After reading about the "suicide" of yet another whistleblower, it got me thinking.
When working at large enough company, it's entirely possible that at some point you will get across some information the company does not want to be made public, but your ethics mandate you blow the whistle. So, I was wondering if I were in that position how I would approach creating a dead man's switch in order to protect myself.
From wikipedia:
A dead man's switch is a switch that is designed to be activated or deactivated if the human operator becomes incapacitated, such as through death, loss of consciousness, or being bodily removed from control. Originally applied to switches on a vehicle or machine, it has since come to be used to describe other intangible uses, as in computer software.
In this context, a dead man's switch would trigger the release of information. Some additional requirements could include:
- No single point of failure. (aka a usb can be stolen, your family can be killed, etc)
- Make the existence of the switch public. (aka make sure people know of your mutually assured destruction)
- Secrets should be safe until you die, disappear, or otherwise choose to make them public.
Anyway, how would you go about it?
The most non-intrusive foolproof method I can think of is spite-induced action:
- Get a pacemaker with Zigbee mesh network connectivity
- Implant a small device into your wrist that vibrates if your pacemaker is ever disconnected from the network (in which case, run NOW to your nearest safehouse)
- Should the vibration continue for longer than 5 minutes, a vial of cyanide from a hollow tooth explodes into your mouth allowing you to spit it at your nearest enemy (should one be around)
- The bursting of the hollow tooth sends a signal to a remote server, which triggers the
ejectcommand on a server, causing the CD tray to come out. - A confused sysadmin will bitterly get off his chair, and go inspect the server, whereupon he will see the paper instructions embedded in the CD tray, and read them.
- Assuming his latvian is good, and that he's familiar with caesar cyphers, he will decode the message that will lead him to a youtube URL where he will post the following comment "Jose I slept with your mother."
- One of the subscribers to the youtube channel is your friend Jose, who will read the comment, spit out his coffee, and then immediately call you.
- After about a week of no response, he uploads the contents of that USB stick you gave him with the instructions to "never upload this ever under any circumstance" out of sheer spite.
Edit: Here, I made a diagram of the whole thing
State Diagram
Show
(with mermaid source)
stateDiagram-v2 direction TB state Internet { state "Wider Zigbee Network" as WiderZigbeeNetwork -- state "Youtube" as youtube{ state "MuckBang <small>Wasabi Challenge</small>" as video1 state "A Cat's Guide to Vomit <small>By Remington Steel</small>" as video2 } state "Remote Server" as server { state "Server <small>CD-Tray</small>" as cdtray state "SysAdmin <small>Some Latvian Dude</small>" as terry } -- state "brazzers.org" as brazzers } state People { state "Jose" as jose { state "Youtube Subscriptions" as subs state "Phone" as josephone state "Coffee" as cuppajoe state "USB Stick" as usb2 } state "You" as you { state "Pacemaker" as pmaker state "Wrist Implant" as wrimplant state "Hollow Tooth" as htooth state "USB Stick" as usb1 state "Phone" as youphone } state "Enemy" as enemy { state "Random Person" as rando } } [*] --> pmaker : Insert next to heart pmaker --> WiderZigbeeNetwork : Maintain connection WiderZigbeeNetwork --> wrimplant : Vibrate for 5 mins if connection lost wrimplant --> htooth: Explode after 5 mins vibrating htooth --> cdtray: Send "eject" htooth --> enemy: Spit cyanide cdtray --> terry : Decode the paper in the CD tray terry --> video1 : Comment about Jose's mother video1 --> subs : subscribed to video2 --> subs : subscribed to subs --> cuppajoe : Spit out when reading insulting comment cuppajoe --> usb2 cuppajoe --> josephone usb1 --> usb2 : Years ago - Give USB stick with instructions to never upload josephone --> youphone : Call to complain but get no response usb2 --> brazzers : Upload USB contents out of spiteOh, just a silly reference to the sifi series "Rememberance of Earth's Past" by Lui CiXin. A character, Manuel Rey Diaz, makes a convoluted dead man's switch device in order to attempt to defend against an impending alien invasion. Incredible series, highly recommend 😁
Oh! Ive read that trilogy, I love that standoff he has when it looks like he's about to kill himself. Didn't make the connection
The real answer: hire a law firm, entrust them with your documents, write into your will what you want to happen with them, and then go on about your business.
The question assumes that you family could be killed. Why the law firm is protected against such violence in that case?
Maybe, add a clause what should happen if you disappear for more than x days. For most jurisdictions you are considered dead if you disappear for a few years.
