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Comment by icebraining | Hacker News Reader

Why does Google use the term "Off the record" when there is a product called Off the record[1] that has been used for end-to-end encryption of IM that pre-dates Google Talk?

Because "Off the record" was a common term way before either was created?

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Yes, but in the IM context it is creating confusion, and Google's IM team must surely be aware of this, so it stands to reason that this is intentional confusion.

Oh sure, it 'stands to reason' that anyone someone must surely be aware of was also intentional, noone is ever surely aware of anything that was not planned that way. What?

I... think I agree with you. Can we get a clarity edit?

Sorry, I don't agree. "Off the record" is a term that is obviously and simply applicable to an IM context. It's the fault of the people who made an app called Off The Record that someone else has used the same term.

The simple and obvious meaning is encryption with PFS, right? It's not as though you can prevent the person you're speaking to from logging, and given that he or she could be using an XMPP client not written by Google, neither can anyone else. The "Disable logging on my end" feature should probably just be called "Disable logging on my end."

It disables logging on the other end, too, if the other end is a Google hangouts user.

If I'm speaking to a journalist and I say "this is off the record", it doesn't magically disable their tape recorder, either.

It's plausible that Google named the feature before learning about OTR. Google's off the record chat and OTR were both announced in 2004.

I was on the Google Talk team at the time when we introduced this feature and I can confirm we had no knowledge of other products called 'Off The Record'.

No, "off the record" is the commonly used phrase that implies that the conversation isn't for redistribution, but also that such a guarantee is based on your trust of your counterparty and not on any technical barriers to logging.

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