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The self-destructing texts

Say hello to the adulterer's new best friend – a 'stealth text' service that makes messages self-destruct within 40 seconds. Not surprisingly, the in

Say hello to the adulterer’s new best friend – a ‘stealth text’ service that makes messages self-destruct within 40 seconds.

Not surprisingly, the inventors of the Mission Impossible service, Staellium UK, have been deluged with inquiries from celebrity agents looking to protect their clients from the wrath of tabloid headlines.

Stealth Text sadly isn’t quite as dramatic as the infamous tape combustion from the 60s series. Once the sender and receiver have signed up, it will give the recipient of the delicate information a link to a message. They then have 40 seconds to read it before it gets deleted.

There’s certainly some novelty value in covert texting, but it’s more likely to find favour in playgrounds than among high-flying suits with sensitive business information, who are Staellium’s chief targets. If you’re mid-affair, simply having the software on your phone might also be slightly difficult to defend in the face of questioning from a suspicious partner.

You’ll need a WAP phone to sign up – not a big ask – and all you need to do is text STEALTH to 80880. You’ll then be given a link to download the software from and each subsequent stealthy text will cost you 50p a pop.

Tip-toe over to Staellium’s website for more info. Careful now…

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Profile image of Dan Grabham Dan Grabham Editor-in-Chief

About

Dan is Editor-in-chief of Stuff, working across the magazine and the Stuff.tv website.  Our Editor-in-Chief is a regular at tech shows such as CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as well as at other launches and events. He has been a CES Innovation Awards judge. Dan is completely platform agnostic and very at home using and writing about Windows, macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS plus lots and lots of gadgets including audio and smart home gear, laptops and smartphones. He's also been interviewed and quoted in a wide variety of places including The Sun, BBC World Service, BBC News Online, BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Radio 4, Sky News Radio and BBC Local Radio.

Areas of expertise

Computing, mobile, audio, smart home