elEEt hAxOr Alert: Michelle Delio's Wired News article, Dead Men Tell No Passwords, tells the sad tale of "the man in charge of archiving and maintaining electronic copies of Norway's most important historical documents" who died and with him, access to part of the archives since no one else had the password. "So the director of the Norwegian cultural center is pleading for hackers to help him crack the center's password-protected database."

Also of interest is a Dead Man's Switch program which can obviate these sorts of problems. Unfortunately, " '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.' "

Update on June 7 - Password cracked! The first email they got at the cultural center had the correct password. The hAxoRs Strike Back!