Delete.im: the forgetful messaging service

So I can't send this to people I dont trust and I have no way to guarantee that delete.im doesn't save my messages. What exactly do I gain from this over just clearing my local logs?

As as security person these 'forgetful' services really bother me because people tend to claim that they offer the world but there is no way to actually guarantee any of it. More importantly there _fundamentally_ isn't a way to prevent the other side from saving the message. Without end-to-end encryption there isn't a way to make any claims about what is stored by the service.

And before you recommend end-to-end encryption in a browser based service don't forget that we know exactly how those get MITM'd: When a warrant comes in you serve that person a different webpage with broken encryption/leaks.

This is the same rant I had about Snapchat, and the same rant I'll have about the next forgetful .* service. The only claim they have to actually being forgetful is a promise and you'll never see them stand behind any actual privacy claim because they cant and they know that.

tl;dr Please stop making 'forgetful' services or 'view only once' services.

https://onetimesecret.com/ – also sends messages. Does not support images or view limits greater than 1, but does support requiring a password to view.

http://volafile.io/ – for sharing files. Create a private or public chatroom where you can upload files and they are deleted after 24 hours. See, for example, the Hacker News room: http://volafile.io/r/BCcsa6.

- open source, so you can (and should) host your own - encrypted on the client, only encrypted data is stored on the server. Key is "stored" in the fragment identifier [1] (ie after the #hash), so the server doesn't receive it, yet you can share the full url with who you want.

Obvious deficiency: the javascript to encrypt/decrypt is distributed by the server, so you have to trust it. Which is why you should install and use your own instance.

Side-effect of using client-side encryption: "burn after reading" is merely a convenience for the server admin so he can reclaim some disk space. You don't have to trust the server for this.

Oh, and it's only php, so installation is only unzipping.

[0] http://sebsauvage.net/wiki/doku.php?id=php:zerobin [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragment_identifier

As the lovely named 'shittyanalogy' picks up on I think the use case here isn't for super secret messages or data you never want viewing. We've had people use it for coupon codes (first 100 get it) or your phone number so you don't have to post it publicy. We preach the mantra of 'don't upload things to the internet you don't want people to see'. This rule applies to snapchat, us & all the other services out there.

https://delete.im/messages/retrieve/n0rLEeSsqX/

Edit: It says 'unique' views. I wonder if my incognito windows didn't fool it? Hopefully HN can make it disappear.

    {
        "success": true,
        "seconds": 300000000,
        "code": "20r5M5y3ec"
    }