SENDING SECRETS ONLINE

Sending sensitive information over email (like bank account numbers, passwords, credit card numbers and so on) is never a good idea – but if you must, it’s nice to know that there are free online tools like QuickForget (www.quickforget.com). There’s no sign up required – just visit the webpage and you’re given a text box with two simple settings – number of views and number of hours. Type anything into the text box and the information will ‘expire’ after the set number of views or after the pre-set number of hours – whichever is sooner.

You can try it out for yourself – write any piece of text and set the tool to forget after 1 or 2 views. Refresh the page twice and a message will pop up, alerting you that the secret has been viewed the maximum number of times. Refresh once more, and you’ll no longer see it.

To share the information that you’ve typed – just share the URL. The service is ad-supported, but the banner ads are unobtrusive (no pop-ups) and you don’t need to click anything.

Handy tip: Don’t use QuickForget to share an ‘entire’ piece of sensitive information (like an email address + password or bank login + password). Always split up the information so that a regular email carries some of the information, while the other part is online. Each part is useless without the other, and in this way, you further reduce risk of the information being intercepted and misused.

HITESH RAJ BHAGAT ET 20J0112