Article: Do you know where your text messages are?

DETROIT - Millions of fingers scurrying over mobile electronic devices probably paused this week as news emerged of a trove of text messages containing flirty and sexually explicit chat between Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and a top aide.

Even those engaging in more wholesome dialogue would be wise to wonder: Do text messages disappear - like oral conversations - or are they permanently logged somewhere for potential retrieval - like e-mail usually is?

For standard consumer text-messaging technology, the answer is largely that they disappear. But Kilpatrick's and Chief of Staff Christine Beatty's devices employ less-fleeting technology.

"I think people can feel comfortable we're not ...

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