> in a conversation you can assume good faith and speak as loosely as you would in everyday life
In some countries it's legal to record any conversation you're a part of without informing the other participants so many people are on their guard. Even in everyday life with people you know well, they or you might be carrying a mobile phone manufactured by certain company or running a certain OS that listens, even when turned off with the battery still in, on behalf of some party who'll never be prosecuted and often never even exposed, and there's a lot of those sorts of people out there. Perhaps even a higher than average percentage of Hacker News visitors are these sorts.
In some countries it's legal to record any conversation you're a part of without informing the other participants so many people are on their guard. Even in everyday life with people you know well, they or you might be carrying a mobile phone manufactured by certain company or running a certain OS that listens, even when turned off with the battery still in, on behalf of some party who'll never be prosecuted and often never even exposed, and there's a lot of those sorts of people out there. Perhaps even a higher than average percentage of Hacker News visitors are these sorts.