The Justin Case file

[mdlbear]

(This bit of nonfiction is being written in response to recent events; it also seems to fit the "communication" part of the theme, "Community & Communication", of this month's Crowdfunding Creative Jam)

Someone died recently and left his widow with a problem: his computer's hard drive is encrypted, and he didn't leave the recovery key or his password anywhere that she can find.

Oops.

This is not unlike losing track of the key to the safe deposit box, forgetting the combination to the safe, or neglecting to make out a will. "But I have all that in a file on my computer!" I hear you cry.

Oh, right.

You need a JustIn Case file, someplace where it's safe but reasonably easy to find if anything happens to you. (I'm talking to myself here, too, by the way.) The bare minimum is whatever it takes to get into your computer (a FileVault recovery key, BitLocker PIN, or alternate admin password) and possibly into your password file, browser keychain, or whatever. *That* information needs to be in a couple of different places known to your family! At least one place should be outside your house, e.g. with a trusted relative, your lawyer, your safe deposit box, or the like. The other place should be in your house, e.g. in a locked filing cabinet (they're pretty easy to break into if necessary). Lable the file "Justin Case".

Even if almost everything is on your hard drive, there's a minimum set of things that have to be written down on hardcopy:

• Your master password, recovery key, or whatever it takes to get into your data. Or at least all of your data that you don't want effectively burned when you're gone. (Keep that separate.)
• The location of your will, safe deposit box, offsite backups, retirement and bank accounts, life insurance policies, and so on.
• The name of your executor/executrix.
• Any important information that your family is likely to need

My plan is to add an SD card with my most important files on it -- I checked, and the directory with all my passwords, tax information, receipts, and so on is only about 200MB. Perfect use for an old 500MB card or thumb drive that's too small to be useful for anything else.

Don't forget to update it if you change your password! That, after all, is the main point of this little exercise.

Comments

[thnidu]

printed and saved

[kyrielle]

YES! My father did this, and while losing him and Mom was horrible and I want them back, having this file made the logistics very easy. Which is good, because I had very little brain for navigating them.

That said, another option to consider is something like 1Password. It coordinates files through Dropbox (among other options), and you can share Dropbox folders with other users. So Scott and I both have 1Password, and each have two files - our own personal file, local to our computers / our Dropbox account, and a shared file in the shared folder on Dropbox. Our personal file passwords are in the shared file, but we're not opening all of each other's data every time we go in. The file is in the cloud, accessible from our phones and any computer we install/log into Dropbox from, but it can't be unencrypted without our password. The password to the shared file is, well, shared, but the individual file passwords aren't and can be changed on a whim if we want, as long as we update the shared.

And safe deposit boxes are a good idea, *but for the love of everything make sure those who need it have access*. That was ALMOST the problem point when my parents died: I had been added to their SD box, but somehow they didn't realize they never had me -sign- it, so I couldn't get in. I had the key from their house, but no access. Luckily, Dad's brother, my Uncle Jim, had also been added. He was able to sign us in, and I got the will out of the darned SD box. Sort of an important thing.

[freyjaw]

Chris & I still need to do our wills & medical powers of attorney. Especially important for me since I'm likely to go first and Chris is not going to be very functional when I do. I need to make it easy for him.

Thanks for the reminder!

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

If you're really paranoid, store all that info in Keepass on a thumbdrive with a seperate OS, and make sure your family knows the password to that. [but set it to something obvious, like your name and birthdate in case they forget.]

[mdlbear]

Thanks -- Keepass looks like something I could use. And there's already a Debian package for it.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Yup, it's a handy little thing. Between that for off-line storage, last-pass for online stuff and truecrypt for building encrypted files and/or drives, I'm pretty well covered.

password managers

[lolmac]

I've adopted the password manager Dashlane, which includes an onboard feature for sharing selected items with selected others, and an emergency feature to unlock everything for a designated contact. (I believe LastPass has similar features.) Dashlane updates universally in real time, so the data stays up to date when I change passwords. In addition to the emergency feature, my wife and I have each other's Dashlane master passwords stored in our own Dashlane vaults.

Re: password managers

[mdlbear]

Interesting -- this looks like a good password keeper for someone who doesn't use Linux.

Re: password managers

[jcfiala.livejournal.com]

That's always my problem - at work I use Linux, my phone is Android, at home I use Windows 7.