Ensuring your digital demise...with some help.

Death, at least physical death, has always been the great unknown.  Where do we go?  What will we feel? What will happen to us?

And while many of us have pondered these very questions, many of us have yet to ask ourselves another, equally valid question...what will happen to our digital selves when we die? 

Well, the answer (or a possible answer) has been found in a fascinating article this weekend in the new WIRED magazine called "Lifesavers", written by Scott Brown.  Brown brings up the question that should be on all of our minds...if something happened to us tomorrow, what would (or should) remain of our digital personas online and "in the cloud"?   From items such as bank account passwords and facebook identities, to videogame avatars and maybe even fake online personas, this information may live on long after our physical bodies have gone to rest.

In his article, Brown has found three companies that currently offer an individual the chance for "posthumous" management of their digital lives:

1. Legacylocker.com
2. Deathswitch.com
3. Assetlock.net

For a small fee, each of these companies organizes and stores your online life.  Every so often, they ask that you check in to remind them that you are still alive...if that fails, and is properly verified (one site even needs two living verifiers!), you account with the permissions you sent upon your death is "executed" (no pun intended).  Accounts are closed, video game avatars are given to friends, and messages are sent out.  Total control before you lose all control.

Aside from being incredibly depressing and sad to think about, there is some merit in the regulation of our online identities and all that goes with it.  Many of us barely manage them in our living lives now...signing up for random sites, creating multiple identities on social networking sites, and uploading thousands of photos to the web.  When we are gone...who will manage these?  Delete them?  Save them and create a legacy, in the way that many facebook and myspace pages for people that have passed away are becoming a shrine? 

Or maybe we can finally get to say that last word to someone.  Maybe it is not a bad thing after all.

But what about the other, more neferious sides of us that exist on the web, when paired with the opportunities these services offer?   Passwords and facebook accounts are one thing.  But sending out emails that tell off someone once and for all, that they can never reply to?  Or having triggered messages that admit things that maybe we just shouldn't to others.  Having grandiose visions of creating our digital life after we are gone, that may sound silly if we really think about it?

These services, I feel, are the first volley in a heated debate that will continue on - as our digital lives get larger, we will need to manage them, and ensure they stay the way we want them to...or are deleted when their time is up.  And as our physical lives get shorter, that time may be coming quickly.