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?
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.