Untraceable Messaging Service Raises a Few Eyebrows

netbuzz writes "A messaging service called VaporStream announced today at DEMOfall will allow any two parties to communicate electronically without leaving any record of their interaction on any computer or server. Messages cannot be forwarded, edited, printed or saved. After they're read, they're gone."

Comments

There's always a way.

[SomeGuyFromCA]

Screenshots, anyone?

ScatterChat

[dshaw858]

I somehow thing that this wouldn't be totally secure. Man in the middle attacks? DNS attacks, spoofing the "web based chat"'s interface? There are lots of ways to mess this up. If I was going for anonymity and protection, I'd use Cult of the Dead Cow's newly released "hacktivism" tool, ScatterChat. It basically uses strong encryption plus Tor (optionally, I think) to make chats as close to perfectly secure as a major chat appliance has come. It's a great idea, many years in the making. I'd go with that, myself.

- dshaw

PS: No, I'm neither affiliated with ScatterChat or CDC in any way.

obligatory

[CrazyJim1]

A messaging service called VaporStream

Oh, I thought it said VaporSteam, the gaming service that would allow you to play Duke Nukem Forever.

Re:not recordable

[mctk]

I just make sure both parties are really wasted. Cause if you don't remember it, it never happened. Right? ...RIGHT??

look at it but don't blink

[icepick72]

I've tried the service and it's so advanced that if I blink it diaappears. Try reading a long letter and it's like having staring contest with a fish. I hope they have patents. This thing is awesome.

Did I read the right article?

[Alric]

Most of you seem to be missing the point of this system. This is basically a bulletin board system with a special emphasis on deleting all traces of a message as soon as it is read by the recipient.

This is not a DRM system.

This system assumes that the sender and the recipient both want to keep the message a secret. Of course somebody can take a screenshot. Or they could just photograph the screen. Or use their brain to remember the message and then their mouth to repeat it. If your big criticsm is that this system doesn't prevent the recipient from reproducing the message, well, please just stop typing.

The point of this system is that the message itself leave no trail, unlike email or instant messaging. After the message is read, there's no ability to trace the message from the sender to the recipient, and there's very little ability to intercept the message. Sure it can be done, but the right combination of SSL and other precautionary measures should make this a fairly secure experience.

As I said, this seems to be just a suped-up BBS system. Unless I'm missing something, the technology is really nothing new or exciting. The only new thing here seems to be the marketing package, but they seem to be doing a pretty good job of providing a new service using existing technology.

I like this quote

[DK]

"The company doesn't see VaporStream being a useful tool for terrorists because it's built for one-to-one conversations, not one to a group."

Now THAT's a convincing argument.

How "Disappearing Inc" solved this N years ago

[billstewart]

Back during the boom, a startup called Disappearing Inc made a similar system for email.
Their tech guy explained that it was really important to define the problems you're trying to solve and the problems you're *not* trying to solve. If you're trying to help cooperating users communicate privately, you can do it, but if you're trying to prevent uncooperative users from getting around it, that's probably impossible and certainly snake oil at best. They weren't trying to keep the users from breaking the system with some kind of DRM nonsense - they were building something that would let the users make sure that they didn't keep records of their email that they weren't deliberately trying to keep. It's the Ollie North email backups problem, not the Mr. Phelps problem.