Thunderbird single mail wiping

[ghost]

safely delete a single email in thunderbird

[boyska]

Where is the work about that? Is this really work in progress? And what is the question? I think there's no doubt that such a feature would be appreciated.

[boyska]

Ok, this is confirmed as a security issue, but there is no idea on how to proceed

[intrigeri]

I think it's very hard, if not impossible, to implement this in a way that clearly conveys to the user what safety they can expect as a result:

• wiping individual files on Flash memory doesn't work (one has to wipe the entire block device for reliable secure deletion there); see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_erasure#Limitations and the paper it links to for details;
• there are chances that Thunderbird writes multiple copies of a given message during its lifetime, possibly including cache files;
• of course the email server administrators may have kept a copy.

So I'm afraid that any implementation has too great risks of giving a mistaken feeling of security to the user, compared with the expected benefits.

[ghost]

I think we can close this issue.