Here’s how to make sure no one else can read your Facebook Messages.

The social network that launched a thousand privacy scares is giving you a way to send messages so private that neither the company nor anybody but your correspondent can decrypt and read them.

Facebook (FB) calls this new Messenger feature “Secret Conversations,” and it not only lets you scramble messages, but it also lets you set them to self-destruct.

The catch: If you switch to this more secure mode, every message you encrypt runs the risk of self-destructing — even if you don’t want it to. But that could be a worthwhile tradeoff for knowing that your messages can’t be read by anybody but the recipient.

The social network has never offered that option before, although its Whatsapp messenger service deployed “end-to-end encryption” in April. You may not have it yet, but you soon should — the company said in its announcement that it’ll be “more widely available this summer.”

How it works

First you’ll need the latest version of Facebook Messenger for Android or iOS; they’re the only ones that support Secret Conversations right now.

Then you’ll need a strong sense of which mobile device you will keep around for a while and keep secure — you can only enable encryption on a single phone or tablet, and anybody who can unlock it can read your secret chats.

Now select a friend in Messenger, tap their name at the top of the conversation (in iOS) or the “i” in a circle at the top right corner (in Android) and choose “Secret Conversation.”



By Rob Pegoraro.
Full story at Yahoo News.