Where do Your Snapchats Go?

After you send that 10 second picture to your friend it gets deleted, right? If you haven't figured it out yet let me be clear: NOTHING on the Internet can be deleted, including Snapchats.

You shouldn't just be worried about people screen-shotting your picture, because the photos can still be accessed anyways on your phone in a hidden folder with the file extension .NOMEDIA which prevents it from being viewed. However, digital forensics companies have figured out how to access the folder and edit the file name to turn it back into a viewable image. One company in particular, Decipher Forensics, is charging money ($300-$500) to recover a phone's collection of Snapchat photos.

That may seem like a lot of money, but it proves the point that no-one is private on the Internet. This post will be on here forever and no matter how much I try to get rid of it, there will still be a way to recover it; the same goes for anything you post online. I'm not saying the Internet is a bad thing, because its far from it. I'm saying that in this day and age if you're connected to the Internet, you stay connected to the Internet. Snapchat's policy of "permanently deleting your photos" is very misleading and it pushes people to believe that they live a private life even if they're active on the Internet.

Just as an experiment, type your full name into Google along with your current city/state and see what pops up, you'll be surprised what you can find. This will be your digital image for the rest of your life, are you satisfied?