Comment by withinboredom
3 years ago
A deadman's switch connected to a manner of things. It basically works by 'non-existence' instead of existence and fires a webhook once something stops. For example, if my computer is turned off for a couple of weeks, it will send an email to loved ones. When I go day hiking, something similar happens when my phone loses service/power for more than a couple hours and sends a low-quality gps track. Basically it's if-this-then-that but more like if-this-stops-then-that. I have it tracking all kinds of things, like git-commits-per-person, server/device health metrics, and things like that.
You could imagine a combination of a Tor-like architecture and Shamir's Secret Sharing Scheme to construct a scavenger-hunt encryption system. Maybe 10 dead-man-switch utilities around the world agree to reveal X when Y happens (or doesn't happen), but their policies aren't even revealed until the first N secrets are broadcast. That way you can distribute the risk of collision, and meter the rate of a final secret being revealed or job being executed.
I’ve built exactly this a few years ago.
I was having anxiety that was throwing me into some crazy spirals and I’ve started to document all my stuff and prepare for the worst. I’ve at the time even registered a company and domais in Iceland “eternity.is” so I cold literally have credit cards issued to continue paying for my domains, storage until kids could pick up from where I left.
Splitting Shamir secrets token for the “Root authority” and finding a way to manage quotas was the fun part the help me deal with the anxiety and let things go.
Make that "collusion," not "collision," and thank you once again autocorrect.
I'd love to see the code for this. Seems useful.