http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,52997,00.html Man in charge of important password-protected Norwegian historical documents dies taking the password with him; hackers' help is requested. (Why were they password-protected in the first place?) The story ends with a moving tale of Web designer Kenny LaGuardia's misfortune at the hands of a “Dead Man's Switch”—a program that, if not regularly reset “automatically carries out a series of pre-designated tasks.”
”I went on vacation, and forgot all about the switch,” said Kenny LaGuardia, a Web designer from Los Angeles. “When I returned home, the program had posted, ‘So I guess I'm dead’ messages to all the newslists I subscribe to, and destroyed all my adult entertainment files.”