New image format comes with DRM

Have you ever posted a picture online and then regretted it? Good news. There's a new service called X-Pire that you can subscribe to that will encrypt your photo with an expiration date. Viewing the photo will require a browser plugin, and they only have a Firefox version as of yet.

As I see it, this is another way that someone else can control my computer without consulting me. Is anyone else bothered by this? And before you ask, no, I don't like Flash, PDFs, Ajax, or most active web content for just that reason. And that's why I have Firefox set to block Flash and the like.

Then again, it doesn't matter much because the new format is pointless. It's not going to stop anyone from saving a copy of the image; all they need to do is take a screenshot. Now that I think of it, it's almost a reflex to take a screen shot whenever I find something compromising (just to make sure it doesn't disappear, not for blackmail). Expiring photos _really_ won't accomplish much.

via BBC

image via Joe Lanman