"The Future of Cybersecurity Might Look a Lot Like Snapchat"

The future of cybersecurity is expected to follow the design of Snapchat, a popular social media platform among millennials that allows users to send pictures and videos, which are then automatically deleted seconds after they have been opened by their recipients. This concept of self-destructing messages is considered a step in the right direction toward protecting data and has inspired the design of many apps currently used by the government, such as Whisper, Confide, and Signal. However, hackers could still extract information from these apps due to users’ inability to be completely anonymous, connection to the internet, and other exploitable flaws. An international team of researchers has demonstrated a concept in which a one-time program running on a quantum-computing device, deletes itself and the information it sends after it has been received by the recipient. This article further discusses the concept of self-destructing messages, apps that are currently using this method, limitations of these apps, the demonstrated concept of one-time programs to ensure the security of data, and the importance of quantum computing in the execution of this approach. 

Slate reports "The Future of Cybersecurity Might Look a Lot Like Snapchat"