32 ms·
Introducing the Keybase filesystem
- sjs382 11y agoI wonder if you can tail a file, to create an ad-hoc encrypted messaging channel like: Read your messages: tail -f /keybase/private/yourname/inbox.log Send a message to someone: echo 'Hi, friend!' >> /keybase/private/yourfriend/inbox.log And I wonder how it handles filename collisions? Guess I'm going to need to play with this a bit later. :)
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- malgorithms 11y agoIt works to repeatedly append to a file on one machine and `tail -f` it on another. Even an encrypted file. It just works. As for collisions, a "conflict" is handled as you would expect on file syncing services, although all conflict resolution has to be done by the clients! (Even in the unencrypted public folders, the resolution of the conflict has to be signed. And in the encrypted case, obviously the server has no idea.) This is one of the many things that had made KBFS a large and interesting project. If you really wanted to use KBFS as a transport layer, you could avoid the conflict entirely by each device claiming a file to write to, and each one in a folder can monitor the others' files.
- sjs382 11y ago> As for collisions, a "conflict" is handled as you would expect on file syncing services I'm not sure what to expect though. Does it rename subsequent files by appending _##? Or does it overwrite? Or does it allow 2 files with identical filenames, like Google Drive (at least on the web) does?
- malgorithms 11y agoOh I see, sorry for not fully answering. Keybase does not merge files or anything source-control like that. In fact, if that's what you want, you can actually init a bare repo inside of Keybase and clone into and out of it. We do this all the time as we're dogfooding. It's cool that every push is signed automatically, and every pull or clone is verified. The conflict resolution Keybase does do is simple and much like what Dropbox does. The clients will determine a winner, and the loser will be written as something like `Keybase Logo.conflicted (sjs382's imac5k copy 2016-02-04).psd` Note in this case 'imac5k' is a guaranteed unique device name for sjs382, due to the way our merkle tree of key announcements works. By the way, the conflict resolution of a single file is one case in a fairly large list of possible conflicts. What happens if you remove a directory on one machine, but add a file to it on another? And so on. The conflict resolution flow is designed to protect you from data loss above all else.
- akenn 11y agoIt works flawlessly! Here's a helper function for chatting which includes your handle before each message (helps keep track of who's saying what): KBUSER=`keybase status | grep Username | awk '{print $NF}'`; function say() { echo "$KBUSER: $@" >> /keybase/private/shared,folder,between,multiple,users/chat.txt } Note: I made KBUSER a variable because `keybase status` takes about a second to run.
- diakritikal 11y agoHello, What can you provided over and above yubikey?
- jlgaddis 11y agoSeriously?
- simonjgreen 11y agoPlenty of invites over here if anyone would like one https://keybase.io/simonjgreen https://keybase.io/simonjgreen EDIT: all gone for now, but see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11037629 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11037629 for more
- sveme 11y agoYes, please, that would be very welcomed: me sveme.org thanks! Edit: thanks, highly appreciated!
- simonjgreen 11y agosent
- gobengo 11y agoMe too! bengoering at gmail
- simonjgreen 11y agosent
- Arcsech 11y agoYes please! <my HN username> at gmail, please.
- simonjgreen 11y agosent
- roblabla 11y agoI'd love to have one too :D robinlambertz+dev at gmail
- simonjgreen 11y agosent
- 0xADADA 11y agoThis is fucking awesome. I've gotta try it.
- joshstrange 11y agoI've got invites (9) for Keybase that are collecting dust if anyone wants one. Email in profile. WOW: That happened fast, I'm all out of invites now... 2 minutes after posting emails started coming in and within 3 minutes I was out. Sorry if you didn't get one...
- danielrw7 11y agoThanks a bunch!
- ryan-c 11y agoI also had six invites, my email is in my profile, and I will either edit this comment or reply to myself when I'm out. Edit: All out. I you got one from me, please use it within 24 hours, otherwise I will reclaim it and give it to someone else.
- m1r3k 11y agoAll invites gone!
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- insomniacity 11y agoCould I get one? New to HN - is there a PM page....?
- abrodersen 11y agoI would like one, please!
- amq 11y agoI would be really grateful!
- omnius19 11y agoThanks so much! This is really exciting.
- 11y ago
- patmcc 11y agoI also have invites if anyone needs them, reply or find my email in profile.
- fsiefken 11y agofsiefken@gmail.com dankon!
