[mreome]

The concern in the example is that if the data is unencrypted then there are many untrusted middlemen that also have access to the plaintext and could use it to blackmail either/both of the trusted sender/receiver.

[maicro]

I agree that concern is valid (and a good reason to encrypt everything), I just think the original example doesn't really say that clearly (or at least clearly enough).

Then again, maybe I'm just being pedantic.

Thanks for the clarification - have a good one.

[mjevans]

It's implicit that the communicating parties desire the information to be shared among themselves, otherwise why would they talk about it at all?