Data never really disappears, particularly when it’s supposed to
May 9, 2013 Comments Off on Data never really disappears, particularly when it’s supposed to
If you have a teenage son or daughter, you may be familiar with an app called ‘Snapchat’. Its claim to fame – that is, until earlier today – is that it deletes all messages (text, photo, or otherwise) within a few seconds, thus keeping sensitive information safe from the prying eyes of parents, police, marketers, and all sorts of other nefarious characters.
But lo and behold, as it turns out, Snapchat actually doesn’t delete the data after all. Instead, it’s simply moved to a hidden directory, where with proper time and tooling, it can be recovered. You can read all about it here.
Whether or not you’re prone to sharing too much information, the takeaway from this little debacle is that data never really goes away, especially once a smartphone gets involved – not to mention the cloud. Keep that in mind the next time you’re tempted to use technology to record, say, or write something that you don’t want anyone else to see or hear.
rdschneider 