- codles 11y agohello@robertluke.net thanks
- kofruge 11y agoAny invites left? Edit: Got it. Thanks!
- patmcc 11y agoWhoa, this blew up. If you emailed me after 2:19pm PST I'm out of keys (did FIFO for them). If I get more I'll keep sending.
- libx 11y agoOne more invite available for me? luislupe |at| gmail
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- ikeboy 11y ago>If that person hasn't installed Keybase yet, your human work is still done. They can join and access the data within seconds Good luck getting people to do that. Edit: I guess if the audience for this is technical people, then the kind of person who follows them is likely to be the kind that would download it, but that's a very small market. There's a far greater barrier to getting people to install software (with little tangible gain) than getting them to sign up for your website.
- chc4 11y agoIt's also a little bit hard to "join and access your data in seconds" when signup is still essentially by invite only...
- tehbmar 11y agoVery excited for this, just waiting for an official build unless someone has actual instructions for building Keybase with kbfs-beta support on linux.
- sjs382 11y agoYou can seemingly host static files on keybase.pub, too. Makes it a viable alternative to github pages for hosting static sites: https://akenn.keybase.pub/index.html https://akenn.keybase.pub/index.html (not mine)
- akenn 11y agoThose are some good looking dolphins ;)
- joefkelley 11y agoThis is really cool, but I'm not clear on how to actually install it. Or is it only available to a limited set of users? I see there's a "keybase fuse" command that might be related, but there's no docs for how to use it.
- artursapek 11y agoLooks very cool, trying it now. I think this will help keybase take off. Congrats on shipping!
- jasonmoo 11y agogo max!
- ryan-c 11y agoRandom unrelated keybase question: I generated new subkeys with GPG recently - how do I update my keybase account? The master key has not changed.
- stoye 11y agoI think you're looking for: keybase pgp update
- ryan-c 11y agoThat does not work - I have to log in with the command line client, which fails because I it doesn't have GPG sign with the correct key. Edit: Managed to get it to work by restoring a backed up keyring from before I updated my keys.
- ary 11y agoAbout 4 years ago I was involved with a commercial software project attempting to do exactly this. What we built worked but it wasn't positioned in a way that interested our target audience (Enterprise customers). First, bravo for making it happen in a way that is getting people excited. Second, I sincerely wish you the best luck in getting people to pay for it in a way that is sustainable for a business. We built a user interface that made truly secure group file sharing accessible to mere mortals and said mortals were uninterested. About three months after we shut down the business Edward Snowden made his infamous leak(s) and it became obvious to me that commercial crypto products coming out of the United States would be met with extreme levels of skepticism for some time to come. Any remotely centralized solution to the problems of key distribution and encryption are probably dead on arrival because of the single point of jurisdiction/political failure. It really doesn't matter how open you are (unfortunately). Two things really stand out to me about this implementation. 1) The trustworthiness of the key exchange doesn't appear to employ a mechanism that protects against a man in the middle. 2) They mention the possibility of in-browser Javascript crypto. These are not small issues. The people who need crypto require rigid, durable implementations that don't gloss over security concerns in favor of usability. Everyone else is just being trendy. I wish you the best of luck.
- swsieber 11y agoI think they only gloss over the security on the front side. Have you read the documentation? https://keybase.io/docs/server_security https://keybase.io/docs/server_security https://keybase.io/docs/sigchain https://keybase.io/docs/sigchain They do specifically mention the problem of javascript crypto. They also mention the fact they want to be mirrored. That said, I don't actually know enough to make smart decisions in this space. But I'd be interested in your thoughts after reading the docs (if you haven't already).
- morgante 11y agoI don't think Keybase is glossing over security at all. First of all, you don't have to use the browser app at all. I personally don't trust Javascript crypto and hence don't do anything in the web app. They're also acutely aware of the dangers of centralization and all the Keybase crypto is based on minimal trust. Check the documentation: https://keybase.io/docs/server_security https://keybase.io/docs/server_security
- tetraodonpuffer 11y agoso assuming one trusts the model, would it work to have something like: I have a /me/private/yourwebsite.com set up to be shared between me and your particular site, the link is set-up when I sign up when I log in your site, it would look for this directory to be there, in this directory there will be a file with a password hash, the server would load it, and validate the hash of the typed in password against the hash I provide, once the login is successful it would remove this file this would basically mean that I could have single-use passwords for any site as it would be trivial to have a browser add-on that generates a random password and corresponding hash when I want to log in somewhere, it types the password in the password field on the page and puts the hash in the keybase directory corresponding to it, and alert me if the site does not remove the file after the login.
