One of the appeals of Snapchat is the ability to send photos over the app and have it erase itself after a certain amount of time. This will allow users to send photos that might not meant for outside eyes and rest easy knowing that the photos will eventually get deleted. Billionaire Mark Cuban has a similar idea called Cyber Dust which is basically a new messaging app that will delete a text message 24 seconds after it has been read.
In fact Cuban stresses that the messages are not even stored on Cyber Dust’s servers meaning that they cannot be traced and cannot be retrieved once they have been deleted. Cuban has described the app as WhatsApp meets Snapchat. According to him, the inspiration for the app came about when the SEC took a text message he gave them and took it out of context.
“[It’s also realizing] That the phone companies and your text recipients own your texts and even the most innocent text can take on a whole new context. I wanted to have a means of communication that is analogous to face to face – where you can speak openly and honestly. That is why we created Cyber Dust.”
He also stated that these values also applies to his kids. “This is applicable to my kids. I don’t want an innocent text my daughter sends to a boy taking on a life of its own and living on forever online because some kid decides to add a story and posts her text.” As it stands the app itself is free for download for iOS while an Android version is on its way.
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