Dstrux File Sharing Privacy App

This post is brought to you by Dstrux. Please note that, as always, any personal opinions reflected in this post are my own and have not been influenced by the sponsor or compensation received in any way.

Many, many years ago my Mom taught me something very important. I consider it one of life’s most important lessons, and I have tried my best to explain to my oldest son how important it is. My Mom’s golden rule is as follows. Don’t ever write anything down that you wouldn’t want on the front page of the New York Times.
This was a simpler rule for people to follow when I was young. Back then we only had pen and paper, personal computers weren’t around yet. To get rid of anything you wrote you only needed to destroy the paper you wrote it on. Things are more complicated today. Thanks to technology you have to be very careful not only of the words you use, but also the images you choose to use or take. I’ve had awkward moments in text conversations with my son, courtesy of auto-correct. Well, imagine that multiplied by hundreds. File sharing privacy is becoming more and more important as our lives become more and more entwined with technology.
Imagine Lucy emails a picture to Fred, but she accidentally sends  a “private” photo of her with Ricky.  What a humiliating disaster that could turn out to be! Or, on a more family friendly note, imagine your mother emails you her entire Christmas list, which contains the gifts she is giving every single person (including yourself). You decide to share that list with your entire family of eighty. Imagine how embarrassing that could be!  On a professional level, imagine you are meeting with a potential new client. There are topics that cannot be made known to the public yet and non-disclosure applies. Wouldn’t it be nice if you weren’t wondering who kept their word? Dstrux is a solution that seeks to solve some of these issues.
I’m 48. I clearly remember the original Mission Impossible television series, where the agent was warned “this tape will self-destruct in five seconds.” Dstrux has created a platform where that can happen with many of the photos and documents that we send electronically.
Dstrux is easy to use. After going to the website dstrux.com you can choose whether you want to type a message in manually or share an existing file.

Typing your own message even allows some basic formatting options, so your message will look nice.

After typing your message, or attaching your existing file, you set a timer for how long you want your file to be available for. The longest I was able to set the timer for was 30 days, 23 hours and 59 minutes, which is basically a 31 day month.

Next you specify how you want to share the message or file – on Facebook or by email.

If you share by email you can put in the email address you want to send it to or import contacts from your Gmail contacts. You will also need to choose if you want to blur the image or not. Blurring the image is another safeguard for viewing the file.

You will be asked to create an account to use Dstrux. Dstrux is free to use. All it asks for to create an account is our name, email and a password.

From the dashboard in your account you will be able to see any files you’ve shared with others, as well as those you’ve received and even forwarded.
Wondering what it looks like when you receive a Dstrux self-destructing email? I’ll show you.

If the message was sent to you by email you will receive an email. Note, the email comes from Dstrux and not the sender.

Remember that expiration time I mentioned earlier? Well, if you don’t open your message within that amount of time the message will not be available to open.

Your email will contain a link that you will need to click in order to affirm that you are you.

Once you’ve confirmed your email you can view the file that was sent to you.

Remember how I mentioned blurring the image? If that option was chosen then you as the message recipient will need to point at the message in order to reveal it. Of interest is that you don’t know exactly where in the blur the message is, so you need to mouse around for a moment.

Once you mouse over where the message is the message is revealed.
Meanwhile, back in the sender’s dashboard…

The sender is able to track the messages and files that were sent. You can see what was seen, unseen and even destroyed. Now remember the self-destruct timer you set when sending the message? Well, maybe you see that someone hasn’t seen their message yet and also see the time is almost up. From your dashboard you have the ability to adjust the time, making it shorter or even longer.
Remember the compromising picture that Lucy emailed Fred? The purpose of sending a photo through the Dstrux app is to keep it private. Lucy could make the photo self-destruct as soon as she realizes, making it unavailable for Fred to view later or send to his friends. That Christmas list your Mom emailed you? If that data was sent through Dstrux and Mom realized what she did she could trash the doc immediately and it would never even be seen by you. The situation with the client and the nondisclosure agreement? Set a short time limit on it and then you know that he can’t just forward your files.
DSTRUX was designed to leave zero digital footprint. All files are encrypted. Once the files are killed by you or once they self-destruct then they are shredded, erased, and written over. I will always keep my Mom’s advice at the front of my mind, whether putting my thoughts down on paper or computer. You should too. But if you are sending files, it’s only sensible to do what you can to be sure they’re handled appropriately and not available for the world to see.
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Can you think of a situation where the Dstrux File Sharing Privacy App would be useful to you?