- StavrosK 11y agoYou can get rid of the middleman and just sign a nonce for the site, modulo the "don't sign whatever someone gives you" caveat. If you have a PGP key that uniquely identifies you, there are many many things you can do.
- jzila 11y agoI actually wrote something like that for Keybase before KBFS was announced: https://github.com/jzila/kb-login-ext https://github.com/jzila/kb-login-ext The approach you detailed is the way to go once the filesystem is in the wild. Such power!
- drudru11 11y agoWhy is centralized crypto with a freemium biz model so welcomed? Remember Snowden? Remember parse?
- JosephRedfern 11y ago"Centralised Crypto" in what sense? Unless I'm very much mistaken, your private key never leaves your control - signing/encryption is done client-side.
- drudru11 11y agoThey are the trusted source for my public key.
- darklajid 11y agoAre you talking about the announced file storage service here? Or about the "drudru claims to be foobar on Twitter" service? The former should be good - that sounds like a smart client in front of a dumb server. The latter is a different problem and as far as I'm aware the service is merely aggregating proves - and can link to those. Verify them?
- floatboth 11y agoThe client verifies the proofs!
- JeremyBanks 11y agoThe entire system is architected so that you don't need to trust them for anything, beyond the trust you generally need to have in open-source developers. What is a specific scenario that concerns you?
- OJFord 11y agoOne _can_ host their private key(s) on Keybase (you need to to use in-browser tools) but you don't have to; can instead use Keybase cli, or gpg directly.
- thomasfromcdnjs 11y agoHow do you actually download this update? It has a link at the bottom -> "latest download (possibly without the filesystem)" I'm guessing that means not all of the OS builds have it enabled yet?
- jrockway 11y ago> Your app will encrypt just for you and then awake and rekey in the background when that Twitter user joins and announces a key. Isn't this the weak link in the chain? If you can convince the client that you're the person the data was encrypted for, it will re-encrypt it with a new key and send it to you, thus making the encryption useless. What's the protection against this, other than "don't worry, we won't introduce bugs"? (I'm not saying Random Twitter Troll will do this, but couldn't "the government" compel Keybase to re-encrypt your content with a key they have?) What does the encryption add here that a server controlling access doesn't?
- chc4 11y agoI'm not sure about that either. The weakest link seems to be a national security letter to Keybase where they distribute a backdoored version of the FS driver to Alice, and adds the key of Eve to all messages also encrypted to Bob. However, Keybase can't just broadcast "Eve on twitter is Bob!" - the client gets that announcement and links you to the tweet that claims it, where you audit the twitter handle, key fingerprint, etc.
- eridius 11y agoAnybody who's worried about being the target of a National Security Letter can just compile from source instead of using a binary distribution.
- rmc 11y agoThis is why the CJEU doesn't view the USA as a safe habour anymore. US laws have broken the internet.
- kedean 11y agoIf the NSA is your adversary model, Keybase isn't for you. If the NSA is your adversary model, NO system involving any central servers is for you, unless they only act as a dumb relay. Since Keybase is also the provider of your proof that another party is who they claim to be, they will always be suspectable to a government adversary. If you want to be NSA-safe, you can't trust any third party companies code, and that just leaves you DOA. tldr; this isn't for the NSA adversary model
- davepeck 11y agoThis is beautiful. I don't understand the dependency on the block chain: what's the forking attack we're concerned about here?
- mdavidn 11y agoIt's a public accounting of everyone's keys. All participants can review the blockchain to confirm the accuracy of their own public key. Three-letter agencies can't fork the blockchain and replace a key from the perspective of one participant.
- cjbprime 11y agoIt's not a forking attack, it's a selective-lying attack -- a malicious Keybase server could serve up old versions of someone's files, or pretend that e.g. no shared files exist between you and another user even though they do. Putting everything into Merkle trees with published updating hashes allows clients to catch a malicious server -- if the server wants to lie to someone (without being caught), it has to lie to everyone at once.
