9 ms·

Keybase's mission is to make encryption mainstream

180 points by BradyDale 9y ago

notheguyouthink 9y ago
> Two veteran entrepreneurs are running a little startup built around making it easy to build web and mobile applications from day one that make data impossible for a digital trespasser to read. In fact, it encrypts data in such a way that even if you use some company’s service, that company can’t see what you’re doing with it. Is it? Not that I'm questioning Keybase, I just had no idea they were offering some type of encryption-as-a-service thing. I thought key base offered encrypted identity management, along with some encryption focused tools (kbfs, and now chat). Of course, I don't know/use key base - hence why I'm asking. Can anyone go into more detail on how key base is offering this service: > In fact, it encrypts data in such a way that even if you use some company’s service, that company can’t see what you’re doing with it. (Assuming "some company's service" is a 3rd party service)
- fapjacks 9y ago
  Well, kbfs is end-to-end encrypted, versus something like Dropbox (for example), which is only encrypted in transit, and unencrypted at rest. And of course, you have to trust Dropbox when they say employees don't have access to your storage unless they have a good reason. But there's nothing you can do to prevent Dropbox employees (or a government, or someone that has unauthorized access) from deciding there's a good reason to access your data, because it's not encrypted end-to-end like kbfs [0]. [0] https://github.com/keybase/kbfs https://github.com/keybase/kbfs
- gglitch 9y ago
  I'm new with it myself, but I think part of what's being described is the option you have, when you have a Keybase account and the Keybase browser plugin and you're logged into a third party system (such as Fbook), of clicking on a Keybase icon for a given user and sending an e2e encrypted message from your Keybase account to theirs (even where they don't have one yet--if they make one later and associate it with their account on the third-party service, they will then unlock access to the message).
  - notheguyouthink 9y ago
    Ah hah, this seems to be the answer then. Thanks! I like that idea of encoding before it hits FB/etc. Though, the level of security provided by a browser plugin makes me a bit nervous. Not an educated nervousness mind you.. I just tend to not trust them, and how well sandboxed they are, etc. It's the reason I also don't use browser plugins for password management.
valj 9y ago
Nice work team. I've been on Keybase for a while but I've only recently installed and started using Teams on iPhone and Mac and both the apps are very polished and easy to use. Definitely a lot easier than posting up my key and waiting for someone to email me encrypted text ;)! I think the strategy of decentralising the data is a good one for enterprise apps like this, where there's typically little value from the perspective of the business user, employee user, or service provider from holding the data. Lots of data is great for driving personalisation and other features in a million+ person network but not really in cases like this one. Hopefully this is a pattern that will keep working its way into enterprise apps.
niftich 9y ago
A good article that covers what Keybase is, where they came from, what they try to do, and where they're trying to go -- although you couldn't tell from the headline. As in the article body, Slack is namedropped just for effect; Keybase Teams being a decent proof-of-concept of a popular kind of application to show that the ideas behind Keybase can be used to build real products. That being said, Keybase has been moving more and more towards building these higher-level services on top of (and app-wise, deeply integrated into) their core offering: Chat, File locker, etc; presumably other than delivering value these offerings make the company easier to position in the grand graph of services, and more palatable for raising capital or as a future acquisition target.
- malgorithms 9y ago
  When we started Keybase, it was a hobby project to address shortcomings of PGP. Max and I both had just downloaded software packages and wanted to verify them, and it took us hours. At least one of them was bitcoin; I recall staring in awe as Max showed me the countless Gavin Andresen impostors on the popular PGP key servers. We really thought we'd stick up the Keybase directory, make some basic scripts, and move on. Upon further review and growing popularity, we realized we'd hit a nerve but only solved one of 3 problems related to public key infrastructure. (1) the identity problem; this means think of a PERSON, and end up with a key. This really is what started Keybase. It was made possible because of how identity has changed in recent years. Whether you're following a famous developer or you're looking up your own sibling, odds are in 2017 you know a public definition of them: a Twitter account, Reddit account, Facebook, etc. When attacking point 1, we made it a lot more than just posting a fingerprint. We needed these proofs to be bidirectional. It's not just that you should be able to start with a Twitter account and get a key; you should be able to start with a signed statement and end up on the Twitter account. We also attacked revocation and other issues. But really, there were 2 big missing pieces: (2) multi-device key management; the OLD shitty story was having one private key that you moved around from device to device. This was never an acceptable solution for most people. What the heck is a private key? How do I move it around? What if just one of my devices is compromised? And so on. In 2015 when we decided to commit to Keybase, smartphones were poised to solve this. They solved this by guaranteeing that whatever 2 devices you have, you can always bring them together. So you should never have to move a private key around again. In the mobile era, you can bring 2 devices together and