In a lot of movies people often say if I don’t type a password in then “the” files will be emailed, emails sent to journalists, or the site will go online, etc. exposing whoever it is they are in danger from or blackmailing.
I always thought it was a cool concept, and it probably isn’t hard for someone who knows what they’re doing to set up some script for that, but I was wondering if there was a self hosted app that you could set up that let you set timers, say for a day, and if a password isn’t entered to cancel it, it sends files to an email (maybe configured to hit all news outlets/journalists), deploys a website at a domain thats preconfigured/setup, tweets something, etc.
just schedule an email to send at a later date/time, then if you don’t login to cancel it, off it goes.
https://www.deadmansswitch.net/ < this looks like it fits the bill
And self hosting option: https://github.com/storopoli/dead-man-switch
It’s called a dead man’s switch and there’s not really anything complicated about it.
The thing is, it’s so so simple I doubt anyone has made a full on app to do it.
Like, the people who do that stuff aren’t the type to require an app to do everything for them.
In a world of
left-pad, I’m sure someone has made an app for itMy immediate thought is a cron job that tests the user account’s last login time and fires a script if it is exceeded.
I’m almost positive outlook can be set up to do it on its own, I was just too lazy to Google how to set it up
Feels like it makes sense to self host such an app instead of going through some corporation
Depends on your priorities.
But if your priority is to get the info out there, then you want both, so that it can’t be stopped just by your ISP cutting your service or losing power, nor by the service you’re using shutting down or deleting your message
You don’t really need a self hosted app, you can write a script to do the following:
- Check if file X exists.
- If file X does exist, delete it
- If file X doesn’t exist, delete directory Y
Then create a new scheduled task to run the script every week.
The result is that you have a deadman switch with a weeks delay
Unless you recreate file X every week, directory Y will be deleted.
This is a very simplistic example, but it would be decently difficult to figure out.
I’ve always thought about a ‘button’ on your phone that you could press and wipe an entire encrypted drive. Conversely you could have to log in at an appointed time/interval or the same scenario goes into play.
Check out Ripple