- zmmmmm 11y agoOn the page it says it is "open source Go". Does that mean that, at least theoretically, I (or another independent provider) could build this and run my own personal keybase server? If so, that would really excite me. The one thing that really keeps me away from most cloud storage and sync services is lockin. I just am not willing to be come super dependent on a service that is building their business around proprietary lockin rather than providing an excellent service.
- ptman 11y agoI'd say the client is open source https://github.com/keybase/client https://github.com/keybase/client
- grey-area 11y agoYes it's pretty straightforward. You can even do something much simpler if you want to self-host and just want a sort of encrypted dropbox for yourself. I recently did a little proof of concept hackathon entry (gopher gala) for a very similar idea which works with keybase.io for keys or your own server - https://sendto.click https://sendto.click, which is also open source. This is far simpler of course but there's no reason in principle you couldn't just compile the client yourself, write your own client and use their server, or just write your own client and server, using the same golang crypto libraries, which are here for pgp: https://godoc.org/golang.org/x/crypto/openpgp https://godoc.org/golang.org/x/crypto/openpgp It doesn't have to be quite as complex as the keybase tools, though I'm sure they have reasons for every decision and have thought hard about the way it all works, the crypto libraries they've based it on are open source and relatively straightforward to use. My one hesitation about using keybase.io would be their business model and whether they'll be around in 5 years. They might have the best intentions but if it doesn't make money, and/or is bought by a large corporation, all bets are off on how the service will evolve or whether it will continue to exist. I'd love to see them start charging money and have a sustainable business model.
- swsieber 11y agoI wouldn't be too hesitant to use it. I think it depends mostly on being able to verify everything that they verify. Which they already encourage you to do: leave signed signatures in profiles so that people can verify them independent of keybase.io
- ParadoxOryx 11y agoI've got a few Keybase invites, email me if you want one!
- fantastick 11y agoI got some invites left, ping me if you want
- rootkea 11y agoMay I have one? Email is in my profile.
- EvanPlaice 11y agoY'all got any more of them invites?
- jaaf 11y agoSent one if you still need.
- cfrantz2 11y agoAre invites still available?
- hendi_ 11y agoI'd like an invite too, please. Edit: GOT IT, thanks!
- unholygoat 11y ago[x] invite sent. check your email.
- albertzeyer 11y agoIf anyone has still an invitation for me, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!
- kristianp 11y agoHas anyone got any invitations please? My email is in my profile.
- volaski 11y agoMaybe it's because I am not a keybase user, but can somebody explain this product in human terms? I am not an idiot, and it does sound interesting, but the post is too long and I just want to know what makes it unique compared to dropbox, etc. in one sentence.
- lisper 11y agoThis is DropBox with secure digital signatures and end-to-end encryption integrated into it in a easily accessible way.
- volaski 11y agowhat confused me was how they say they are not a sync service. I am still confused.
- CamperBob2 11y agoThey're calling it a "file system," whatever that means. Presumably it means you can create encrypted virtual disk partitions that represent network storage shared with various peers, and treat those partitions as if they were resident on local drives. Agreed that they need to work on the narrative a bit.
- oconnor663 11y agoOn Linux and OSX, Keybase will be a FUSE filesystem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_in_Userspace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_in_Userspace.
- sigmonsays 11y agoAny way to get early access?
- aftbit 11y agoDropbox synchronizes files between your computer and their servers. Keybase stores the files on their servers and only downloads/uploads them "on demand". Think of your web browser accessing gmail.com versus running something like Thunderbird that downloads your mail locally. As a benefit, it's much simpler to implement - you don't need to work as hard to handle conflicts where two people made incompatible changes while offline. However, it will be slower for bulk operations and will require an internet connection.
- nohudhuuijhfjnd 11y agoI feel advertising a private beta is against HN guidelines.
- kcoop 11y agoAny more invites? k e n c o o p at g m a i l . c o m Thanks!
- nohudhuuijhfjnd 11y agoIsn't it against HN guidelines to advertise a private beta?
- dang 11y agoNo, if people find it interesting, that's fine. You're probably thinking of the Show HN guidelines, which only apply to a subset of stories: https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html
- lyime 11y agoLooking for an invite. thanks!
- jaaf 11y agoSent one
- stepvhen 11y agoIf there are invites left, I would like one (email in profile).
- unholygoat 11y agoJust checked profile, email was not found. Took a guess though and sent an invite to the email listed at: https://github.com/stepvhen https://github.com/stepvhen If that's the wrong email then let me know where to send it.
