I think you need to add a universal reader for the data that is "stored permanently." What if a bunch of Word files are all stored permanently, but in 100 years we don't have a program to read the data that's stored in the system?

I like this idea and think it has some merits. U would have 2 be bonded/insured and have some major (brick co?) backing so this 'permanent' record will say up put and not disappear after a few years.
Universal reader is not a bad idea. Make all stuff 'text-able', rtf, pdf and the major formats

Make money by offering a free (low storage space) and charge 4 more and then family access. Is it RO for public or just some people etc...

Great idea but why limit it to text? I would think decedents would love to hear and see ancestors as well. You could also do a distributed hosting (bittorrent only permanent) so the start up cost could be quite small. Sell ads and you've got a second revenue stream.

It appears to me the real service to be rendered is the transferal of account ownership and retrieval of personal data. these are thing worth advocating (and being paid for that advocacy is nice too.)

The Vaults can be established as foundation accounts.

I've often wondered what would happen to all my online life & media if I die?

I also want some kind of VirtualExecutor that I can store all my passwords & accounts with.. that will guarantee that certain information will be released to only certain ppl..

My Mom doesn't need to know about my SuicideGirls accounts - you know? :)

This is a good idea. When a friend of mine died recently we discovered she'd used hard encryption for all her files. We couldn't even get into her address book to let her various friends around the world know that she had passed on.

I actually wrote an article on the economics of perpetual storage, but I wasn't thinking in terms of legacy storage. You can read it here:

http://technaut.live...ournal.com/4866.html

cute and heart warning...

"How would you like to leave a permanent mark on the Internet for your descendents and in 100 years or more they can look back on your life "

...a powerful need to get remembered!

virtual personal "ad" infinitum? i guess it has potential...a non expirry membership for few cents...multiply into few hundred million agin market year in year out...WOW this is a great business!

I want in on this...

Cool idea. Two things come to mind:
1. What medium would you store it in? Hard drives break down, DVDs last a long time but still not forever, paper eventually turns to dust...
2. If you store it digitally, will people in the future be able to read it? In 100 years will people still have a mpeg-2 codec on their super duper computers?

this is not a idea... this is a policy that you want to implement

this could be a killer feature for my eMemorial site...

http://www.cambrianh...er/ideas-id/UlzPfd5/

http://www.myheritage.com/ with some extensiosn?
Tommy

An interesting idea, but as people have suggested there are some things you need to think about:

- what storage medium will you use?
- how will you ensure legacy file types remain readable?
- what backups/insurance will you need?
- how will you deal with data protection issues, given that you're expecting sensitive data to be stored; you might be able to have a "will"-type system for allowing only certain family members to have access, but how will they prove their identity? What if, for example, the police ask for access to data?

You need a super-proof place to store it, who knows who's in charge in a hundred years? I suggest a depositry on the moon. If people are advanced enough in the future to maintain a route to the moon, they are bound to not want to indiscriminately destroy such a vault, only uncivilized people do that.

Or store all the bits on super-thin unbreakable clay-slabs, they seem to be the only ones that last for a long time (ref. egyptian hieroglyphs etc.)

Torgrot

I think Amazon/S3 would meet most of this criteria because:
- Hard drives are a CHEAP way to store data. So cheap, that redundancy is cost effective.
- I would always trust redundancy over one-super-safe-copy.
...and that is what Amazon offers with S3. I'd ponder looking at building a service on top of S3 (certainly S3 doesn't manage who gets the data when you die, etc.), that way you don't have to concern yourself with actually handling any media yourself.

As Gordon said, HDs are cheap, though you need some staffers to actively manage your storage array. And if it truly is meant to be "forever", you would need redundant storage in data centers geographically dispersed.

That or you could hook up a CNC machine to etch tablets of stone :) Carving things in stone worked for other civilizations... :)

I think http://www.silicongl...prepare-digital.html indicates more why this "permanent storage" idea is so useful, especially in the immediate aftermath of someone's death.

This is a whole new area that few have ventured into yet, but which has already made major news because of Iraq war veterans and the ordeal their relatives had to go through to get access to emails and personal contact details

Craig