

How can you destruct already delivered email? - VarunGupta

How could this be implemented?<p>http://www.thisemailwillselfdestruct.com
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Kliment
A simple way is to upload it somewhere where it's only viewable with a
restricted Flash viewer to prevent copy/paste, then delete it once it expires.
Of course, the person can always take a screenshot or photograph the monitor
or something like that. Most temporally-limited email services do not deliver
the message itself, but a link to it.

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pbhjpbhj
<http://www.thisemailwillselfdestruct.com>

I'm going to guess its HTML emails that use javascript to download a
decryption key. The js could hash it's own functions to avoid tampering.
Rudimentary cut-and-paste protection could be enabled (don't know if the MUA
would honour it though). Remove the key from the URL when you want the email
to self-destruct (I'm thinking htaccess going to a db so you've set the date
in the db beyond which the URL redirects to a key which causes the display of
"sorry this email has expired" rather than the plaintext. Add a print-style
sheet to blank out an attempt to print it.

Wouldn't work against screenshots and would be reasonably easy to crack but
for the "man in the street" I can see it working?

I'm sure there is a far better more devious way of doing this.

