"I obfuscated our conversation with loud music to avoid recording."

Question

This answer to the question Camouflage is to sight as ____ is to sound? includes the sentence:

The linked definition says:

The action of making something obscure, unclear, or unintelligible.
  ‘when confronted with sharp questions they resort to obfuscation’
  [count noun] ‘ministers put up mealy-mouthed denials and obfuscations’
  
  Origin: Late Middle English: from late Latin obfuscatio(n-), from obfuscare ‘to darken or obscure’ (see obfuscate).

The most up voted answer there (and the one I like) is mask. When I think of obfuscate, I think of manipulating information to confuse or misdirect someone's interpretation of a situation or a communication, so I was surprised to see this use.

Yes, sound is information in some sense, but the information we extract from the sound of speech is not the same as the initial waveforms and vibrations in the air.

Can one obfuscate a conversation by masking it acoustically? Is this a proper use of obfuscate, or is it a bit of a stretch?

Marq · Accepted Answer

That's not how I would use obfuscate.

I think you can make (especially in reference to spoken communication) a distinction between making a conversation difficult to understand and making it difficult to discern.

Obfuscation could involve using slang, overly convoluted language, code words, phonological transformations such as pig Latin, etc. These are all things that would make it hard for an eavesdropper who can clearly discern the sounds made in the conversation to understand what was actually being communication.

Playing loud music (or whispering, or replacing some or all of the spoken words with gestures or written notes) makes the conversation harder to discern, and that isn't obfuscation as I understand the word.

Imagine if there was a written transcript of the conversation. If the transcript is complete and accurate and the conversation is still hard to understand, it may have been deliberately obfuscated by the conversationalists. Playing loud music just makes it harder to get the complete and accurate transcript.

chornge · Answer

by using an acoustic mask (loud music) you obfuscated the conversation and made the conversation unclear (to eavesdroppers).

yes, it's proper use of the word obfuscate and no, it's not a bit of stretch.

you can check out  obfuscate in a sentence.

user256516 · Answer

If "conversation isn't information" then it's no wonder this puzzles you.
Anything molested from intended outcome can be said to have been obfuscated.
"scientists" obfuscate data to arrive at a desired outcome.
Lawyers obfuscate the truth to arrive at a molded conclusion.
Politicians obfuscate the facts to manipulate opinions.
Obfuscation is arguably the pass time of humanity, for with one lie, misdirection of truth, application of personal will, the altruist intent is obfuscated.

"I obfuscated our conversation with loud music to avoid recording."

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