Jason gives us a peek inside his ideas file, vaporwarez. I really like the deaddrop idea and I'm definitely thinking of setting something like it up.
Basically, it's a process which waits for a response from some human. It could be as simple as an email which gets sent out every couple of days but if there isn't a response within a set amount of time, the email frequency increases until finally, the email process will send out pertinent system information.
name: deaddropPosted by Josh at March 3, 2004 11:28 PM | TrackBack
description: a simple web/email based app that waits for a user defined [daily or weekly] response to a web interface. sort of an internet dead man's switch, if you will. if no response is recieved, it will send a final warning via email or sms and wait 24 hours. if there is still no response after 24 hours, deaddrop would mail out a blowfish encrypted file [or set of files] to a predetermined party.as it stands, i already have a script that waits for a weekly ping on one of my servers. if it doesn't hear from in a week it will send me a text message every 6 hours for 24 hours reminding me to check-in. if i don't respond, it's set to e-mail a copy of my will and a master password list to a few trusted third parties. i rigged it up after a friend of mine died and left all of his vital information behind on an encrypted drive that no one could figure out the password to.