- rdl 11y agoI've been using this for a couple weeks. Along with Zcash, it is the most amazing crypto-engineering project I've seen in years. Imagine being able to share files on an ad hoc basis with anyone -- on any network. Share with someone based on Twitter, on Facebook, or email address. Even better, all with cryptographic proofs of identity, strong crypto at every level, and open source.
- jgrahamc 11y agoCame here to say pretty much the same thing. It's slick and easy to use. It's actually the 'dropbox' I've always wanted and if they introduce a storage limit I'd pay. https://keybase.io/jgrahamc https://keybase.io/jgrahamc
- bduerst 11y agoMaybe this is a tangental question, but wouldn't it be relatively easy for dropbox to implement this? Or are you saying you prefer the command line interface?
- jgrahamc 11y agoI like the social proof, I like the crypto, I like the command-line as well.
- josh2600 11y agoGiven Dropbox's absolutely glacial pace of feature progression, no it would not be easy. I mean, all of dropbox runs off of one set of private keys... https://www.dropbox.com/en/help/28 https://www.dropbox.com/en/help/28
- fapjacks 11y agoDropbox works with the NSA to hand over customer data. You are absolutely right that something like this would go over like a turd in a punchbowl at Dropbox HQ.
- cpach 11y agoThis is a pretty cool system! Sounds ideal for e.g. sharing passwords, API keys or other credentials.
- nawariata 11y agolemon_party.jpg is a nice touch.
- libso 11y agoThis is awesome. Never knew such a product was in works
- ryan-c 11y agoI would be really interested to see how they're making the filesystem cross platform if they're supporting Windows. I see in their 'hiring' page they mention FUSE which would give Linux and OS X support.
- WorldMaker 11y agoI too am very interested in if they are currently supporting Windows and/or if/when they plan to. I was hoping this blog post would have at least mentioned it in passing.
- malgorithms 11y agoWe are testing a build for Windows that uses Dokan. Early results have been very positive. It's an important feature of KBFS that it can run on Windows.
- robfreudenreich 11y agoHi Chris, the very first versions of Boxcryptor for Windows some years ago also used Dokan. Our experiences have been really bad and as the user base grew so did the number BSOD reports caused by Dokan (v0.6 back then). We are now using the commercial driver CBFS since 3+ years and are really happy with it. Hint: As development at Dokan has picked up again with Dokany, I don't know anything about its current stability.
- WorldMaker 11y agoThanks for the response! I wonder how hard it would be to use the NTFS pseudo-files that OneDrive used in Windows 8.1 (and abandoned in Windows 10 for being "too confusing to the average user")?
- WorldMaker 11y agoAlso, it's a terrible Plan B, but it's still a Plan B to keep in mind: Windows still has semi-adequate WebDAV views in Explorer. OneDrive for Business is still WebDAV-based for instance. (I've also seen and used several backup and NAS tools that have relied on WebDAV.) There's always the ability to use a SAMBA server variant and be a network share. Still a lot of dumb Windows apps that fail on network shares, but most of those are long in the tooth and should be retired anyway (and the tried and true Map Network Drive is still a power user workaround). It looks like one application I use (JungleDisk) is somehow faking a removable drive (such as USB). I'm curious how they've built that.
- fsargent 11y agoI love that if you're logged in, it'll say You can now write data in a very special place: /keybase/public/fsargent Very cool.
- manyoso 11y agoIs this all centralized? How about something completely decentralized, but permanent: https://ipfs.io/ https://ipfs.io/ https://youtu.be/HUVmypx9HGI https://youtu.be/HUVmypx9HGI The InterPlanetary File System (IPFS)
- hatsunearu 11y ago30 second caveats: - You still have to host yourself, since you don't get free hosting. - Not encrypted, so you gotta add the encryption in yourself.
- manyoso 11y agoNot true. IPFS is encrypted and with pluggable PKI too! https://youtu.be/HUVmypx9HGI?t=3210 https://youtu.be/HUVmypx9HGI?t=3210 And you do not have to host yourself once your content is distributed. That is what makes it permanent!
- richdougherty 11y agoHere's an IPFS issue about Keybase integration: https://github.com/ipfs/notes/issues/48 https://github.com/ipfs/notes/issues/48
- kevincox 11y agoYou don't have to, but unless someone decides to "pin" it it might just disappear at any time. So you better pin it yourself or find someone reliable to pin it for you.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago> or find someone reliable to pin it for you. The Internet Archive will eventually be the "pin" of last resort.
