Online reputations: Learning to forget

What started as a small-scale class project for UW student Roxana Geambasu's doctoral class eventually became an extensive, three-year research program that included the development of a software prototype called "Vanish." "We are losing our ability to forget," researcher Tadayoshi Kohno said. "The underlying background of Vanish is that info is starting to persist online almost indefinitely." The project emerged in fall of 2007 as researchers recognized the need to address the digital age and the rapid evolution of technology. "Technology has been a great enabler in a large number of ways," Kohno said. "I think it has done a lot to help. [But] the goal of our research is to address the potential downsides that come with it so that we don't bare extra risks for using these technologies." Vanish attempts to protect our online lives while empowering users with the ability to delete data. "Computing and communicating through the Web makes it virtually impossible to leave the past behind," reads the Vanish website. "College Facebook posts or pictures can resurface during a job interview; a lost or stolen laptop can expose personal photos or messages; or a legal investigation can subpoena the entire contents of a home or work computer, uncovering incriminating or just embarrassing details from the past." At this stage, Vanish is largely a research system, a concept in the process of being developed. Students would have to compile the data and download it, although Kohno hopes that this sort of tool will eventually be an option available to everyone. He alludes to the project's function as writing a message in the sand at low tide, where it will remain for just a few hours until the tide rises and washes it away. Hypothetically the program will encrypt shared data like SMS texts, Facebook posts and e-mail, and after a set period of time will gradually destroy the encryption key or password needed to transcribe it. "Vanish is not destroying the data itself but destroying any way to actually access the data," Levy said. He explained that the program would encrypt data after a certain period of time. Using mathematical methods, the password needed to decode the data would split into many different pieces and spread over a large number of computers until it's impossible for the creator or anyone else to uncover their message. "There is a balance between building useful features and the danger of using them," said UW student and Vanish researcher Amit Levy. "We would be able to use those tools to do a lot more interesting and productive things if we could maintain control on the things we're sharing, which we're not able to do now." Kohno said that, traditionally, encryption has been used to send sensitive messages, however encryption in itself is problematic. If messages stick around forever, eventually someone can figure out how to decode them. "Really the idea of what we're doing is taking your data you want to share but [making it] disappear after some time and essentially putting it into a safe," Levy said. "We never destroy that safe, and we never destroy the data ... but the key to your safe gets destroyed over a period of time." With a tool like Vanish students could potentially avoid sensitive information digitally resurfacing years later. "Should we push on further," Kohno said, "the idea would be that students of the future and others can use [Vanish] to have their short-term dialogues and messages they want to share with friends remain private." Vanish is part of a much larger body of research aimed at evaluating the consequences of having so much personal information available online. "My advice is to be less trusting of social-networking sites," said UW informatics and philosophy professor Adam Moore. "Think: Whatever I just typed is there, anyone can search it by my name for the rest of my life." There are positive aspects to this newfound ability to instantaneously share our thoughts and photos, but Moore advises students to also consider the relative permanency of the digital data they are sharing. "I'm frightened for the sake of students and how little they know about what's going on when they're online," said UW sociology professor Jonathan Wender, urging students to educate themselves about the actual functions of these widely used technologies. "Look around class at what happens during a break," Wender said. "Out come the screens, out come the machines ... people don't talk, people don't look at each other, it's really weird." Wender describes a lecture hall as "a room full of people in their own little bubbles," explaining that he has observed a loss of vital communication skills in young adults who have spent thousands more hours in front of a screen than have previous generations. "One of the things that troubles me about social networking is the potential for inauthenticity," Wender said. "In any kind of social setting people put on a certain mask, but when we are face-to-face those masks are easier to detect. A lot of what goes onto people's Facebook pages is constructed with the conscious understanding that people want to present themselves a certain way." But Levy said that while his research focuses on eliminating information indefinitely available online, there are benefits to this degree of connection. Along with helping people connect on a global level, social networks have made self-expression much easier. "I think that one of the good things about this whole trend is that we're able to connect with many more people," Levy said. "[It's] not just a matter of staying in contact with friends, but because we have this access, meeting someone for a fleeting moment doesn't necessarily have to stay a fleeting moment encounter like it used to." Reach reporter Becka Gross at lifestyles@dailyuw.com.

Online reputations: Learning to forget

Disruptor interrupts Psych 210, professor and students chase man on to Red Square

2025 Seattle and King County primary election endorsements

UW mechanical engineering students are now required to pay $250 quarterly fee to participate in department-affiliated RSOs

College Inn Pub reopens under new ownership