declare they're both you. Technically, underneath the surface, device #2 generates its own key pair, and device 1 signs the new public key, and device 2 countersigns this, and all this goes into an immutable chain (by signing the hash of the last identity change). This means you don't need to understand what a key pair even is. It feels roughly the same as when your bank tells you to grab your phone in order to log in. And if you have a compromised device, your identity isn't destroyed. This was the 2nd thing we wanted to tackle. Finally, to address your point, number 3. (3) all the GUIs around PKI really kind of sucked. There were some standalone chat apps that were good, but nothing that got people building a real graph of keys and identities, so they can do whatever else they wanted. For a PKI to work, people needed usable software on every platform. And it couldn't be constrained to people in your phone book, where you needed to securely exchange a phone number first. We think the basics of a usable PKI are: (1) to know who you're talking to (and to trust teams) (2) to be able to share data, securely, on any platform If Keybase offered that, whether or not it felt like a "Slack-killer," you could secure all the other aspects of your life. Everyone uses different crypto powered apps now: SSH, IPFS, Signal, bitcoin, ethereum, etc., and it's so annoying to get started. Keybase actually makes all of them easier, because you can think of a person and talk to them about it. Then you can move on to transferring that cryptocurrency, accepting that server fingerprint, establishing that OTR chat (and checking security codes without meeting in person), etc. We really felt that only by solving all 3 problems would a general PKI ever take off.
dangero 9y ago
Tangent, but the article mentions using Google Authenticator -- I was going to start using that recently, but the reviews indicated it had some really big problems with restoring when you get a new phone etc and Google isn't really maintaining it. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-authenticator/id388497605?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-authenticator/id38849... Can anyone comment on their 2fa approach to google?
- scrollaway 9y ago
  On Android, I use FreeOTP; I can make backups with `adb`. Separately, I use KeepassXC (https://keepassxc.org https://keepassxc.org) and store all my 2fa seeds in a dedicated (separate) 2fa database which I keep locked. You can also keep it in the same database as your password db if you want to trade the 2nd factor for convenience but still get the added benefit of one time passwords.
  - philsnow 9y ago
    > I can make backups with `adb` does it follow that an attacker can make a "backup" of your 2fa codes as well, if they get ahold of your phone for a minute or two?
    - craftyguy 9y ago
      No, because you can (and should) disable usb connectivity/debugging.
    - scrollaway 9y ago
      Physical device access is where this kind of security ends. If someone stealing your phone just to get your 2fa codes is a threat vector for you, you should be using different/additional factors. In any event, as was pointed out, adb needs usb debugging turned on, which needs the device unlocked to be enabled.
    - veeti 9y ago
      You need to authorize each adb key on the phone, so a screen lock prevents this.
Angostura 9y ago
> In order to give everyone confidence that the people shown in the Keybase are who they say they are, Keybase encourages users to attest to their identity cryptographically on social media. Keybase is its own social network, but it’s not one for sharing pictures of food or sad status updates. It’s a place for Mary to say “This really is Bill” and for Bill to say “this really is Mary.” With enough attestations like that, it becomes really hard for people to pose as someone they are not. Doesn’t this sound like a nightmare in terms of social engineering attacks?
- captn3m0 9y ago
  If your social account (twitter/..) gets taken over, you'll have to publish a new proof on it, which will then need to be attested by multiple people, before it becomes trustworthy anywhere.
  - egwynn 9y ago
    Right. Plus your KB identity will still have all of your other online identities vouching for it. So an attacker would need to commandeer a large fraction of your accounts in order to get people to trust the fraud.
- niftich 9y ago
  The quote from the article is the writer jumping through some creative contortion to try to explain keybase prove [1] feature to a layperson. The idea is to prove control of some social identity; then correspondingly, others on Keybase will have increasing confidence that the person in question who has proven a few third-party accounts is indeed the same person. This doesn't mean that that person is actually-actually George Washington (which is a much more difficult problem to solve), just that the person who purports to be George Washington on Keybase does indeed control some accounts on Facebook, Twitter, etc, so if you would have vested some trust into their Facebook identity, you can vest at least equivalent trust into their corresponding Keybase identity. [1] https://keybase.io/docs/command_line https://keybase.io/docs/command_line
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
fairpx 9y ago
If there's anyone working on an Open Source Slack (or Keybase) alternative, hit me up. I run a UI design agency and we'd love to help design a better interface for an open solution that we and others can use. Find my details in my profile, or go to http://fairpixels.pro http://fairpixels.pro
- brunoqc 9y ago
  I think I heard that the matrix people are looking for ux/ui people to improve Riot. https://matrix.org https://matrix.org
  - ThatGeoGuy 9y ago
    Do note that matrix.org is the homepage for Matrix, which is more about the protocol itself. https://riot.im https://riot.im is probably more relevant for design / UI / UX work. Note that they will need UI/UX experience more and more as time goes on, especially if Purism's Librem 5 is fully funded.