- icebraining 11y ago
- toby 11y agoAny idea how to get this working on Arch? The latest version looks to be about 2 weeks old.
- kseistrup 11y agoHow about the "keybase-release" package from AUR?
- tilpner 11y agoConsidering keybase-release[0] was "Last Updated: 2015-11-03 22:36", community/keybase is a lot more recent, but still from January, so not recent enough. [0]: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/keybase-release/ https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/keybase-release/
- clinta 11y agoIt is 2 weeks old, but that's also the latest tagged release on github, so it's not out of date. I'm not seeing how to actually get KBFS on linux today.
- simpleblend 11y agoI'd love an invite if anyone has any: arobbins@simpleblend.net
- tomkinstinch 11y agoI'd love to give this, and Keybase, a try if anyone has an invite they would be comfortable sharing. tomkinsc@[google's consumer email service].com
- jessaustin 11y agoI just sent you one.
- tomkinstinch 11y agoReceived. Thank you!
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- rootkea 11y agoMay I get one? Email in my profile.
- StavrosK 11y agoHas anyone managed to get this up and running? I'm running the Go client on Linux and no dice.
- Nibiru 11y agoDoes anyone still has a spare invite? I've been reading hacker news for a while now but I made an account just to ask :D (email adress on my account)
- Nibiru 11y agoEdit: got one (two actually) thanks!
- eridius 11y agoThis is really cool. Since this is a filesystem that streams data on demand, how does it behave under poor network conditions? I'm also curious how much data it caches locally, e.g. if I'm on a laptop and lose wifi for an hour, how much of the data in the keybase filesystem can I reasonably continue to access?
- uzyn 11y agoHave signed up for the waiting list for months but looks like I'm still in line. Anyone care for an invite? chua@uzyn.com Thanks!
- VCPro 11y agoAppreciate an invite - vcsekhar DOT parepalli AT gmail DOT com ; Thanks in advance
- vmp 11y agoI hate begging but I've been in the keybase queue for at least a year and would like to finally see what it's all about. I'd appreciate it a ton if someone could shoot me an invite: [removed] Thank you very much ashishchaudhary! :)
- salimmadjd 11y agosame here :)
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- zobzu 11y agoUnfortunately you just need to hack keybase and serve malicious code. It doesnt matter if its signed if my malicious code tells you the signature verification succeeded. Client side needs versioned code to make this harder. Including signed, versioned javascript code, automagically. This will also make alterations of web sites code a lot easier to detect.
- euroclydon 11y agoI would love an invite in anyone has one. Email in my profile. Thanks!
- pacbard 11y agoI sent you the invite. It should be in your inbox. :)
- lewisl9029 11y agoWould you still happen to have any invites left? I'd love to give Keybase a spin as well! =) (Email is in my profile)
- euroclydon 11y agoThank you!!
- rootkea 11y agoMay I have one? Email is in my profile.
- sebbas 11y agoHave one left? I'd like to join as well :) Email is in bio -> Thanks!
- niij 11y agoJumping on the invite chain! Email in profile as well-- Thank you :)
- sschueller 11y agodito
- idle_zealot 11y agoIs there a way to make a public folder writable to multiple users?
- rburhum 11y ago> Business Model? > We're a long way off from worrying about this, but we'll > never run an ad-supported business again. And Keybase will > never sell data. > [....] > But, as stated above, there is currently no pay model, and we're not trying to make money. > We're testing a product right now, and we'd like to bring public keys to the masses. I know a lot of people will see this as a pro, but honestly I see it as a huge negative. Raising capital doesn't mean that you "are not trying to make money". If you are not trying to make money, then you can't call it a "product".
- andersonmvd 11y agoIt's indeed a very valid point, but they are already making a huge progress and few people noticed the abrupt change. When they launched here, it was full of negative comments, many questioning how much funding they got given that the idea 'wasn't very good', some security professionals said. Now their filesystem is making such a noise and they're getting and will get more users. It's a gamble to see if they could put the commercial layer on top of it or not. That's why funding startups is risky. The good business model may not get enough users and the absent business model may get many users and could try to monetize on top of it. It's a gamble, as usual.
