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Comment by marshray | Hacker News Reader

This is a sincere question: Why would you think Facebook chat would be "private communication"?

Do you consider SMS private communications? Your cellphone carrier is just as likely to eavesdrop on your SMS history as FB does your chats.

I consider FB chats to be much less private because they actually get stored on a server somewhere by default. Also I can access them anywhere with an internet account. Neither of these things are true of SMS.

There is nothing preventing your SMSs being saved in a telco DB. I'm fairly certain they are.

Well sure it might be, but it doesn't have to. FB messages always get saved, no question.

FB chat messages don't have to be saved either.

If I log in and click the Messages button I can see all my messages. To do that they have to be on their server. There isn't an off-the-record button I missed is there?

Ideally Facebook would use public-key encryption for chats and allow each user to individually save the history with their own passphrase they input encrypting it client-side.

But hey, auto-saving history without prompting you is worth it, right? (Also figuring out what to advertise to a user.)

It seems like you're describing something completely different from FB chat. anyway you could just encrypt the text, base64-encode it, and paste it into the chat box. still more convenient than email.

FB chat to me is basically real-time private messages rather than more traditional instant messaging, but everything I described except securely archiving the history could be done by FB transparently to the user. Of course you can do the work yourself, I just think it would be a nice gesture if FB provided the option to do the work for you, a way for the user to conveniently make sure FB keeps their parsers off the user's chat data. (It could also be extended to other data.) Also with how frequently Amazon prompts me for my password, I don't think users would be incredibly turned off by FB prompting for a password when they start chatting, and their browsers can be made to remember it anyway.

AT&T cops to saving SMS messages, not just "pen trace" (sender/recipient data), for up to 72 hours. For "delivery purposes" only. Though the release I read doesn't specify to whom.

http://gizmodo.com/349308/verizon-att-respect-your-sms-priva...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdawg/93928749/

There's an illusion in online communication that makes the average user think any particular message they send is like physically handing a message to another person. Using Gmail as an example, sure, your email goes to the right person, but you first send it to/through Gmail. They just happen to pass it along to the recipient.

> Do you consider SMS private communications?

That question has a complex answer. In short: not really.

Unfortunately, I know a little too much about phone networks to have a representative answer. I know very little about Facebook, except that its users usually attribute to it more privacy than it really offers. Trying to understand why that is is the reason for my question.

Yes. On one hand there are quite strong laws about privacy for phone companies and second I pay them. By contrast, I would not pay FB even if I had an account. Their entire business model is, that they are selling private data. ( Technically it is unfortunately neither for FB nor for telcos a problem to eavesdrop.)

It would be covered under the Stored Communications Act. Unfortunately reading the act it looks like it is up for debate as to whether they are breaking the law. The Stored Communications Act allows voluntary disclosure when two things are true:

1) The communications were inadvertently obtained and 2) The communication appears to pertain to commission of a crime.

I don't think you can classify this as inadvertent. So I wonder if Facebook can be sued.

There is one way to find out. Create a decoy post, hear from law enforcement, and sue Facebook.

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