[ikeboy]

Incognito is a useful feature. E2E encryption is a useful feature.

There's no reason to only allow those two features to be used together. You could have them both turned off by default, and have three modes, one which turns on E2E and one which turns on incognito.

Also, the incognito decision should be made by each side independently. Just because I want to delete my traces doesn't mean my partner does.

[dragonwriter]

> There's no reason to only allow those two features to be used together.

UX simplicity is, in fact, a reason.

[ikeboy]

Then have the default incognito be as described, with an option in settings to separate the two features.

[mike_hearn]

I don't think you've thought this through.

If one side enabled this "use E2E encryption for everything" feature, then the other side would presumably no longer have access to any of the smart assistant features. And it would not be obvious why.

Additionally, it would be hard to explain why you'd ever want to enable such a feature which means nobody would do it. I suspect you want default E2E encryption for political reasons. Such things don't work unless it's on by default.

[ikeboy]

>If one side enabled this "use E2E encryption for everything" feature

That's not what I'm suggesting. I want E2E to be separate from the "delete chats when I'm finished" feature.

Wanting an E2E chat that stays on my device when I'm done should be fine.

I'm fine with having E2E require a separate mode, but that shouldn't be bundled with the incognito feature of not remembering history.

[mike_hearn]

I see. In that case, yes it'd make sense to have such a feature, probably implemented as an archive button in the incognito window (with a warning that archiving such a chat makes it non-private).

[ikeboy]

Are you assuming that all storage ends up on Google's servers (because that's what hangouts does, maybe)?

Why can't it store E2E chats locally and never upload to google, or even encrypt with a passphrase like Chrome sync does?

[tremon]

Wanting an E2E chat that stays on my device when I'm done should be fine.

Only if all other participants in that chat are fine with it. So you'd end up with an implementation that only allows saving to disk if all parties allow saving. That's a lot more complexity than simply a separate checkbox.

I still agree with you, there is value in allowing the features to be controlled separately.

[ikeboy]

Why? I could always screenshot it, there's never a guarantee when you send information that it won't be retained by others with access. Letting me keep it without screenshotting is just a local convenience feature.

[eightysix_four]

I think this is a terminology issue - from what's been said elsewhere the only two differences in incognito mode is that it is E2E and doesn't show messages on your lockscreen.

It's not ephemeral messaging like Snapchat or something, although they are discussing it as a future feature.

[ikeboy]

I followed the arstechnica liveblog. http://live.arstechnica.com/google-io-2016-keynote/#post-885...

>Incognito also offers message expiration. When you close incognito mode, your message is gone forever.

I assumed that was accurate. Did they misrepresent it somehow?

[eightysix_four]

Possibly - the two sites I've seen with "hands-ons" do not mention this anywhere.

[ikeboy]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/google-takes-on-apple-facebook-w... (https://archive.is/ELitC for paywall)

>All chats will be encrypted, but a special incognito mode will have an end-to-end encryption, and expiring chats that are permanently deleted once you leave them.

[mtgx]

I don't mind the two being used together. I've been using OTR in Gtalk/Hangouts for a long time, too (yes, I know Google actually keeps those messages anyway).

However, I would like an option to make the Incognito mode the default (always-on), just like Firefox can make Private Mode the default.

If Google wants people to believe it cares about their privacy (which is probably the reason they're even doing this in the first place), then it should not just offer the feature to them in an obscure way, but it should make it easy for them to use it if that's what they want.

[tdkl]

> If Google wants people to believe it cares about their privacy

They don't, it's just more easibly marketable this way since it's a checkmark on someones Powerpoint slide.

> but it should make it easy for them to use it if that's what they want.

Google doesn't cater to users, since they aren't customers (services are free), but advertisers are.