  - Arathorn 9y ago
    yup, we are! if you’re interested in helping us (we’re the decentralised e2e encrypted open option) then would love to talk: i’m matthew at matrix.org.
- xyzzy_plugh 9y ago
  There's a few. One's Mattermost: https://about.mattermost.com https://about.mattermost.com My company has been using it for a while.
  - fairpx 9y ago
    We'd love to contribute (with design). Are you aware of anyone interested in collaborating. We're looking for something that we can use ourselves and thus contribute to crafting a better experience around the software.
    - 9y ago
paxy 9y ago
They don't really address the fact that every single Slack "leak" is from someone already part of the team taking screenshots of the conversation. How does any kind of encryption help that? Also doesn't mention everything you lose out on with this approach - like searching through message history. It's a neat product I guess, but mentioning Slack in every single line seems more to get eyeballs than a valid comparison.
- nikcub 9y ago
  > like searching through message history You can do this[0] I'm personally rooting for them - e2ee group chat is a common request I get [0] https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~dawnsong/papers/se.pdf https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~dawnsong/papers/se.pdf
  - samstave 9y ago
    What is e2ee; everyone to everyone else? What does that mean, if so..
    - swsieber 9y ago
      I'm guessing "end to end encrypted".
      - samstave 9y ago
        /r/iamanidiot
- eridius 9y ago
  Search could be done locally if the client downloads the whole message history. I don't know enough about how Teams works to know if that's actually something a client can do right now, but it should at least be technically possible. Another alternative is simply running a bot that indexes everything and provides search. You can run the bot in-house so you keep control over your data.
misterbowfinger 9y ago
This is going to sound like a dumb question, but.... how much would encryption help? Even if we encrypted all of our data at rest and on the wire, I feel like a lot of security vulnerabilities wouldn't have been prevented with encryption. If you have any way of interacting with the application or the database, it's basically game over, no? Is there any data on this?
- egwynn 9y ago
  I’m not sure what threat model you’re proposing. If an attacker has control of your computer or the keybase app, then yes, it’s game over. But encryption removes the hosting entity as what would otherwise be a single point of failure. If you hack keybase the organization, you don’t immediately get access to everyone’s everything (in contrast with Equifax). An attacker would need to infiltrate the codebase and then release a malicious version to everyone that makes their apps decrypt/reroute/whatever the data.
  - misterbowfinger 9y ago
    I suppose I'd like to see what threat models actually apply to companies, and what vectors are most often used to get pwned (outside of social engineering). I understand what encryption prevents, but I don't understand how helpful it is in practice.
alexasmyths 9y ago
I've come to the belief that crypto and security are a 'feature' and never a product. As important as these issues are - I find that businesses and consumers don't often opt for these things as a primary choice except in specific circumstances, or for specific consumers with specific needs. The fact is - I think - most people don't care. Even most startups don't care that much. If their conversations are 'reasonably secure' then they're good with it. I think HN readers are way to one side on this issue - we care a lot about it. I think our views are different from that of most people. This could change but I think we're still in this mode.
dogruck 9y ago
Ok, I'll bite. Is this actually a thing?? > You texted that dude about the weird thing you like to do with silicone ice trays and that admission will remain in the bowels of the Match Group forever.
MBlume 9y ago
I don't really get it. I have a Keybase account. It's attested on my social media accounts (including on HN). It includes a private key on my personal laptop and one on my phone. I haven't extended it to my work laptop because I don't want my company IT having access to a key that I've gone and told all my friends they can trust. So I'm confused about how this is supposed to work.
lysium 9y ago
How does keybase make money? I am afraid they are in the business of selling my online identity.
- Jedd 9y ago
  > How does keybase make money? I am afraid they are in the business of selling my online identity. This comes up semi-regularly. Within the recent announcement of Teams [1] it was noted that: "Put most simply, we eventually want to find a way for actual enterprises to pay, while keeping personal and community use free. And any use now is grandfathered in." I've seen similar sentiments in earlier announcements. They also have a clear privacy policy [2]. [1] https://keybase.io/blog/introducing-keybase-teams https://keybase.io/blog/introducing-keybase-teams [2] https://keybase.io/docs/privacypolicy https://keybase.io/docs/privacypolicy
  - lysium 9y ago
    Thank you very much for your answer! I'm wondering how key base can find an investor with such a weak hope. Anyways, the privacy policy gave me the answer: everybody can can check my online identities, it is public and not deletable. Or, if the block chain is encrypted, they can sell it in a merger. Too bad!
asymmetric 9y ago
> It’s mission: to make encryption mainstream. Not to be pedantic, but is this normal in a major(?) publication?
- jasonmp85 9y ago
  From what I've seen of writers, they're barely literate before an editing pass.
Kinnard 9y ago
Was the title on this story changed mods? If so, it'd be cool if there was some sort of annotation for when that's done.

