Deleting messages...

Do you delete electronic communications?

  • Absolutely. All of that cpap.

    Votes: 3 10.3%

  • Texts yes, email, no

    Votes: 3 10.3%

  • Depends (sorry gramma about your undies)

    Votes: 5 17.2%

  • No, I save all that stuff

    Votes: 9 31.0%

  • Only the texts from my girlfriend

    Votes: 1 3.4%

  • Only the texts from my wife

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Only the texts from my girlfriend to my wife

    Votes: 1 3.4%

  • I don't care

    Votes: 4 13.8%

  • What are texts? I'm still using a BBS

    Votes: 1 3.4%

  • Sac is probably worried folks are saving his dick pics

    Votes: 9 31.0%
  • Total voters
    29
Sac Arrow

Sac Arrow

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Snorting his way across the USA
No, I know how to. That isn't the question. Those that know me, know that I like to watch lots of true crime shows. And yes I understand they deviate from reality to varying degrees for dramatic purposes.

One thing that seems to be a common thread when the investigators go through the phone of a suspected bad guy (or bad girl) is that they will find deleted text messages, and for whatever reason, they will regard that as a big huge red flag - an indication that the suspect is almost certainly guilty.

I have always found this bizarre. I'm old school. Emails are meant to be read and then destroyed. I hate clutter. Same with texts. I just don't save them. I don't care if they are texts between myself and the A&P* on the progress of the annual, or texts between the governor's wife and myself on where we are going to throw down and tear it up. They are all getting deleted. I only save emails if I think they will be necessary for reference in the near future. After the near future passes, they get deleted too. Did I mention that I hate clutter? Well if I didn't I do.

So what does the consensus think?
 
I'm in the "a neat desk is the sign of a sick mind" category. :D

More seriously, it depends on the content of the emails or text messages. There are emails I want or need to keep; others I don't care. But since I don't care that much about clutter (aviation: I do not clean up the GPS flight plan after being sent direct to some later waypoint), my clean up efforts are haphazard. They usually involve me searching for an email. The search uncovers stuff I don't care about from 5 years ago, so I delete them.
 
I'm a digital pack rat. These CSI goons won't find anything deleted, and a large electronic hoarder stash going back decades to sift through if they want to get the goods on me.

I was slightly embarassed to cast that vote, but in this context, I think I am doing it right. :D Sorta like the guys who do their taxes with turbotax, print out the forms, then re-do them in ink by hand in sloppy handwriting and mail the whole mess in to be deciphered. I think the reddit peeps call this Malicious Compliance and I love it.
 
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Depends. If records retention policies apply, that is followed. If not, my default is to autoarchive personal email after 30 days and delete autodelete texts after a month.

For stuff I don’t want any record of, that’s what Signal ephemeral messaging is for.
 
Sac Arrow said:
No, I know how to. That isn't the question. Those that know me, know that I like to watch lots of true crime shows. And yes I understand they deviate from reality to varying degrees for dramatic purposes.

One thing that seems to be a common thread when the investigators go through the phone of a suspected bad guy (or bad girl) is that they will find deleted text messages, and for whatever reason, they will regard that as a big huge red flag - an indication that the suspect is almost certainly guilty.

I have always found this bizarre. I'm old school. Emails are meant to be read and then destroyed. I hate clutter. Same with texts. I just don't save them. I don't care if they are texts between myself and the A&P* on the progress of the annual, or texts between the governor's wife and myself on where we are going to throw down and tear it up. They are all getting deleted. I only save emails if I think they will be necessary for reference in the near future. After the near future passes, they get deleted too. Did I mention that I hate clutter? Well if I didn't I do.

So what does the consensus think?
Click to expand...
I delete most of them. The one off kinds. There's a few I keep from family and friends. In those is a long history of all the texts we've made since I first started doing it this way. There's some others I keep for awhile. But when the event, situation or whatever ya wanna call it is done, then I delete it.
 
So I voted. Then checked the results. I brought yer dic up to a tie with grammas depends
 
schmookeeg said:
Sorta like the guys who do their taxes with turbotax, print out the forms, then re-do them in ink by hand in sloppy handwriting and mail the whole mess in to be deciphered. I think the reddit peeps call this Malicious Compliance and I love it.
Click to expand...

Reminded me of a story I was told years ago. A fella that owned a garage repair shop kept all his records on computer disks. His friend, also with a repair business, kept his papers in boxes in the attic. When IRS came knocking the guy with the computer records gave them a copy and was soon into an audit. The other fella told me the IRS agent looked in the dark attic at the multiple boxes everywhere full of receipts and it seems that no more questions needed to be answered ...
 
With AI and data leaks, it’s important to control your data exposure. Unless you like the junk mail, being sold car warranties, etc :) in the future will be different levels of harassment, maybe drones flying to your front door ringing your doorbell to sell you something lol.
 
Even if you clean the stuff off, there's no guarantee that the person on the other end will. So once the cops grab the phones from your hit man and your drug dealer and your mistress, you're hosed regardless of how good a cleansing job you do yourself.
 
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Electronic communications are easily hacked or spoofed. Even a small child could figure out how to.
 
I am very disorganized. I don't delete anything.
Not because I want to save it but because I just don't care.
I don't send or receive anything that really matters.
 
If you don't want a message to be recovered by detectives at a later date, you must have control over all parties receiving the message and every service / server between sender and receiver. Kind of pointless unless you're just trying to make space for more messages.

Also, I blame the cat for those messages, @Half Fast
 
mandm said:
Unless you like the junk mail, being sold car warranties, etc :) in the future will be different levels of harassment,
Click to expand...

A family member was telling me about getting a robocall from a place selling auto warranties. They answered "yes" that they wanted to purchase an extended warranty for their used car. Well the robocaller was not happy to find out that it was to be for a 1965 Ford Falcon. "But that's the one that needs a warranty! "
 
Are electronic messages ever truly deleted these days? I know certain Google products only give you the option to archive.
 
What I don’t get is if you’re worried about the content of a written message, then why use the medium at all?
 
TCABM said:
What I don’t get is if you’re worried about the content of a written message, then why use the medium at all?
Click to expand...
That's where coded messages and encryption come in.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
I am very disorganized. I don't delete anything.
Not because I want to save it but because I just don't care.
I don't send or receive anything that really matters.
Click to expand...

This is exactly me. I don't "save" texts, I just don't bother to delete them. Why? The app always shows me the most recent anyway, and it's not like they take up any real space.

This thread looks kind of familiar though... :)

https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/com...e-your-old-text-messages.137933/#post-3250367
 
Most of the stuff is not worth saving.
 
I save everything, but mostly b/c I'm too lazy to move the cursor or my thumb ALL.THE.WAY to the delete button. Ain't nobody got time fuh dat! Every couple of years, I'll get bored at a family get together and start filtering and selectively mass deleting certain stuff.
 
Deleting is an act of malice. Not deleting is an act of laziness. And then there is not opening - an act of economy. My personal email unread count is around 76,000. Work is only around 5,000 unread because we switched domains recently enough.
 
I save all my Emails but never saw a good way to archive texts, otherwise I might save them. As it is they get routinely discarded.
 
Don't forget that the NSA place down by the point of the Mountian south of Salt Lake City ,Utah . It now intercepts every electronic data - phone call -Etc. Made in the US. Prior to 911 they were not allowed to do so on US soil. Patriot Act took care of that small detail.
I have known 2 people who served in Ethiopia at such a spy station . Interesting people to say the least. One was CIA other Marine guard at station.
 
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