![\"\"](\"http:\/\/vanish.cs.washington.edu\/img\/FacebookEncapsulated_small.jpg\" "\\"FacebookEncapsulated\\"")
<\/p>\nComputing and communicating through the Web makes it virtually impossible to leave the past behind. College Facebook posts or pictures can resurface during a job interview; a lost or stolen laptop can expose personal photos or messages; or a legal investigation can subpoena the entire contents of a home or work computer, uncovering incriminating or just embarrassing details from the past.<\/p>\n
Vanish is a research system designed to give users control over the lifetime of personal data stored on the web or in the cloud. Specifically, all copies of Vanish encrypted data \u2014 even archived or cached copies \u2014 will become permanently unreadable at a specific time, without any action on the part of the user or any third party or centralized service.<\/p>\n
For example, using the Firefox Vanish plugin, a user can create an email, a Google Doc document, a Facebook message, or a blog comment \u2014 specifying that the document or message should “vanish” in 8 hours. Before that 8-hour timeout expires, anyone who has access to the data can read it; however after that timer expires, nobody can read that web content \u2014 not the user, not Google, not Facebook, not a hacker who breaks into the cloud service, and not even someone who obtains a warrant for that data. That data \u2014 regardless of where stored or archived prior to the timeout \u2014 simply self-destructs and becomes permanently unreadable.<\/p>\n
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