Hey Lemmy!
Exactly as the title says, where self-destructing means that no matter what email provider I, or my recipients use, the email will be gone after a set amount of time.
The methods I have come up with are:
- using a PrivateBin or PasteBin link.
- requires the recipient to click on a link that opens in another app/tab
- easy to set up
- using an HTML remote content stylesheet with CSS
::afterto inject the body text of the email; then, if I control the server, I can delete the stylesheet and the email will be gone.- embedded in the email, but plain text only. I’m not even sure if it can do line breaks.
- loading an SVG from a remote source
Does anyone have more methods?
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Can’t do that with email. Email doesn’t have the necessary protocols to keep a file from being copied, scrub file systems, or maintain external links to trusted time keeping sources or control over the hardware to prevent screenshots or other methods to save the data as it’s being displayed to the user.
There are some possible partial implementations like encrypting a file and only allowing decryption and display on a remote server. But then what’s the point of making it an email in the first place? And if the method for viewing the data is something like a website, that doesn’t prevent screenshots or other ways of storing the data.
The only way to truly have self-destructing content of any kind is to use a device that’s fully controlled, a sever that makes sure the device is not compromised, and a neutral third party you trust to keep all recipients from tampering with the server and devices. Otherwise, if one of the users gets control of any component, they will be able to compromise the system. Unfortunately, there are no trustworthy companies who aren’t under pressure to profit fr your data or from governments to allow access to your data. So there can never be a commercial product like that. And email doesn’t have any of this as it’s designed to be portable, not controllable.
you could encrypt the emails body with a gpg key that’s going to expire soon.
No. This isn’t a thing. Don’t try to make it a thing.
Once something leaves your computer you lose control of it. The recipient can do whatever they want with the message. If you don’t trust the recipient not to be malicious then don’t send them anything sensitive. You can’t untell a secret.
The thing with any of the available methods is someone can save the content easily on their end, so it’s only self-destructing in terms of the server it’s stored on.
Yup, anything you can come up with will only work as well as putting “Delete after reading.” in the mail. You have to trust the recipient.
I’d still say that it’s better.
With “delete after reading”, the recipient has to delete the email manually, so the email is kept if no action is taken. But with the methods listed in the post, the content disappears unless action is taken to save it in some form.
Yes, the content can be easily saved & you should never trust that no clients are malicious, but people are forgetful & lazy. If you need the recipient to perform an action each time, there’s a good chance that they won’t.
I still understand your point. You can’t get around the analog gap unless you transmit everything directly ro the brain. And even if you could do that, with text, it’s easy to reproduce from memory.
Very empirical!
The email protocols don’t natively support this, so yeah your best option is to embed or link to a webpage that becomes inaccessible after a set amount of time.
