Dear Kid,

From the Department of Repetitive Redundancy Department, I believe I may have mentioned once or twice (or seven thousand times) that anything put on the internet is permanent. Just so we’re clear, I plan to keep repeating myself on this (and probably other) topic(s).

But now there is Forensic Evidence of Internet Permanence which therefore makes it Absolutely True, Indisputable, and Important.

In the article Forensic Experts Poke Holes in Snapchat and Facebook (much of which talked about technology that is beyond my tech-comprehension level), two forensic specialists went poking around inside phones and found all sorts of goodies that let them trace info and pictures that had presumably been erased, deleted, and otherwise vanished.

If you’re going to read the article, you might need a definition or two:

A jailbreak is typically an iPhone or other Apple device modified to let the user install applications that are not released through the App Store. Android rooting is pretty much the same thing on an Android phone. Rooting is also done to let the owner remove and replace the operating system, usually with a more recent release. Rooting and jailbreaking are perfectly legal but both void the warranties.

The term jailbreak originally mean breaking out of jail (clever, huh?) and came into use in the early 1900s. Which makes no sense since people were escaping (or at least attempting to escape) from jails since there were jails. Conventional wisdom holds that–for at least a certain percent of the incarcerated population–jail is not a nice place. You should take my word and not worry about testing this particular hypothesis.

Love, Mom