"This Email Will Self Destruct"

"This Email Will Self Destruct"(thisemailwillselfdestruct.com)

3 points by indiejade 15 years ago | 4 comments

eof 15 years ago |

How? Will messages really disappear out of inboxes? Or is it just an embedded image that gets deleted from the server eventually?

arikb 15 years ago | |

There are several techniques, some of them are:

* Show in a frame on the company's server

* Sends JavaScript code that retrieves the message from the server

* Sends an ActiveX / Java / Flash client that displays the message from the server and resists attempts to copy/paste

* Sends the file with DRM, and a client that would enforce the DRM rules

Being that the website uses flash on its first page, I would hazard a guess that a Flash client is involved. I don't like to login to these sites with credentials from other sites, especially if I only want a bit of information.

By the way the idea isn't new by any stretch of the word. http://readnotify.com have been at it for years.

[edited for formatting]

jordanroher 15 years ago | |

Or an iframe, or javascript that retrieves data from a server. Fun idea, but more trouble than it's worth, given how mail clients could bork a complicated implementation.

beej71 15 years ago | | |

The same technique might be useful for emails that change over time. Hmmm!