Untraceable Messaging Service Raises a Few Eyebrows 236
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."
There's always a way. (Score:5, Insightful)
Screen capture? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V (Score:4, Insightful)
Bending over for a second . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
not recordable (Score:3, Insightful)
insecure. (Score:4, Insightful)
Still traceable? (Score:3, Insightful)
I hereby claim this to still be traceable, even if it is a little more difficult than you would otherwise expect.
Re:Packet sniffing anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:ScatterChat (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Screen capture? (Score:3, Insightful)
To everyone mentioning screenshots... (Score:1, Insightful)
The idea of a non-traceable communication system is that, if the two people conversing don't want it to be seen again, it can't be. If I'm talking to Joe Smith about how we're going to steal ten trillion dollars from a couple hundred bank accounts around the world, I want to make sure that nobody can FIND or ACCESS the conversation we just had; for obvious reasons. If we talked about it on AIM, chances are some computer-savvy prosecutor could find logs of that chat hovering around cyberspace somewhere. If we talked over email, someone could find it hanging around in temp files, or SOMEthing.
This software doesn't aim to hide conversations from the people taking part in them. So unless you're worried about Big Brother sneaking up behind you and mashing the PRNTSCRN button every five seconds or so, screenshots are NOT an issue.
That being said, I still think it's a bit narrow in its uses. We'll see, though. We'll see.
Did I read the right article? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:There's always a way. (Score:2, Insightful)
we've had this for years (Score:3, Insightful)
Relying on any kind of proprietary service for secure communications is achieving the exact opposite: you have no way of knowing whether these people play by the rules.
Re:There's always a way. (Score:5, Insightful)
Better yet. Run the whole process on virtual machines on a virtual network. Record the virtual state and I/O from outside the virtual machine/network and replay the whole process (including message display and "deletion") at your convenience.
Questionable... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Packet sniffing anyone? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:There's always a way. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:ScatterChat (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:There's always a way. (Score:5, Insightful)
Or hell, I could just take photos of the screen.
This might well be secure from the average end user, but there will always be someone who can circumvent it, and in the case of a software hack, it only takes one.
How "Disappearing Inc" solved this N years ago (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Did I read the right article? (Score:3, Insightful)
I did read the article, in particular this bit:
Those of us that you're complaining about are simply pointing out that that claim is incorrect. The message most certainly *can* be saved, it just isn't by default.
Re:DRM can make screenshots impossible (Score:3, Insightful)
Screenshot proves identity? (Score:2, Insightful)