Skip to content
Quinn LabsEthereal 003

Quinn Labs
Ethereal Experiment 003

The Right to Fade

What if a conversation didn't have to last forever?

Digital communication is copied, stored, forwarded and backed up long after its original purpose has passed.

Ethereal 003 explores whether communication could become more temporary, consensual and difficult to capture—without depriving someone of evidence when they need protection.

Enter the experimentRead the research
Research prototype

Independent interaction prototype.
No production security is claimed.

Two dark facing surfaces with a small illuminated message between them; part of the message dissolves while a faint violet trace remains inside the right-hand surface.
A message between two surfaces: part dissolves, a recipient-controlled trace remains.
Ethereal003 / Active experimentPrevious: —Next: Unassigned

Core principle

Communication should not take more permission, attention or permanence than people intended.

Research question

Can digital communication be private, temporary and consensual without allowing abuse to escape accountability?

Privacy for whom?

Two perspectives

One path experiences a consensual temporary conversation. The other experiences a recipient who needs evidence.

Choose a perspective

What cannot be promised

Capture cannot be prevented, memory cannot be erased and deletion cannot be guaranteed. Those limits are part of the work.

Read the limitations

This prototype does not implement

  • End-to-end encryption
  • Secure message deletion
  • Universal screenshot blocking
  • Screen-recording prevention
  • Verified identity
  • Legally validated evidence storage
  • Abuse moderation
  • Live communication
  • Production safeguarding
  • A working connection to ONE