My husband had a nightmare once in which I had died and my colleagues called him together and told him he had to finish the book I was working on. So, not him — someone else! I think he could figure out who it should be, though, and what folders were worth bothering about, and when he was able to do that.

I don’t think there’s really an ethical problem in going through the information as that is what happens with data’s real-world analogues. If a person dies and you inherit their personal effects or possessions then it is likely you will go through them (including photo albums and diaries) and determine what is useful or valuable and what would serve someone else – or a fire – better.

I guess what I’m after is, by choosing what to write down, you can choose what secrets to take to the grave, out of consideration for the living.  But quite often, the gadgets we use decide for us, for reasons far from obvious, what to write down.

A web browser creates a history without express instructions from the user.

You should see what Amazon thinks I’m interested in after five years of checking links.

I’d think of hiring a third party, a trustworthy one, to sort through the data first, and pull out the stuff that might be problematic. No one wants to see grampa’s collection of Double-D Bukkakke Sluts.

Death Reference Desk http://deathreferencedesk.org/ has some great articles related to death and the modern world. Things like Facebook and Twitter creating memorial modes for the deceased user.

I think this sums it up.

Beyond that, as always, care and discretion. Taking on the task makes you, in many ways, responsible for that person’s life.

Data doesn’t work like that.  Do you know whether the photographer knowingly and intentionally had the GPS turned on on their phone, recording the exactly time and location each picture was taken?  A web browser creates a history without express instructions from the user.

I’m not saying your approach is a wrong one – just that data on a hard drive does have important differences from a box of letters, photos, and notebooks.

I still have a hard-drive with all my late-wife’s files on them and that was four years ago. The minutia of a loved one is a tricky thing to process.

I initially kept it because you never know when you might have to delve back for some vital information. With time I have come to understand that I kept it because I have lost enough for the time being. 

However technology moves on and it would’t easily be connected to my current computer. One day it will again be just a hard drive, an out-dated one at that, and not as it was at the start, a collection of thousands of small files that together presented me with a desperate glimpse of the personality I was missing so much.

And that’s OK by me.

How this is done to protect privacy of the deceased’s peers during the interim… I don’t know.
But think of the wealth of data that could be mined in the future!

(I’ve also have an unopened box of Verbatim 5.25 floppies as well.)

Personally, I’m more concerned now with what would become of my web pages.   How long would the domains be paid for and hosted?  Ultimately, I guess they’ll just be a few more pages on the Internet Archive.

Keep in mind that not all people are fully in control of their computers.  They may have been hacked and it may be hosting a chatroom where illegal exchanges are occuring.  The last time I saw that occur was 4 years ago and computers are only getting faster all the time.  

Also, I would totally quarantine the media from any known networks when you’re performing analysis.  

Xeni’s tweeted lately, so I sure as hell hope this isn’t all about her.  I would say this, if it’s a hardcore geek and you find a ton of drives unencrypted and they had a long-term illness I’d consider a lack of encryption as an invitation.