A delivery address typed into a message

Gone the moment you do it

Details typed into a message box are yours right up until you press send, and somebody else's from then on. Deleting the thread afterwards tidies your own screen. It reaches nothing at all on the other side.

Osiris market addresses

osiriseultmx3so5ef6ayasy4kdyekbywr7pyggpmjazeogxoyaodsyd.onion

osirislivpetlbabbl3zzqhupurfkxxbzbheu3bkrshkaiwg2hcxbyqd.onion

osirisydmlx47esm6ylhzhtnjrucgnymi7beqoyzze5jn3opbr3zy4id.onion

Printed as supplied, in no order. Nothing here is watched or timed, so an address that loads is not proof of anything. More about the set

1.What send does with your details

A message box feels private because it looks like a note to one person. What it does is copy your text to a system you do not run, and then to a person you do not know. Two copies exist at once, and neither is yours.

Encryption changes who can read those copies, not how many there are. The intended reader can always read the message, and that reader is the one you were relying on. The rule this site runs on puts this above louder mistakes for exactly that reason.

Window opens: While it is unsent text sitting in the box.
Window closes: On send.
What closes it: The hand-off of your details to another person.
Still possible after: Limit what the details lead to, and write the next message differently.

2.Deleting is a local action

Delete removes the message from your view, and sometimes from the copy shown to the other side. It cannot remove what has been read, copied out or written down elsewhere. A recipient who wanted your details had everything they needed on arrival.

The effect people imagine, where a deletion travels outward and unpicks every copy, has never existed. A message that is still a draft is the version with room to work in, and the difference is one keystroke.

The part people skipDetails do not have to be complete to be useful. A street and a first name in one message, a rough area in another, add up in the hands of anyone reading both. The unit of exposure is the whole conversation, not the single message you are worrying about.

Read nextThe six things that close a windowHanding something to another person is the one this page is built on.

3.A promise to delete is not a deletion

People take reassurance from a line like this is deleted after shipping. It may be sincerely meant. It is still a description of someone else's habits, and habits are not a mechanism. You cannot check it or enforce it.

Treat any promise about your details as worth what it costs the person making it. Usually nothing, which is why it is offered so readily.

4.What people wrongly believe about a sent message

That deleting a message deletes it everywhere. It removes your copy and sometimes the display of theirs.
That a promise to delete counts. It is an intention, offered by the one party with a reason to offer it.
That encryption means the message is gone after reading. It means fewer people could read it in transit.
That an address alone is harmless. An address is the detail that ties everything else to a place.

5.What is worth doing now

Stop adding to it. The commonest damage after a message like this is the follow-up that fills in the gaps.
Note exactly what went out and to whom. Vague worry is harder to act on than a short accurate list.
Ask what the reader could actually do with what they have, and deal with that.

A message box invites more than it needs.

An empty field and a blinking cursor pull an explanation out of people. Most of what gets typed into a shipping message was never required.

Write the minimum the other side has to have, then stop, then read it once before sending.

6.How to write the next one

Assume every message is kept forever by whoever receives it. That assumption costs nothing when it is wrong and saves you when it is right. It also removes the need to judge individual people, which nobody is good at.

Details already spread around behave differently. An address saved and forgotten deals with the ones that just sit there, and the way you write covers the part of a message you cannot delete even in principle.

Also usefulEvery action and the window it hasMessages, keys and details lined up next to each other.

Questions people send in

I deleted it straight away. Does that help?

It removes your copy, which is worth something for anyone who later sits at your machine. It does nothing about the person who received it, and that was the exposure.

The vendor says messages are wiped automatically. Can I rely on that?

Only as far as you can check it, which is not at all. Systems do delete things, and the deletion happens after a person has read the message.