[messaging] Value of deniability

[Mike Hearn]

I would like to hear opinions on the value of deniability in OTR like
protocols.

>From a privacy perspective the rationale is fairly clear. But I keep
reading stories like this one:


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2854324/The-double-life-tragic-suicide-girl-accused-rape-tycoon-s-son-says-Don-t-judge-know-story.html

in which people exonerate themselves or get themselves out of a sticky
situation because they are able to prove someone sent them text messages at
a certain time. E.g for establishing an alibi or (as in this case) to show
that a woman who had accused a man of rape was lying.

If you have true end to end encryption and only you or the sender can
release messages, this seems like a pretty high standard of privacy
already. I'm not entirely sure I'd actually want to use a system that added
deniability on top, because being able to prove a conversation took place
is so often valuable in life and in business.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://moderncrypto.org/mail-archive/messaging/attachments/20141210/bf13361b/attachment.html>