I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up to No Good

[alt_gredforge]

We've been thinking about what would happen if any of us do an 'I Solemnly Swear' comment to a private message post. Don't know for absolutely sure, but we do think that the safeguards we've been using up until now will still continue to protect what we write, as long as you use the protocol we've been using. At the very least, the age charm protection would keep anyone from the MLE from being able to read anything you might write under the lock. Don't think they're allowed by law to hire anyone under the age of seventeen.

On the other hand, we have a hunch that the Ministry will be particularly paying attention to which people are nattering away an awful lot in private messages. It's like writing a big sign and sticking it to your back that says, 'Hullo! Over here! Yeah, I'm writing about a lot of dodgy stuff that I don't want other people to know!' So if you don't want to particularly draw their attention that way, you might consider that bit of friendly advice.

Comments

[alt_sally_anne]

Do even the interns have to be of age? I suppose that makes sense.

The Strettons talked all day about the private messages -- they don't use their journals much but they're going to start, because they want people to be able to place orders with their journals. I don't know how payment is supposed to work, though, normally people send galleons along with the owl that brings the order form.

Anyway they talked a lot about how to make sure no one overlooks the orders and what if someone writes a name incorrectly and on and on about all the ways they could make a customer cross if things don't go properly and whether they can use magic that would catch mistakes.

It got me thinking again about MLE and what they'll be watching for. I reckon there's a spell, don't you? You couldn't say to the journals, 'find me the traitors' but you could say, if you were MLE, 'find me anyone talking about Sirius Black.' Or 'find me anyone who mentions Bellatrix Lestrange.' Or 'find me anyone who says Lord Pretender.' Some of the time they'll find people saying things like, 'it was Sirius Black who was really the Lord Pretender, thank goodness Bellatrix Lestrange put a stop to him!' But other times maybe not.

[alt_sally_anne]

I mean if Ron can put a spell on his journal saying 'tell me whenever Perks writes anything' it should be no trouble for MLE to find people who talk about Sirius Black where they think no one can see.

Even if they just say 'poor bloke' it lets them know who to look for. Look at. You know.

[alt_ron]

Also.

Yikes.

[alt_ron]

Ugh.

[alt_gredforge]

We think the rule about 'you can only send a private message to two persons' is a way to slow down conspirators. It'll be hard to use this feature to get a group of people plot anything--if anyone were stupid enough to try it--and the titles will make it easy to trace if someone DOES use it to try something.

[alt_hermione]

Well, I think I'm rather safe, as long as it's nothing I don't mind saying in front of Harry. I don't think they'll peek too closely in on him, since he's above reproach. He said his Father promised not to look at his private things, too.

Of course that means I can't say above half the things I'd like to, but that's all right too.