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Research Proposal
Prepared for Zach H. | Delivered September 24, 2019
Dead Man's Switch Examples
Goals
To provide additional information on when and how dead man's switches have been used for journalism, media, and/or activism, and information on the various systems or methods for these
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Early Findings
Julian
A
s
s
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e
released multiple “insurance files” to serve as a dead man’s switch in case he died. These involved
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getting a primary encryption code, and then needing another key to unlock the file, which would be released upon Assange’s death.
WikiLeaks
also had dead man’s switches as related to its existence- if anything happened to WikiLeaks, the second code would be released, similar to the one related to Assange’s safety.
These files were
tweeted by WikiLeaks
, and labeled as ‘insurance’.
There was also discussion that when celebrity Isaac
K
a
p
p
y
died, he
had a dead man’s switch
, however he
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t
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e
d
several celebrities as having involvement with sex crimes prior to his death, and no new information came to light
following his death.
However, the celebrity did tell a friend that if
he met an untimely demise
, he had something in action to release a series of events he didn’t describe specifically.
Dead Man’s Switches are being
used in Pennsylvania prisons,
which are less related to actual death and more to releasing a distress signal if a guard is incapacitated.
One website offers a Dead Man’s switch in case of Rapture. The site called,
“You've Been Left Behind”
offers a service where if subscribers are ‘
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d
’ and do not answer notifications, messages left for friends and ‘
n
o
n
-
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d
’ loved ones will be delivered.
An additional Dead Man’s Switch is
Kill Cord,
an P2P based application.
Platform
Kimono
also offers similar features, but is less of a dead man’s switch and more of a time capsule that is activated upon passing.
Other app
s in addition to those listed in the previous report include WeCroak,
i
W
i
s
h
,
A
f
t
e
r
n
o
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, and BeRemembered, all which trigger messages upon a user’s death or fail to respond to notifications for an assigned
p
e
r
i
o
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o
f
t
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.
Other
amateur DIY ideas
include using a triggered time switch,
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API, and a scheme using GPG, a command line tool with features for
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p
h
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s
and integration with other applications.
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Prepared By
Jennifer P.
1284 assignments | 5.0