Secure ways to chat in public

Security is always an important topic with the web and you should constantly be on the lookout for ways in which to keep yourself and your personal information private. One of the ways in which you can improve security on the web is by using an encrypted communication protocol like https instead of plain old http. You'll see it if you ever buy anything on a website or access a bank.

Now you can use https://www.facebook.com and https://www.twitter.com to ensure you have a secure and private communication between your PC and the site. I can see the point when accessing a bank or online store, but why encrypt a conversation that will be made public anyway? Everyone can see what you post on Facebook and Twitter, so why would you want to encrypt its transmission between your PC and the server, only then for it to be made public? Am I missing something here?

When you log in then maybe the password you enter is sent as plain text, but someone would have to be sniffing the network and capture the data for the nano-second it takes for the password to be sent. That would represent a slight security risk, so is this what it's for? It's certainly not needed after login.

Anyway, if you want a secure connection then use the http URLs above. You can also make this a permanent default setting to be used all the time. In Twitter click your name in the top right corner and select Settings. Down at the bottom of the Account tab is Always use https. Tick the box. In Facebook click Account, Account Security. On the Settings tab expand the Account Security section and tick Secure Browsing (https).