Slashdot Mirror
This Text Message Will Self Destruct
mwilliamson writes "Silicon.com is reporting that Staellium UK (cell provider) has created a protocol in which text messages disappear after 40 seconds. This, of course, relies on the implementation of the protocol in the device used to display the message. They're touting a future roll out for photos as well, and service in the US."
As if the average person wasn't already running under the assumption that they were somehow anonmyous in their electronic communications. Frankly, I wouldn't knowingly buy a phone that implemented this protocol and didn't allow it to be toggled.
Text messaging reduced to the level of that arcade game where alligators poke up through holes, and you have to hit them on the head before they disappear. Maybe I can try this while driving, just to make it more interesting.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Richard Stallman correctly predicted this was going to happen as a result of of DRM, also known as Digital Restrictions Management, Treacherous Computing, or Handcuffware. To quote from his essay "Can you trust your computer?":
...There are plans to use the same facility for email and documents--resulting in email that disappears in two weeks, or documents that can only be read on the computers in one company.
Imagine if you get an email from your boss telling you to do something that you think is risky; a month later, when it backfires, you can't use the email to show that the decision was not yours. "Getting it in writing" doesn't protect you when the order is written in disappearing ink.
Imagine if you get an email from your boss stating a policy that is illegal or morally outrageous, such as to shred your company's audit documents, or to allow a dangerous threat to your country to move forward unchecked. Today you can send this to a reporter and expose the activity. With treacherous computing, the reporter won't be able to read the document; her computer will refuse to obey her. Treacherous computing becomes a paradise for corruption...
I predict:
From my personal point of view this "auto descruction" feature should only be seen as a convenience where phones autodelete messages to keep enough free memory space.
Am sure almost every article on Slashdot was "reported" elsewhere beforehand.
That is not the point. Some of us simply don't have the time to check a million other websites, instead we use Slashdot and a handful few others that can filter out stuff of interest.
Maybe if you subscribed to a couple of hundred tech-blogs, you might end up knowing half the headlines on Slashdot. But it's much easier to just read it on Slashdot, in one place, when I can be sure that it will eventually show up.
It was a couple of days late. So what? By the time the service would be available, it would be more than a few days later.
I do not understand this obsession with, "Oooh, I saw this on $foo 32 minutes and 23 seconds ago. Slashdot is SLOWWWWWWWWWWW."
Big deal. Some of us don't really care, as long as we hear about it somehow. Slashdot is primarily a forum, if you are a news junkie, look at other sources.
*shakes head*