB drive and one person gets the key code to unlock it?

[Mangetout]

@Disgscen

No, I suggest using a file encrypted using both a encryption key and a password. Your wife has the key, but no password. The bank (or any other trusted party) has the password, but not the key. You continually have access to both, and can make changes as your circumstances and accounts change.

Your suggestion is similar to mine, but I combine the instructions for your wife with the password–there’s no need for a third set of data.

I think I understand this more clearly now - but how does my wife gain access to the encrypted stuff on Skydrive? Is that pre-shared (but still encrypted etc) from the start?

[Thudlow_Boink]

@Thudlow_Boink

I suggest hiding it and leaving a treasure map, with a series of clues to unravel and puzzles to solve.

@Mangetout

That’s a lovely idea, but anything like that can be solved while I am still around.

I think you have to write the initiating clue in your own blood as you lie dying.

[Disgscen]

@Mangetout

I think I understand this more clearly now - but how does my wife gain access to the encrypted stuff on Skydrive? Is that pre-shared (but still encrypted etc) from the start?

Yeah you could share it, or put the access information in the note on the bank’s cloud.
Really there are any number of ways you could do this, and I’m not certain what I haven’t explained well–I’ve tried to be pretty general because I like Dropbox and TrueCrypt, but other solutions probably work just as well. But here’s how I would do what you seem to want to:

1. Create a software key using TrueCrypt’s keyfile generator. Save this for myself, with another copy on a thumb drive, which I give to the wife.

2. Create archive MySecrets.tc with TrueCrypt, saved on Dropbox, using the keyfile I generated earlier plus a password: abc123. If my wife doesn’t have a Dropbox account, create one and share MySecrets.tc with this account.

3. Save a text document in the bank’s cloud to be given to the wife on death:

Dearest Shmoopy, If you’re reading this I’m dead. I left an encrypted file with all my website passwords and bank account information on Dropbox. Go to dropbox.com and log in as mrsdisgscen/password123. Open the file called MySecrets.tc using TrueCrypt, which is on the laptop (or download it from truecrypt.org). You’ll need the keyfile you can find on the thumb drive I gave you, plus the password:
abc123

Please delete all the porn before my mother finds it.

[Mangetout]

Trouble with that (and in practice, maybe not a serious trouble) is that I would have given my bank two of the three things they would need to access the information. Whilst the practical possibility of them cracking the key is probably vanishingly small, it seems like a departure from best practice.