The patent application states that the current system for managing e-mail once the message is sent to the sender does not have any possibility to control it, so a message can be copied, saved, printed or forwarded on. Inability to control the number and type of operations that can be done with the sent message appears classic mail system unsuitable for sending confidential information for which complete control of distribution is a must.
Therefore they propose a system in which the client will delete e-mail messages after a set amount of time regardless of whether the message was read or not. It also describes the ability to delete messages after they have been read and closed. All instances of the message should be deleted from the user's machine.
[Ed - With AT&Ts past and current cooperation with the NSA and others it is highly doubtful that this new "tech" will work in all cases. What would be nice is if AT&T decided to protect their customers privacy instead of their current tendacny to hand over user data. ]
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According to the patent application filed by the U.S. mobile operator AT&T, soon we could have feature by which e-mails could be disintegrated before unauthorized eyes get a chance to see them. Patent application entitled "Method, System and Apparatus for Providing Self-Destructing Electronic Mail Messages" describes the client and server system that can send and receive messages that self-destruct when they meet certain criteria.
