Ephemera is a self-destructing unencrypted data transfer protocol with an implementation in php.
- A tab-delimited key-value text file is stored somewhere outside of the web root (if it does not exist, it is created when a key-value is added for the first time).
- When a user passes a special set of two parameters to the script, in this case
$_GET["key"]and$_GET["value"]it saves the key value pair in the text file (in this case designed to be above the web root). - When a user loads the script with a single
$_GET[]variable (the key), e.g./?username, the script reads the file and looks for a match.- If found, it will delete the entry from the file, and display it to the user.
- If not found it will display an error such as "Cannot retrieve this value because it does not exist or has already been requested and can only be requested once."
*Ensure that you always host the script with SSL. It will not check this. If you do not, you will be vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks.
- Transfer a password to a remote recipient securely. Confirm with the recipient separately.