▲ ▼ Secure transfer of encryption keys after death
The day before my surgery, which had high probability that I may not survive; I was setting up master key for my encryption keys, writing it to a physical file and handed it to my father telling him to hand it over to my company shareholders if the need arises and provided biometric access to my mother from my smartphone. Reason being, I was the single founder, executive of my startup, all the intangible assets was under my control and most of it encrypted as it should be.
So, incase of my demise I wanted my shareholders to have access to the data if they decide to run the company. Obviously I survived, but looking back at that day; I feel that if someone knew that they may die the next day they should probably do something better with their time than reminding their loved ones that they may die. Of-course, writing master key to a file is not great for security either.
For a non subjective example for this need gap, $145 million worth cryptocurrencies was locked after the CEO died and he was the only person with the passphrase for encryption.
Password manager - bitwardern has introduced 'Emergency Access' - https://bitwarden.com/help/article/emergency-access/ which can allow a trusted contact gain access to the vault data in case of emergency.
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Depending on where you live, you could store the password in a safety deposit box and then in your will specify who will become the owner of the safety deposit box on your death.
Gmail has a dead man's switch where another person becomes the owner of your account if you haven't logged in for x years. You could store your password in that account and log in every once in a while. Of course, Gmail would know your password now.
You could also split your encryption key into n pieces and give each numbered piece to someone you trust. While it is still possible they could access your account while living, they'd all have to cooperate to get your account.
All of them are good suggestions, but I feel cryptographic trust needs to be maintained in a solution for exchanging encryption keys especially since Alice is dead and Bob should be whom he claims to be but verified by the system.
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