Shoutbox

[some related personal thoughts, but otherwise off-topic]

Why would you want to encrypt it?

Do you have anything to hide? Don't you think they will get MORE suspicious if they find out you are encrypting your conversations?

What I mean is: so now you know they can (note: can and not will*) monitor your conversations... So what? What is the big deal, for you personally I mean? If you got nothing to hide, you shouldn't worry about it.

Privacy? Maybe... on the other hand, you obviously know they can monitor it now (you made a post about it), and there is the big difference. Since you know it, and since it is a new 'law' which is hopefully publically know, you actually can not call in privacy issues I think.

A matter of principle? Yeah, that's for sure...

But it would be only when they may not, by law (thus without any suspicion), monitor your data and they still do it, that you could call in privacy issues I think...

The chance that your boss, coworker, network admin, family member, etc reads your emails or chats is millions times higher than that the governement would.

Anyways, the bottom line is: *they are not interested in your chats!! And I very highly doubt there will be hundreds of people sitting at a desk day in and out reading all the millions of chats...  In fact, what they probably will do is using so called 'data mining software' to search for sensitive keywords. There might even be a fine print saying that all data monitoring must remain annonymous too (aka, just the chats, no real names, no emails, no IPs, etc), unless they come across some suspicious data.

Again, if you got nothing to hide, why would you wanna take the trouble of encrypting stuff?

Also note that even if there would be an encryption system in Messenger itself, or in Plus!, or another widely used product, it might also be perfectly possible by law that the military must know the encryption/decryption methods being used so that they can decrypt it and monitor it! In other words, an encryption system might not solve the issue of 'hiding' stuff in such cases. It would hide data from your network admin though, since he might not have the right to monitor it. It all depends on the laws, the fine print, etc...

Als note that in many countries something like this (but not to this extend though) already exists. Sure there are always outcries, but I never read any reports that it was being abused or that there are problems with it. At least not for the common public who got nothing to hide anyways or who don't do anything bad. On the contrary, it seems like such stuff helps in fighting (international) crime, catch pedos, etc...

[/some related personal thoughts]