Transmitting information securely
July 5th, 2012
Here's a great way to send a quick confidential note to someone, for example, if you want to share a password or credit card number safely.
Go to www.burnnote.com in your web browser. Type the message, then press the Send button. You'll be given a unique URL to your message, which you can now email or IM or text to the recipient. When they click on that URL, they get to read the message you entered.
So now you're probably wondering what makes Burn Note any more secure than traditional email. Well, email is inherently insecure because it's transmitted in plain-text. Next, the unique burnnote.com URL will only work ONE TIME, after which the note gets deleted from their system. And if the recipient leaves their browser window open with the note visible, it'll self-destruct after 3 minutes. Re-visiting the unique URL won't bring it back. You can even employ options to prevent the recipient from doing a screen capture if you wish.
So long as you give a little thought beforehand, there's no risk of anyone at the Burn Note web site finding out your secret either. Add a password to your note, and it will be used to encrypt the message so that it is unreadable even on the BurnNote servers.