I am an introvert, I speak less and have only a few close friends. One of my friends is my wife and share everything with her. Many of the time I share it over chat when I am at the office. Most of the time the stuff we talk about are mundane such as, should I get something from the market, what is the plan for dinner etc. As an introvert I am never able to speak freely with my wife when I surrounded by people, she does not like it, but understands.

Now when we chat (she uses her Google Id), I have always had this strange feeling that what if someone is reading this. I know it does not matter, but it just does not feel right. Why should anyone have the power to read the communication between me and my wife, however, mundane they are? Why should I have to give up this very simple right to have a private conversation with my wife?

After some thought I decided to never chat with her without end-to-end encryption in place (except for emergencies). So, I installed Pidgin on both her and my machine with the OTR plugin enabled. It was quite simple, and my wife, who is not so tech savvy, chats with me and her friends as if nothing has changed. I installed the ChatSecure app on her Android phone too so that we can chat privately whether she is using her computer or her phone.

This is what Google sees now:

Google sees some random alphanumeric character as the content of our chats

Remember, it’s never about “I have nothing to hide”.