Self-deleting messages. Ten Services That Let You Send Self-Destructing Emails One-Time Messages

25.07.2007

Ten services that allow you to send self-destructing messages emails, which automatically disappear after a certain time.

Defines self-destructing email as a mail message that disappears or becomes unreadable after a certain period of time or at the request of the sender. This mail can prevent messages from being printed, copied, forwarded, or saved.

An inappropriate email sent several years ago may appear on your horizon today, just when you thought it was probably already deleted. Self-destructing mail deletes the original message immediately after it has been read by the recipient. Although it does not provide full protection- for example, someone might just take a photo of a message, but at least, there will be no records about him on the Internet.

Listed below are several self-destructing mail service providers that you may find useful. Some of them even offer free plugins to send emails from mail clients such as Outlook or Thunderbird.

1. : Allows you to send messages via webmail by adding ".self-destructing-email.com" to the end of the recipient's address. Also provided free plugin entitled for email clients Outlook, Thunderbird, Opera Mail, Outlook Express and even Webmail [ ].

2. : This site provides you with the facility of creating a one-time web page for the recipient. You can safely send a message by entering the recipient's address and the text itself. The recipient will receive an email with a link to a one-time page where they can read your message only once. As soon as the URL is used, the message is deleted.

3. : allows you to create a message that will self-destruct after a certain number of reads, or after a period of time.

4. : demon paid service, with which you can easily send, receive, recall, erase, destroy and edit messages after they have been sent. Users of the service gain unprecedented control over their mail, regardless of whether it is sent from the site or from the client program.

5. : offers functions similar to the BigString service - recall or “retract” of a message after sending, self-destruction based on the number of reads or over time, and protection against copying, forwarding and printing of the text by the recipient. A plugin for email clients is currently being developed.

6. : allows you to set the Release Time, before which the letter cannot be read; Expiration Time, after which the letter cannot be read; and a “delivery receipt”, which indicates when, where, how and who decrypted your message.

7. : allows you to encrypt messages Email, anonymously store encrypted messages, set self-destruction parameters, prevent copying and forwarding.

8. : A web service that allows you to send messages that will self-destruct after 60 seconds of viewing.

10. : A paid service that separates the message header and "who", "what" and "where" fields from the message body. They never connect and are never seen together. There are no records to link users of the service to the content of messages. You also won't be able to print, copy to clipboard, or save messages. You can be absolutely sure that after reading the letter will disappear.

One-time links can be used in a variety of situations: to provide temporary access to a file or page, or to confirm registration. In this tutorial we will show how to generate and implement one-time URLs.

Creating a URL

Let's assume that we have a user authentication system on our website. After registration, we ask the user to go through an email verification procedure. To create such links we can use special parameter token. An example of such a link:

Http://example.com/activate?token=ee97780...

We can't do this without a database, so let's look at the table we'll be working with.

CREATE TABLE pending_users (token CHAR(40) NOT NULL, username VARCHAR(45) NOT NULL, tstamp INTEGER UNSIGNED NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY(token));

We will store 3 fields in the table: token, username and time. To generate a token, we will use the sha1() function, which produces a string of 40 characters. The tstamp field will store the token generation time so that we can track expired links.

There are many ways to generate a token, but in this tutorial we will use the uniqid() and sha1() functions. Regardless of how the token is generated, make sure that the generated values will be different and the likelihood of duplicates is minimal.

$token = sha1(uniqid($username, true));

The uniqid() function takes a string as a parameter and outputs a unique identifier based on the argument passed and the current time. Also, as a second argument, this function accepts boolean value, which will signal uniqid to add a few extra characters to increase the likelihood of the value being unique. The sha1 function takes a unique identifier and creates a hash.

After these two functions work, we will have a unique token that we can use to generate URL addresses. Now we need to add it to the database:

$query = $db->prepare("INSERT INTO pending_users (username, token, tstamp) VALUES (?, ?, ?)"); $query->execute(array($username, $token, $_SERVER["REQUEST_TIME"]));

In order for us to know which user should be activated, we will also record the user’s login in the table. In an example more adapted to a real site, you can use the user ID.

