Are Your Slack Conversations Really Private and Secure? (fastcompany.com)

An anonymous reader writes: "Chats that seem to be more ephemeral than email are still being recorded on a server somewhere," reports Fast Company, noting that Slack's Data Request Policy says the company will turn over data from customers when "it is compelled by law to do so or is subject to a valid and binding order of a governmental or regulatory body...or in cases of emergency to avoid death or physical harm to individuals." Slack will notify customers before disclosure "unless Slack is prohibited from doing so," or if the data is associated with "illegal conduct or risk of harm to people or property."

The article also warns that like HipChat and Campfire, Slack "is encrypted only at rest and in transit," though a Slack spokesperson says they "may evaluate" end-to-end encryption at some point in the future. Slack has no plans to offer local hosting of Slack data, but if employers pay for a Plus Plan, they're able to access private conversations.
Though Slack has 4 million users, the article points out that there's other alternatives like Semaphor and open source choices like Wickr and Mattermost. I'd be curious to hear what Slashdot readers are using at their own workplaces -- and how they feel about the privacy and security of Slack?

Comments

we have slack at work, and I don't understand why

[TheGratefulNet]

I am from the era where 'net news' (nntp) was popular.

for a few years, I was at SGI and they were HUGE into nntp. in fact, one of the most memorable ones was 'sgi.ba' and ba stood for 'bad attitude' (seriously). first day there, getting the HR orientation, they told us all about the usenet hier at work and how its GOOD to be aware of, and reading, sgi.ba. you'd hear about complaints but also the reasons behind them. HR was ok with that! those were the cool days in silicon valley, when it was still fun to live and work here, and companies were still pretty fun to work for.

anyway, I never understood what's wrong with usenet for internal threaded and persistent chats? you WANT it to stay around so you can find out the reasons for why this or that design was done. its part of the company history. but slack, unless you pay, fades away. how stupid! and yet, when I asked for nntp at work instead of slack, no one seemed to even KNOW what nntp was and to this day, they have no plans to implement it.

'chat' programs seem the most useless things; fully redundant to the MANY other forms of e-communication that we ALREADY have.

when usenet mostly 'ended' and web forums took over, I was sad. seems we continue to throw out old, free, WORKING tools for newfangled OH SHINEY! bullshit.

I don't get it. I really don't.

those who ignore IRC

[nimbius]

are doomed to reinvent it, poorly. IRC has had end to end TLS and EECDH cryptography for quite some time. it even boasts key based authentication. This is the opinion of a Greybeard, so hold on for a rant. I dont think "chat-ops" brings anything to the table we havent had for 3 decades already. its a nice buzzword for startups to throw around when touting their agile workplaces.

Do one thing, and do it well. If im chatting with you, i dont need to see your face or hear your voice. Asterisk lets me place a call to you if its really that necessary but video conferencing is just compensating for managements insecurity. if you want to show me your code, send me a link to your gitlab or pastebin or gerrit (we have pull requests you know.) if you need to share your screen, tmux and novnc do it just fine but you should take a moment to determine why your screen has to be shared for me to understand a particular concept or issue. So in short, no. I dont see value in slack and mattermost. I dont want another goddamn client on my desktop and i dont need another website that loads 50mb of content just to make sure my manager can see my living room.

What is slack?

[RightwingNutjob]

And why should I use it in place of email or the telephone?

Re:Running an internal Jabber server here

[molarmass192]

I'll have to try this. I've always wondered what it feels like to get tasered and clubbed over the head with a flashlight.