180 points by BradyDale 9y ago

> Two veteran entrepreneurs are running a little startup built around making it easy to build web and mobile applications from day one that make data impossible for a digital trespasser to read. In fact, it encrypts data in such a way that even if you use some company’s service, that company can’t see what you’re doing with it. Is it? Not that I'm questioning Keybase, I just had no idea they were offering some type of encryption-as-a-service thing. I thought key base offered encrypted identity management, along with some encryption focused tools (kbfs, and now chat). Of course, I don't know/use key base - hence why I'm asking. Can anyone go into more detail on how key base is offering this service: > In fact, it encrypts data in such a way that even if you use some company’s service, that company can’t see what you’re doing with it. (Assuming "some company's service" is a 3rd party service)

fapjacks 9y ago
Well, kbfs is end-to-end encrypted, versus something like Dropbox (for example), which is only encrypted in transit, and unencrypted at rest. And of course, you have to trust Dropbox when they say employees don't have access to your storage unless they have a good reason. But there's nothing you can do to prevent Dropbox employees (or a government, or someone that has unauthorized access) from deciding there's a good reason to access your data, because it's not encrypted end-to-end like kbfs [0]. [0] https://github.com/keybase/kbfs https://github.com/keybase/kbfs
gglitch 9y ago
I'm new with it myself, but I think part of what's being described is the option you have, when you have a Keybase account and the Keybase browser plugin and you're logged into a third party system (such as Fbook), of clicking on a Keybase icon for a given user and sending an e2e encrypted message from your Keybase account to theirs (even where they don't have one yet--if they make one later and associate it with their account on the third-party service, they will then unlock access to the message).
- notheguyouthink 9y ago
  Ah hah, this seems to be the answer then. Thanks! I like that idea of encoding before it hits FB/etc. Though, the level of security provided by a browser plugin makes me a bit nervous. Not an educated nervousness mind you.. I just tend to not trust them, and how well sandboxed they are, etc. It's the reason I also don't use browser plugins for password management.

valj 9y ago

Nice work team. I've been on Keybase for a while but I've only recently installed and started using Teams on iPhone and Mac and both the apps are very polished and easy to use. Definitely a lot easier than posting up my key and waiting for someone to email me encrypted text ;)! I think the strategy of decentralising the data is a good one for enterprise apps like this, where there's typically little value from the perspective of the business user, employee user, or service provider from holding the data. Lots of data is great for driving personalisation and other features in a million+ person network but not really in cases like this one. Hopefully this is a pattern that will keep working its way into enterprise apps.

