Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Monday, Nov 02, 2009
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version | Audio | Blogs
Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Monday, Nov 02, 2009 ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version | Audio | Blogs |
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eWorld
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Security Columns - Come Again! eLife after death 
Who inherits my Web wealth? Suppose I kick the bucket now, what happens to my data in all the social networks, e-mail sites and photo and video sharing sites? How will the sites know I am dead? How long will they keep my data? What if some hacker gets access to my data and finds out what I have been ‘doing’ online? According to a report in SC Magazine, in the US, “One of the places identity thieves search for new victims is the obituary column. By including the date of birth and death, the identity thief can search the Social Security Administration’s Death Index and find the Social Security number of the deceased.” Ok. Let us forget the hackers. How will my family members know what I have stored online? How will they know which sites I have accounts? Even if they know the sites, how will they know the usernames and passwords? Should I list them out and keep the sheet in a sealed envelope only to be opened after God presses my life’s ‘delete’ button? Won’t I sound stupid if I tell my family that the ’super-secret’ envelope to be opened later has ’usernames and passwords’ to social sites? Suppose I change the passwords over a period of time after sealing the envelope, the envelope will become useless. If so, how will they be able to access the data stashed by me across the Web? Will the sites allow access to my family members if they request it? Almost all major social Web sites have their own guidelines on honouring requests for accessing data. But this can be time-consuming and your family must know which sites you have accounts. There are sites such as legacylocker that allow you “to pass access to your online accounts to friends and loved ones. It’s like a digital safety deposit box — you can put passwords to all your online accounts (e-mails, photos, social networks, everything online that requires a login) in it. For every account you store, you can assign a beneficiary, someone to whom you want to entrust your digital content for the future”. But what if legacylocker itself dies? R. Dinakaran
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