Hereditas - digital legacy succession planning

[marcusquinn]

Been thinking about and looking for something like this for a while.

The most important aspect of this for me is it should be something that doesn't need a credit-card continually paying to work if you think about things like incapacitation.

Dashlane was the closest similar possible solution I found but the reliance on paying is too risky.

Maybe there's other ways using these same principles, perhaps as simple as setting up a dedicate encrypted file-store and a timed automation with something like n8n.io that would only release the access after a timeout from notifications not being responded to.

• https://hereditas.app/
• https://github.com/ItalyPaleAle/hereditas
• https://withblue.ink/2019/03/18/what-happens-to-your-digital-life-after-youre-gone-introducing-hereditas.html

What happens to your digital life after you're gone?

Hereditas, which means inheritance in Latin, is a static website generator that builds fully-trustless digital legacy boxes, where you can store information for your relatives to access in case of your sudden death or disappearance.

For example, you could use this to pass information such as passwords, cryptographic keys, cryptocurrency wallets, sensitive documents, etc.
Learn more

Read the Hereditas announcement to understand more on why we need Hereditas.

You can also watch this short intro video.
Get started and documentation

What is Hereditas

Get started guide

Security model

Documentation and CLI reference
Screenshot

Warning: alpha quality software

Hereditas is currently alpha quality software; use at your own risk. While we've developed Hereditas with security always as the top priority, this software leverages a lot of cryptographic primitives under the hood. We won't release a stable (e.g. "1.0") version of Hereditas until we're confident that enough people and cryptography experts have audited and improved the code.

Your help is highly appreciated. If you are an expert on security or cryptography, please help us reviewing the code and let us know what you think - including if everything looks fine, or if you found a bug.

Responsible disclosure: if you believe you've found a security issue that could compromise current users of Hereditas, please report it confidentially.

[jdaviescoates]

@marcusquinn nice. I'm thinking of greating a family "organisation" on Bitwarden for us to all securely share our logins and state what we'd like to happen. I hate that e.g. it's impossible to get Facebook to delete deal people's profiles (but of course you can do it if you've got their login).

[marcusquinn]

@jdaviescoates yeah, lots to think about in this area that I think we never make time for but then if we value our digital worlds then they are worth making sure family can too some day.

I haven't tested this yet but it could be that the file doesn't need to be hosted publicly, it could just be shared on a private file-share with some instructions on how to open it in the event of our not being around.

[jdaviescoates]

@marcusquinn I guess it could just be a RaspberryPi with Bitwarden or similar on it, and a piece of paper with the master password written on it

[marcusquinn]

@jdaviescoates The problem I have with sharing super-access passwords with family or friends is the value those keys have, without the same level of knowledge of PC protection could be creating a backdoor by proxy. Somewhat I think physical world solutions are safe, as blockchains are a good example of enabling.

[marcusquinn]

@jdaviescoates Makes sense, or even a bootable USB stick or something like that. I've no idea what their shelf-life is though.

I feel thinks like encrypted stored files on GitLab/GitHub etc are probably a reasonably safe place too.

[jdaviescoates]

@marcusquinn not getting your blockchain reference. But the RPi could be locked in a safe that needs two keys?

[marcusquinn]

@jdaviescoates Thinking things like a Trezor for storing bitcoin offline.

But then what we're looking at with Hereditas is the timelock, so if you aren't incapacitated you can stop access by declining when receiving a notification for access requested. Which then means the device has to be controlled i a way to make sure those live-man notifications get through.

It's complicated being dead eh!

[A Former User]

@marcusquinn said in Hereditas - digital legacy succession planning:

It's complicated being dead eh!

Rest in peace?

[marcusquinn]

@hillside502 Hah, I wish! Partly trying to make sure all those I work with don't have important stuff die with them and leave the rest of us without such peace

[robi]

yes, it's tricky..

Have friends who are homeless and break devices often.

That means weeks or months w/o phone or computer access.

Hence law firms and more intelligent, long lasting solutions.

I did have a blockchain project on this exact problem and now the Ark.io chain has timelocks implemented.

Just a matter of making it happen and popular.

[marcusquinn]

@robi Cool, ark.io looks nice, I'd love to get more time for blockchain stuff but for now I have bitten off about 6 epic projects at once so it'll have to be once they mature a bit.