Vanish

You know how they say that once something is uploaded on the net that it permanently stays on the internet? Well, here’s some good news to all the people wishing they could take back that moment when they clicked “upload” or “send” not knowing that this seemingly innocuous action would lead to destroyed careers, broken relationships or other irreversible consequences that would forever change the fabric of their lives (I went too far didn’t I? Well you get the point). Introducing Vanish - a prototype system that places a time limit on information uploaded to any web service through a web browser. “Electronic communication sent using Vanish - such as e-mail, posts on social networking sites and chat messages - would have a brief lifetime and then self-destruct, becoming irretrievable from all websites, inboxes, outboxes, backup sites and home computers. Not even the sender could retrieve them.” In today’s internet age, where concerns over privacy has raised more questions over the general lack of regulation, any tool that gives us back control over the information we put out there is nothing but good news.