You love your computer...I know you do. It is your private sactuary and basically an extension of your brain. You are also very upset if people read through your downloaded e-mails or look through your photos....even if they are just harmless photos of New York sunsets sent to you by Dr. Curry.

The truth is, most of us would turn pale white and start to shake if anyone read through our folders (OK, blissmiss might not...but the rest of us would).

Enter "Dealy Departed" the lastest in computer privacy software. You, the owner of the computer, install the DD program. The program is hidden and only a serious of keystrokes, invented by and known only by you, can bring this program to the front.

The program works as a time bomb. Every time you open it, you reset the clock ticking at 48 hours.

If, at any point, you fail to reset the clock before the time runs out, the program works as a virus and destroys all the files and folders and then itself.

What is left is a computer that is as impersonal as the day you brought it home from the store....before it started sharing your secrets and your life.

Viola! Our significant other will never learn of our...um....passion for....um.....well, nevermind. Uncle Joe will never get to snoop through the poetry you write in your deep dark moments. Cousin Larry won't be able to find your secret formula for handicapping the ponies. And the children...um, if you have children...won't be able to get their little paws on your personal diary which tells which child you actually do love more.......

Well, you get idea.

The only argument I see against this is that employees may install this software on their computers at work. Fire me!!! Ha! Go ahead and fire me.....just see where your annual reports end up.....

(was looking for the category Computer:Software --- was surprised it doesn't exist)
-- Marassa, Oct 22 2002

Destruct-O-Chron http://www.halfbake...ea/Destruct-O-Chron
Same idea. (?) [phoenix, Oct 23 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004]

Dead Mans Switch http://daisyman.arsware.org/dms/
I knew i had a link :) [soster, Oct 24 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004]

This does exist, in a more general form... im working on a link now.
-- soster, Oct 22 2002


Seems to me your nosy relatives could have as much as 48 hours of snoop time.
-- waugsqueke, Oct 23 2002


true waugs...but hopefully, they would be too grief stricken and too busy taking care of "arrangements" to think of being nosy in the first couple of days.....
-- Marassa, Oct 23 2002


Not a good place to store your will.
-- FarmerJohn, Oct 23 2002


I'll just upload my holiday snaps...shit, where's all my stuff gone?
-- egbert, Oct 23 2002


My understanding is that this is an existing feature of all Microsh1t operating systems...........
-- 8th of 7, Oct 23 2002


Yet another application for a personal heart monitor that automatically does a bunch of stuff when you die eg;
-Puts your favorite tune on the car radio;
-Wipes your computer clean
-Notifies local cryogenics chaps
-Detonates a bomb under every major city, ahaha!
-Climbs out of your pocket and drags your body somewhere really cool, so everyone is like....'its the way he'd have wanted it'
-- Zircon, Oct 23 2002


Well I'm not sure I would remember to keep opening this program every couple of days. I have some computers I haven't powered up in a couple of months. I would rather have some mechanism by which, if you try to crack a user's password the computer then automatically deletes all that users' stuff, or at least the stuff they have marked sensitive.
-- PeterSilly, Oct 23 2002


I have no idea what [Marassa] is refering to and neither does anyone else here. (Or else)!
-- blissmiss, Oct 23 2002


It would also be handy if it would vaporise all your embarassing possesions upon your death. Uncle George finding all your teenage angst song lyrics that for some reason you kept hold of, first edition copies of Queen: News of the World Meatloaf: Bat out of Hell II and especially that HUGE pile of scud-books underneath your bed. [sniff] Is that an idea forming I can smell?
-- ChewTheBeef, Oct 23 2002


The scud books: folks will surely wonder what you were doing with all those books about crappy missiles.
-- bristolz, Oct 24 2002


if you want to keep things private, use a strong encryption software...much safer...

what if you accidentally forget to open your computer? you were on vacation....KABOOM!
-- NXM, Dec 28 2002


why not just encrypt your files and put in your will to destroy your harddrives and CD backups?
-- ironfroggy, Dec 29 2002



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