- swsieber 11y agoThey aren't trying to make money short term. That's the kicker. I think they'll be able to monetize it later in a way that doesn't impact the average Joe.
- tomasien 11y agoIt's a negative but not a huge negative. I, and basically anyone sane, would prefer them to have a business model we could evaluate in our minds - it's just an unknown that isn't helpful. However, it's common and we can deal with it.
- quadrangle 11y agoExcept that "product" means some real result of a creative process. There's zero about the term "product" that has any reliance on any element of money inherently.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- null0pointer 11y agoVery exciting project! I'd love an invite if anyone can spare one. Email in profile.
- null0pointer 11y agoRealised my email actually wasn't in my profile :O still hanging out for an invite though
- unholygoat 11y agoinvite sent, check your email. :)
- null0pointer 11y agoThanks! Legend!
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- rootkea 11y agoMay I get one? Email address in my profile.
- 1_player 11y agoLate to the party, would really appreciate an invite.. Cheers!
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- vivekkrish 11y agoWould anyone mind sharing an invitation? I've been waiting in line for close to a year. My email address is visible on my profile. Thanks in advance to the HN community!
- OJFord 11y ago> My email address is visible on my profile No it isn't :)
- vivekkrish 11y agoI realized that I updated my profile in a different tab and forgot to hit save!
- vivekkrish 11y agoAppreciate the invite.......Cheers!
- OJFord 11y agoSimple use-case I cobbled together after reading this: Show HN: Signed Blogs with Keybase.io file system [1] It's ugly as anything (no stylesheet), but just wanted to demonstrate what I think could be an interesting use. [1](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11039145 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11039145)
- krishnamannem 11y agocan someone pass along on invite please. chaitanyamannem@googles email service(gmail)
- beardicus 11y agoI have 8 invites if any other stragglers (6 hours after the story was posted) are still reading. I'm heading to bed but will send them during morning coffee, GMT -5. (please make sure your email is in your profile)
- pizzasynthesis 11y agoOh wow. Still not sure what I would use this for, but definitely interested. Or rather, how to use it.
- beardicus 11y agoplease add an email to your HN profile and i'll send it to that.
- nyolfen 11y agoI'll take one please
- beardicus 11y agoplease add an email to your HN profile and i'll send it to that.
- boundlessdreamz 11y agoPlease send me one
- beardicus 11y ago[ x ] task complete.
- boundlessdreamz 11y agoThank you :)
- chrsstrm 11y ago
- BinaryIdiot 11y agoSo slightly tangental but keybase has been around for a few years now, right? I haven't been able to figure it out but are they only afloat due to investment funds? Do they have any monetization plans? I setup a profile but I'm curious what the company ends up turning into. Perhaps the money made from providing paid upgrades to this filesystem can give them enough profit?
- opmac 11y agoLooks amazing. Would love to try this if anybody has any invites.
- kowdermeister 11y agoIs there any difference between this and http://tresorit.com/ http://tresorit.com/ ?
- LAMike 11y agoI'm a little confused, where are the files hosted?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- unholygoat 11y ago[X] Sent. check your email.
- brudgers 11y agoPodcast interview with Keybase founder Rick Krohn which discusses this among other things: http://softwareengineeringdaily.com/?s=keybase+ http://softwareengineeringdaily.com/?s=keybase+
- mkristian 11y agoSounds really interesting. Anyone have an invite, they would like to share?
- z3t4 11y agoWhen reading this I though, is this how the next "web" will look like!? Having the world mounted at file system level and content streamed or pushed on demand. What about a public key block-chain where "mining" is storing and serving data!? A system with baked in hosting/browsing, identity (public key) and micro-transactions (web-money).
- patcon 11y agoI agree! Exciting, right? :) At risk of showing you something you've already come across: * https://ipfs.io/ https://ipfs.io/ * https://ethereum.org/ https://ethereum.org/ * IPFS project lead interviewed at Ethereum conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7VjUKCdfpg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7VjUKCdfpg
- patcon 11y agoYES.
- osoti 11y agoExtreme Sport Athletes Who Tragically Died Early http://goo.gl/mssYio http://goo.gl/mssYio
- gyakovlev 11y agogot 2 invites to give away. next 2 replies to this comment will get the invites (fifo). good luck! make sure your email is in your HN profile.
