The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.
Name: OneShar.es
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Quick Pitch: OneShar.es lets you send confidential data that automatically deletes after the recipient views it once.
Genius Idea: Allows your sensitive data from becoming one of the many "read" emails in a recipient's inbox, which could potentially be accessed if his or her smartphone is lost or stolen.
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Ever wonder if the private emails you send to trusted friends and acquaintances are deleted or if that information lingers in their inboxes? OneShar.es has a smart solution to safeguard sensitive information that's very Mission Impossible.
The web tool allows people to easily share private information, whether its via your mobile device (apps for iOS and Android) or your browser window. The recipient has one chance to view the information and when he or she closes out, it self destructs.
"There’s a lot of trust placed with people with whom we share private information," says Jerry Thompson, co-founder and CTO. "Over time, this information is collected in people's inboxes and with the amount of free space offered by Gmail and other services, there’s little reason or incentive to actually delete these emails."
Thompson give this example of how your email could easily be accessed: "On a desktop web browser, you’ll need to enter your email address and password to access your Gmail," he says. "With the vast majority of people having smartphones, most email apps do not require authorization once it's been configured. If you loose your phone, whomever finds it can now check your email without any logins at all. If a bad guy were to find your phone, they have your email and everything in it."
The lesson here: No one deletes email, so protect your information.
Here's how it works: "The data you enter is encrypted from your browser to our servers and stored encrypted. Your private URL holds part of the key to unlock the content. This URL is sent to whoever needs access to it. Once its viewed, its permanently deleted. So while you may have the OneShar.es URL in your outbox and the recipient may have it in their inbox, it can never be retrieved again after being viewed."
Security concerns about the protection of private and personal data have propelled sites like Dropbox and other file encryption tools into popularity. In 2009, computer scientists were working on software called Vanish that would make sensitive files self-destruct, but the project has since gone kaput.
What do you think about OneShar.es? Will you use it? Tell us in the comments.
Image courtesy of Flickr, Darwin Bell
Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark
The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.
This story originally published on Mashable here.
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