5 ms·
Which leads to the question if slack encrypts the chat data in the database.
by hazelnut 12y ago
Which leads to the question if slack encrypts the chat data in the database.
- mateuszf 12y agoThat would make implementing search quite hard so I'd say - it's pretty likely they don't encrypt it.
- smt88 12y agoIf anyone from Slack is reading this, the encryption should be an option, even if it means disabling or substantially slowing the search feature.
- NeutronBoy 12y agoIf they encrypted it, Slack would have to hold the key, so that all users in an org can then read existing messages.
- smt88 12y agoNo, it could be a private key shared among users.
- newobj 12y agoThat's not right. There is no need to store text body in order to index it. Furthermore, you can implement an index of token hashes, rather than an index of tokens.
- polyfractal 12y agoIt would remove a lot of nice search features, however. If you just index tokens without positional information, you have a much harder time performing phrase matching. If you include positional information, you can probably crack the encryption because some tokens are statistically more likely to appear next to each other than others. If you index shingles (phrase chunks) instead, you lose out on sloppy phrases...you can only match exact phrases. I imagine you can perform a similar statistical attack too. Hell, just getting the term dictionary would probably allow you to reverse engineer the tokens, since written language follows a very predictable power law. Hashing also removes the ability to highlight search results, which significantly degrades search functionality for an end user. Basically, yes, you can do search with encrypted tokens...but it will be a very poor search experience.
- skatenerd 12y agoThis reminds me of the plot of Silicon Valley
- sukilot 12y agoIf they dont encrypt storage they are highly negligent. Index and search are done in RAM,which is slightly harder to steal than disk data.
- jacquesm 12y agoIs there a good reason to keep chat data longer than it takes to deliver it to the recipient?
- buttsex 12y agoThey archive chat messages so that you can search through them later.
- jacquesm 12y agoThat alone would be a great reason not to use them.
- LaurentVB 12y agoIt's also a great reason to use them, isn't it? Your searchable chat history basically becomes the knowledge base of your company.
- gaadd33 12y agoAnd a great target for discovery in any sort of lawsuit.
- brandon272 12y agoAs is email.
- ncza 12y agoTo me, that is something that you should keep internal, on internal systems with vetted free software.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- brackin 12y agoIt's why I love Slack. If I remember a conversation about something two months ago I go to the room, search and find exactly what I needed.