- jsrjenkins 11y agoI am so excited for this project. I have been waiting for an invite for close to a year. Can anyone send me one? EDIT: email: jsrjenkins @ [google's email service].com
- morgante 11y agoThis is an awesome announcement and got me totally fired up. Unfortunately, I wasn't even able to log in to my keybase account on a new computer. Judging from the 1,000 outstanding issues on their Github, it seems like Keybase should first be focusing on fixing the bugs in existing software before rolling out new products. [0] As for the substance of the filesystem, it would be nice to have some concept of named/shared groups. So I could create a "company" folder and then add people to it over time instead of having to create a whole new shared folder each time we add someone new. (And having to manually copy over all relevant files.) [0] https://github.com/keybase/keybase-issues/issues https://github.com/keybase/keybase-issues/issues
- unholygoat 11y agoJust was granted 5 more invites (Thanks Chris!) if anyone else is late to the party. Please either reply with an email address or have one visible in your profile if you want one.
- Aissen 11y agoHi, I'd love one! Reach me at <email moved to profile> Edit: Thanks a lot for the invite !
- unholygoat 11y agoInvite sent!
- Aissen 11y agoThanks !
- botw 11y agoplease send one
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- unholygoat 11y agoparimm - invite sent!
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- parimm 11y agoGot it, Thanks a lot :)
- kseistrup 11y ago
- MrGando 11y agoPretty late here, but does anyone have any invites left? Super interesting project! Email in my profile :)
- MrGando 11y agoThanks!!
- mixedbit 11y agoA monetization idea: let people create folders that others need to pay to access and take some % of the payment (useful for companies distributing movies, games, etc.)
- wanda 11y agoI have 9 invites and I do not particularly want to trawl through all of the existing comments to find people who may or may not have been invited since having posted their comments hours ago. So, reply to me here or email me (wanda {at} teknik.io) and I will send you an invite. First co-- actually, first noticed, first served.
- melloclello 11y agoKeen as, would love an invite. (daniel {at} protonome.com)
- wanda 11y agoDone.
- tomtoump 11y agoI'd like an invite.
- wanda 11y agoI can't see your email address anywhere. I googled your screen name, which just led me to various web 2.0 accounts. Your website seems to be down or non-existent. Sorry, you'll have to wait for the next train.
- WesleyJohnson 11y agoI'd like an invite if you have more to spare. (johnsonwesleyt {at} gmail)
- wanda 11y agoDone.
- WesleyJohnson 11y agoExcellent. I'll pay it forward if I get any invites myself.
- hamidnazari 11y agoAlso an invite would be appreciated. Email in profile.
- hamidnazari 11y agoEmail: [my username here]@ymail.com
- thorntonbf 11y agoThis looks like a really well thought out implementation that ought to fit a lot of use cases. Put myself in the alpha queue this morning. I'll look forward to testing it out.
- jefffan241 11y agoI have 2 invites if people are still looking for one.
- nerraga 11y agoI'd really appreciate an invite if you still have any. It's wild to see just how in demand these are right now.
- jefffan241 11y agoYeah I still have all 2, I just need an email.
- Posibyte 11y agoI'd love one. Keybase has always been a fascinating service to me. m {at} sftw.ninja
- jefffan241 11y agoPosibyte, sent.
- amdavidson 11y agoI am, andrew {at} amdavidson com
- jefffan241 11y agoSent
- amdavidson 11y agoThanks!
- rootkea 11y agoMay I get one? Email is in my profile.
- DarkLinkXXXX 11y agoIf anyone still wants some, I can give out three invites.
- gabriel 11y agoI'd go for an invite if you hae some still. Email in profile.
- DarkLinkXXXX 11y agoSorry I took so long, looks like you already have an invite, so I won't send you another.
- rootkea 11y agoMay I get one? Email address in my profile.
- creativeembassy 11y agoAre there any invites floating around yet? I'd love one, email address is in my profile. Very interested in developing other tools against Keybase, with mruby or Elixir.
- RobMurray 11y agoHi. Does anyone still have an invite? I would love to try it out.
- scentoni 11y agoI would be interested in an invite if someone has one available (address in email).
- kishoresurana 11y agoI would really like an invite, hopefully some are still left!!: kishoresurana |at| gmail.com
- raggnar 11y agoI've been using keybase and their copy really seems to make sense to people that do not understand encryption. I've been able to get more of my friends using PGP recently due to this. I'm hoping that the file system will get more people to migrate away from dropbox, etc.