Self-destructing online messages could save your job, your relationship, your bacon

gizmag ^ | 7/24/09 | By Jeff Salton

[Flavius]

If you’ve got nothing to hide there’s no need to read to any further. But if you’re worried about someone digging up something from your past – and we’re talking non-criminal here – which may influence or damage job prospects, relationships, your social or professional life, then good news is at hand. The University of Washington (UW) has developed Vanish – a prototype system that places a time limit on information uploaded to any web service through a web browser. Electronic communication sent using Vanish - such as e-mail, posts on social networking sites and chat messages - would have a brief lifetime and then self-destruct, becoming irretrievable from all websites, inboxes, outboxes, backup sites and home computers. The University says that not even the sender could retrieve them.

"If you care about privacy, the Internet today is a very scary place," said UW computer scientist Tadayoshi Kohno. "If people understood the implications of where and how their e-mail is stored, they might be more careful or not use it as often."

[saganite]

Politicians will be the first customers.

[PAR35]

I can think of several ways to defeat that function, some of them extremely low-tech. Folks should save their money.

[fso301]

What happens when someone makes a copy of the communication?

[Mark was here]

Copy that.

[bubbacluck]

I couldn’t read the original post. It just went away...

[Star Traveler]

The article said — Electronic communication sent using Vanish - such as e-mail, posts on social networking sites and chat messages - would have a brief lifetime and then self-destruct, becoming irretrievable from all websites, inboxes, outboxes, backup sites and home computers. The University says that not even the sender could retrieve them.

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It’s not possible to “compel” this to happen, unless the place where it resides also cooperates with this outfit and implements the protocol to do that. In other words, there are way too many places and ways and methodologies where one can override this.

This is promoting a false idea that can never be implemented 100%. People can copy things, can take screen shots if they want, and get and keep that information that you want deleted and stored for years, so it will never disappear...

This is a bogus idea...

[OrangeHoof]

Rule 1:

Do not have a MySpace or FaceBook page. Unless you’re likely to commit a criminal act, that is, then it’s wonderful for establishing motive. It used to be difficult to understand why mass killings and other crimes took place. Now, you just go to their webpage and their racist screeds and hate-filled diatribes are all out there to see, making it easy for prosecutors to establish motive to juries.

[TexasFreeper2009]

yep, nothing can prevent me from taking a screen shot of anything I wish.

[Arthur McGowan]

One reason it’s worthwhile have a film camera. You can always take a picture of the screen.

[SES1066]

Starting with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and with the various responses on the War-on-Terror, emails are now almost routinely off-loaded into off-line databases for archiving. Their subsequent retrieval, especially for legal need, is done in an isolated environment. Consequently, I do not see this as practical except to the individual who sends to addresses outside these archival environments.

Another thing I see a problem with is that there are actual legal penalties for destroying data on other people's computers. Your message, once it is legitimately received in someone else's computer, is considered their property. You cause it to be destroyed, you have committed a crime! Good luck!

[Cicero]

This is nuts. If you have something you really don’t want people to see, don’t post it on the internet. And never write a letter or send an email that you wouldn’t want to become public.

[radiohead]

If you have something you really don’t want people to see, don’t post it on the internet.

Yup. I teach grad level information policy and constantly tell my young charges that they can talk about personal freedom and privacy all they want, but if they don't want shite to hit them in the butt, then don't put it on the internet. I also use a lot of stuff from the net in my teaching. If people don't want their stuff to be stolen borrowed, then don't put it on a publicly available internet page.

[upchuck]

I bet President Nixon wishes he had a system like this back in the day :)

[Star Traveler]

Actually, a digital camera will work just as well, or even better and/or easier, a screen-shot (on the computer, itself) would work just as well. But, yes, any kind of camera would work (phone, film, other digital...).

[Star Traveler]

I just used my iPhone camera to see if I could read the Free Republic webpage and the writing on it. I could read it just fine and make out everything that was printed (after I used the “pinch routine” for expanding the page on the picture I took... :-) ...)

[norraad]

I use that for pulled threads, I have quite a collection, perhaps I can start my own website called, uh, umm, oh , I know, Pulled Threads.

Ad mons, chill, I'm just kidding(the name is cool though).

[Star Traveler]

I have saved pulled threads, too... LOL..

Sometimes I’ll be posting and the thread gets pulled right when I’m in the middle of replying and it comes up “pulled”... then I’ll go to another window, where I have the thread already up and I’ll “save” it and keep the thread... I’ve got a bunch of them like that.. :-)