It doesn't make any sense. If you are a whistleblower is because you already published the information. They are not killing you so the information does not get revealed. They are killing because you already did.
If you really have secrets, you shouldn't have a dead man's switch.
You should have released it all on day one.
"What makes them keep you alive then?"
It's not like corporations are going to get punished for killing you regardless.
The problem with releasing them on day one is that you then can't gather more. If you've only just exposed the edges of the malfeasance you need time to get the rest before exposing it. Go too early and the rest of the evidence can be destroyed, covered up or those holding it coearsed into silence.
Having a dead man's switch is a way to ensure whatever you've gathered gets released if you're no longer in a position to gather more. As such I disagree with the poster about making it public knowledge before release. Keep it secret until you have everything, then release it.
Another thing to consider is that you won't know immediately that the information you stumbles upon is incriminating. Sometimes it may take years until you have all the pieces of the puzzle.
Fwiw I've actually thought about a dead man's switch for a while now. When my partner and I were going through end-of-life stuff, having the ability to delete or open things as needed after you're dead can be important.
I have a rough design in my head where you register various monitors (e.g. checking email, logging into Lemmy, etc) and so long as you reach a specified threshold you're considered alive.
Build in a duress code or dead code that can be entered by your next of kin, then you got something workable.
For a dead drop like you described in your OP, I agree that instructions to an attorney is probably your best bet. But in the scenario you're describing, it sounds like having this code won't be valuable.
Making the existence of the switch public is often something you don't want. It allows others to do troubleshooting in advance. It also destroys your reputation with many people who might otherwise work with you.
If you are content to keep things secret, share the documents with several different friends or law firms in several different countries along with conditions for release. Don't tell them or everyone who all has the documents. That sounds relatively simple.
Making the existence of something public means you'd need to give away at least some details of who or what it concerned, at which point you're in the situation of either being a target or a blackmailer.
I agree with all of the above, except I’d add encryption to the data.
That way you are not putting your life in their hands, at least until it doesn’t matter / you want the data released. Encryption keys are super lightweight vs data; taken to an unreasonable extreme, a KB could unlock TBs.
Though you’d probably want something more like a passphrase. Anyway, that basic idea is sound but I dunno about the exact delivery/delay mechanism. Gun to my head and I have seconds to decide… scheduled send from a major cloud email provider, pay way in advance, and an increasing flood of calendar events/reminders up to the day it sends. The message would include enough information about the encryption used and formats within that any tier 1 helpdesk level IT person could access the data.
Not perfect, but a good enough balance of simple and robust to start with.
Nothing atm, but you never know what you may find. I would assume that most whistleblowers didn't know they joined a shady organisation until years down the line...
The whole point in being a whistleblower is to release the documents. Why would you tell everyone what's happening and not provide the evidence? After you release it, there's less chance of being harmed, and your job is done besides showing up to court.
Give the encrypted file to one person, the key to another and do not keep either yourself. They exchange them if you die.
Why not keep a copy?
Also, both people are single point of failures. Maybe, 5-6 people where each has an encrypted payload and the keys to decrypt everyone else's payload.
IIRC Julian Assange had something like that set up. There used to be a file you could download from WikiLeaks that was encrypted and supposedly contained something very spicy, and if anything happened to him the password would be released somehow.
No idea if that's still a thing or not though.
Well there are various services that let you disclose info to certain people upon death. examples: https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-prepare-your-digital-life-accounts-for-your-death
So you could create those and send them to various journalists or whoever you think would be interested. Then ensure in your will that they are notified of your death. Will them a small object or something.
Tbh I think the concept of a dead man switch is fantasy. You always hear about them in place but then nothing happens when the person dies.
Has there EVER been a dead man switch that worked?
Didn't Epstein have one? I think if something that incriminating can be eliminated, the concept as you said doesn't work.
That's what I mean. Maybe I'm misremembering, but didn't he have one that was supposed to put out a list of names online or some shit? And then he died and nothing happened, likely because feds got to it.
Well then it didn't work. If it ever existed in the first place.
And there were no other replies to my question, so my hypothesis stands. :D
(Tho I looked at this thread on the original instance and it has 96 comments vs 32 here on hb; likely few people saw it due to non-federations.)
One issue from a legal/prosecutorial point of view (even assuming there is a willingness for the government to prosecute) is that the rules of evidence require authentication of documents. In the case of a whistleblower, they are themselves a witness and can authenticate (that is, attest to the genuine nature of) any supporting documents they bring in. If a whistleblower is killed, even if the government has the documents the whistleblower intended to authenticate, it becomes a lot trickier to use.