Now that we have all the necessary information, we can create a temporary url:

$url = "http://example.com/activate.php?token=$token";

$message =<<

Examination

Now we need a script, thanks to which we will carry out the check. All we need to do is compare the token from the URL and the token from the database. If there is one, and its lifespan has not expired, then everything is OK.

// get the token if (isset($_GET["token"]) && preg_match("/^(40)$/i", $_GET["token"])) ( $token = $_GET["token"] ; ) else ( throw new Exception("token is not valid."); ) // check the token $query = $db->prepare("SELECT username, tstamp FROM pending_users WHERE token = ?"); $query->execute(array($token)); $row = $query->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC); $query->closeCursor(); if ($row) ( extract($row); ) else ( throw new Exception("token is not valid."); ) // activate the user account // ... // remove the token from the database $query = $db- >prepare("DELETE FROM pending_users WHERE username = ? AND token = ? AND tstamp = ?",); $query->execute(array($username, $token, $tstamp));

We also need to provide a check for tokens whose lifetime has expired:

// 1 day in seconds = 60 seconds * 60 minutes * 24 hours $delta = 86400; // check if ($_SERVER["REQUEST_TIME"] - $tstamp > $delta) ( throw new Exception("token lifetime has expired."); ) // activate the user account // ...

Thus, we will have two checks: one for the validity of the token, the other for the duration of its existence.

Bottom line

This method can be used not only to activate user accounts, but also for other needs: for example, to provide one-time or temporary access to some resource or service.

On top of all this, you can create a script that will delete tokens that you have never used. You can run this script yourself from time to time or use cron for this.

One of the most sought-after capabilities of modern digital technologies is their ability to store information forever. But, at the same time, this is also a big problem, especially in cases where it concerns living people.

Not all users like the fact that any of their photos, tweets, status on a social network or email message can be tracked in some database for decades, and then appear in the light of day at the most inopportune time. Therefore, in Lately There is an increasing demand for services that allow you to work with “one-time” information, that is, with data that disappears without a trace after the time or event you specify. Some of these services will be discussed in this article.

Photo and video

Snapchat

This is special mobile app(iOS, Android), which is used for sharing photos and videos. You can clearly indicate the circle of recipients of your photo or clip, and also set the duration of their availability from one to ten seconds. The message you sent is then deleted from both the recipient's device and Snapchat's servers.

Secret.li

Secret.li - convenient application for iOS that gives you more control over your Facebook photos. The app allows you to control who can view your photos. You can also set the self-destruction time for pictures. The developers promise to soon introduce a version for Android.

Tweets

This is a free web service that allows you to send tweets that self-destruct after a specified time. You must give access to your account Twitter, after which the service will be able to monitor your tweets using special hashtags. Hashtag view #20m indicates that this tweet will be deleted in 20 minutes. In the same way, you can set other time intervals using the letter d for days, and h- for watches.

Instant messages

Wickr

An application for Android and iOS that allows you to transfer text messages, pictures, audio and video files using encryption. In addition, all data you transmit may have a self-destruct function, which allows you to delete it without a trace after a few seconds, hours or even days. There is even protection against screenshots to prevent overly cunning friends from trying to save your messages as pictures.

Email

mxHero Toolbox

mxHero is a Chrome extension that improves Gmail functionality. In order to protect your correspondence, it can convert letters into pictures that disappear after a specified time. We wrote about this extension in .

This is another way to send a one-time message to a person. Only in this case the text of the message will be published on the service page, and you will only send the recipient a link to this page. After reading the message, it is destroyed and the link automatically becomes invalid.

To summarize, in light of the ever-increasing pressure on user privacy, the response will naturally increase. This means that many of the developments described in the article can well count on popularity and further development.

Do you like the eternal life of the content you generate in the digital universe?

