Short Electronic Notes May Not Fade into Obscurity

I'm surprised that it's just dawning on people that text messages sent via wirelessly enabled PDAs, pagers and, of course, mobile phones can be retrieved and read by third parties. At some point, people have to get over the idea that what they do electronically — e-mail, text messaging, surfing Web pages — is ephemeral. Those ones and zeros may occupy very little physical space, but they are eminently retrievable and could dog you for decades. I'm not just talking about messages, either.

Your voting record on something as silly as American Idol is likely stored on a server somewhere. So, what if you start using the mobile phone to weigh in on something more important, like your opinion about the upcoming presidential election? You may suddenly be pigeonholed as a Democrat or Republican supporter.

I'm sure nothing short of some sort of apocalyptic event will ever stop people from text messaging. So instead we'll be left to look to a new generation for the first SMS message archivists. Think about it. Somewhere, right now, a future senator or even president is messaging her boyfriend about a trip to the mall and worries over a new pimple. If these messages have some longevity or can be retrieved at any point in the future, then they can be added to the presidential library in the area marked "Early Electronic Transmissions."

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/ZDM/email_longevity_pcmag_040817.html


From Aftermath News
Top Stories - August 20, 2004