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Comment by wwwtyro | Hacker News Reader

I don't get it. If you're emailing the link anyway, wouldn't someone that intercepts the email have access to the link? Is the point that your recipient opens it before an interceptor does?

I'ts also unclear to me how the encryption scheme is working here. I don't see how it's impossible for the server to decrypt the message when it is sending you everything you need to decrypt it when you click the link. Am I missing something?

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I think its aimed at medium priority info where convenience of both parties is a factor. It seems the point is to send information that, although it could still be compromised, you will know if that happens because your recipient won't be able to access the message. So you have peace of mind that there was no silent observation of the info en route. I think if you were trying to send information that you didn't want to be compromised at all, you'd eschew the convenience of this and use proper encryption on the message (both parties PGP keys, etc).

Also, from what I understand, the system requires total trust in the provider's servers to do their job. That is no different than trusting that an anonymous email provider is doing their job (not storing logs, etc) and there's a proven market for that (I think).

The claim of how the server doesn't have the information to decrypt seems valid. The key is computed locally and never sent to the sever. That doesn't make this a good idea, but I see plenty of comments already pointing to the specifics of bad RNG, crypto in Javascript being problematic, etc.

> Is the point that your recipient opens it before an interceptor does?

Yes, the idea is simply to avoid having the sensitive data stored somewhere forever, like on their gmail account. Obviously if you think you have a 3rd party listening in on your on-going conversation, you need something more secure.

I don't know about your second point.

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