Not all users like the fact that any of their photos, tweets, status on a social network or email message can be tracked in some database for decades, and then appear in the light of day at the most inopportune time. Therefore, recently there has been an increasing demand for services that allow you to work with “one-time” information, that is, with data that disappears without a trace after the time or event you specify. Some of these services will be discussed in this article.

Photo and video

Snapchat

This is a special mobile application (iOS, Android) that is used for sharing photos and videos. You can clearly indicate the circle of recipients of your photo or clip, and also set the duration of their availability from one to ten seconds. The message you sent is then deleted from both the recipient's device and Snapchat's servers.

Secret.li

Secret.li is a handy iOS app that gives you more control over your Facebook photos. The app allows you to control who can view your photos. You can also set the self-destruction time for pictures. The developers promise to soon introduce a version for Android.

Tweets

This is a free web service that allows you to send tweets that self-destruct after a specified time. You must give access to your Twitter account, after which the service will be able to monitor your tweets using special hashtags. Hashtag view #20m indicates that this tweet will be deleted in 20 minutes. In the same way, you can set other time intervals using the letter d for days, and h- for watches.

Instant messages

Wickr

Email

mxHero Toolbox

Do you like the eternal life of the content you generate in the digital universe?

With their help, you can safely communicate via Email, ICQ, Skype or even VKontakte.

Principle of operation The secret note service is simple: when you create a message, you receive a special link, which you then need to pass on to your interlocutor. When the link is opened, the message is destroyed, so the message can be read only once (similar to “burn after reading”). If strangers click on a link to a message that was intended for you, then you will already know that the information has fallen into the wrong hands. On the server, messages are stored in encrypted form (usually using PGP) - this is a security measure in case the server is hacked.

Is it really safe? It’s more a question of trust in the service administration: do they really delete messages after reading them and don’t keep logs. Using the secret notes service, very valuable information can be transmitted (passwords to electronic accounts, card data, the location where the treasure is buried, etc.), which means there is a great temptation to save it. There is also a risk that such services may cooperate with intelligence agencies. To reduce risks, you can transfer some information through one secret notes service, and some through another. Or you can even create your own service with PGP message encryption - we will post instructions on how to create your own secret notes service on the forum.

Here's how it works in practice.

Popular secret note services.

privatenote.com

Popular and easy to use service. Unfortunately, the service does not support the Russian language, but the sequence of actions is intuitive: write a message in the input field, then press the button Create Note, copy the received link and send it to your interlocutor (just don’t follow the link yourself, otherwise the message will be destroyed). You can also check the box " Notify me when this note gets read", if you want to be notified upon reading the message.

tmwsd.ws

At first glance, the site may seem sophisticated compared to other similar services, but it is also easy to use: write a message, press a button SAVE THIS MESSAGE, then copy the link like https://⌫.ws/2wGoOvYt and pass it on to the interlocutor. The site allows you to set a password for a message - this will protect the message from being accidentally opened or read strangers(if the password and link are sent by different sources).
The service has an important feature - links to messages are generated with a special character and not all mobile browsers they are understood. In this case, a link like https://⌫.ws/2wGoOvYt can be replaced by https://tmwsd.ws/2wGoOvYt. Links with special characters are not recognized as hyperlinks in email programs or in social networks, which, on the one hand, prevents them from being accidentally pressed, and on the other, complicates opening (you need to copy and paste into the address bar).

onetimesecret.com

A new interesting secret notes service. Important feature of this service is that when you follow a link, you still need to click on a button to read the message, which means you won’t be able to accidentally open a secret message.

There is also a strange feature - the service does not allow you to copy the text of a secret message. At first I thought that the text was displayed as an image, which served as an additional security measure against message interception. Opening source, I saw that the copying ban is set by the styles. Why it is necessary to prohibit copying of text, in this case, is not clear, because the service can transmit data that needs to be saved on a computer, and a person, if he does not think to look at the source code, will be forced to retype the text or save it as a screenshot.