So long, immortality. Hello, peace of mind. Consider the technology that a quartet of computer scientists at the University of Washington introduced to the world in July. It’s called Vanish, and it’s designed to make your electronic messages do just that.
“With self-destructing data, users can regain control over the lifetimes of their Web objects, such as private messages on Facebook, documents on Google Docs, or private photos on Flickr,” the researchers wrote in the paper announcing their work.
“No, Your Honor, I don’t have proof that they told me I’d get a 40% raise after 6 months. It was in my e-mail and then it just vanished…”