Posted on 05/13/2014 8:45:51 PM PDT by george76
In a world where texts, tweets and emails can potentially be used against you, billionaire investor Mark Cuban launched Cyber Dust, an app for disappearing text messages and photos.
Once the recipient views the note, it vanishes in seconds.
Cuban says he was inspired to create this service after being challenged by the FCC over insider trading allegations, of which he was eventually cleared. “What I learned very quickly was they took old emails and messages and created whatever context they wanted to create for it,” says Cuban.
Cuban took his idea to app developers and launched Cyber Dust to address his privacy concerns. “The minute we hit send on a text we lose control,” says Cuban. “We are all going to have to learn to shrink our digital footprint.”
...
Cyber Dust does not store messages on hard drives. Snapchat, on the other hand, recently got in trouble with the FTC, saying it misled the public about the extent of its privacy.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxbusiness.com ...
There’s a big future in helping people be untraceable. Not easy, to be sure — the government very much wants to trace people. But if you can make communication disappear, if you can make strong crypto-currency, then you perform a great service for freedom.
“Once the recipient views the note, it vanishes in seconds.”
That doesn’t necessarily mean that the original note, or perhaps risque picture, does not exist on a server somewhere.
I’m skeptical as well.
The problem is who should be trusted.
I can imagine such a service being employed as a “Honey Pot” by nefarious entities (AKA US Government).
The minute we hit send on a text we lose control,” says Cuban. “We are all going to have to learn to shrink our digital footprint.”
Probably that is what this does. Shrink, not erase the footprint.
Best solution will be old school: face to face conversations.
There is always screen grab.
If the service works I would love to use it. However there os a 100% chance the nsa will require their own back door.
BFL!
Well...not really.
Once the sender sends the note it is on a server running a database. Oracle? SAP? SQL?. That server is constantly being backed up with point-in-time snapshots using a hot backup mode which requires no down time for the database. These copies are stored in turn on secondary storage arrays. These disks in turn are mirrored to another array and then possibly backed up to tape...or another virtual tape library.
So the recipient may see his copy disappear in seconds but the data is still backed up somewhere. And accessible to the right person. He who owns the database and the storage infrastructure.
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