niftich 9y ago

A good article that covers what Keybase is, where they came from, what they try to do, and where they're trying to go -- although you couldn't tell from the headline. As in the article body, Slack is namedropped just for effect; Keybase Teams being a decent proof-of-concept of a popular kind of application to show that the ideas behind Keybase can be used to build real products. That being said, Keybase has been moving more and more towards building these higher-level services on top of (and app-wise, deeply integrated into) their core offering: Chat, File locker, etc; presumably other than delivering value these offerings make the company easier to position in the grand graph of services, and more palatable for raising capital or as a future acquisition target.

malgorithms 9y ago
When we started Keybase, it was a hobby project to address shortcomings of PGP. Max and I both had just downloaded software packages and wanted to verify them, and it took us hours. At least one of them was bitcoin; I recall staring in awe as Max showed me the countless Gavin Andresen impostors on the popular PGP key servers. We really thought we'd stick up the Keybase directory, make some basic scripts, and move on. Upon further review and growing popularity, we realized we'd hit a nerve but only solved one of 3 problems related to public key infrastructure. (1) the identity problem; this means think of a PERSON, and end up with a key. This really is what started Keybase. It was made possible because of how identity has changed in recent years. Whether you're following a famous developer or you're looking up your own sibling, odds are in 2017 you know a public definition of them: a Twitter account, Reddit account, Facebook, etc. When attacking point 1, we made it a lot more than just posting a fingerprint. We needed these proofs to be bidirectional. It's not just that you should be able to start with a Twitter account and get a key; you should be able to start with a signed statement and end up on the Twitter account. We also attacked revocation and other issues. But really, there were 2 big missing pieces: (2) multi-device key management; the OLD shitty story was having one private key that you moved around from device to device. This was never an acceptable solution for most people. What the heck is a private key? How do I move it around? What if just one of my devices is compromised? And so on. In 2015 when we decided to commit to Keybase, smartphones were poised to solve this. They solved this by guaranteeing that whatever 2 devices you have, you can always bring them together. So you should never have to move a private key around again. In the mobile era, you can bring 2 devices together and declare they're both you. Technically, underneath the surface, device #2 generates its own key pair, and device 1 signs the new public key, and device 2 countersigns this, and all this goes into an immutable chain (by signing the hash of the last identity change). This means you don't need to understand what a key pair even is. It feels roughly the same as when your bank tells you to grab your phone in order to log in. And if you have a compromised device, your identity isn't destroyed. This was the 2nd thing we wanted to tackle. Finally, to address your point, number 3. (3) all the GUIs around PKI really kind of sucked. There were some standalone chat apps that were good, but nothing that got people building a real graph of keys and identities, so they can do whatever else they wanted. For a PKI to work, people needed usable software on every platform. And it couldn't be constrained to people in your phone book, where you needed to securely exchange a phone number first. We think the basics of a usable PKI are: (1) to know who you're talking to (and to trust teams) (2) to be able to share data, securely, on any platform If Keybase offered that, whether or not it felt like a "Slack-killer," you could secure all the other aspects of your life. Everyone uses different crypto powered apps now: SSH, IPFS, Signal, bitcoin, ethereum, etc., and it's so annoying to get started. Keybase actually makes all of them easier, because you can think of a person and talk to them about it. Then you can move on to transferring that cryptocurrency, accepting that server fingerprint, establishing that OTR chat (and checking security codes without meeting in person), etc. We really felt that only by solving all 3 problems would a general PKI ever take off.

dangero 9y ago

Tangent, but the article mentions using Google Authenticator -- I was going to start using that recently, but the reviews indicated it had some really big problems with restoring when you get a new phone etc and Google isn't really maintaining it. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-authenticator/id388497605?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-authenticator/id38849... Can anyone comment on their 2fa approach to google?

scrollaway 9y ago
On Android, I use FreeOTP; I can make backups with `adb`. Separately, I use KeepassXC (https://keepassxc.org https://keepassxc.org) and store all my 2fa seeds in a dedicated (separate) 2fa database which I keep locked. You can also keep it in the same database as your password db if you want to trade the 2nd factor for convenience but still get the added benefit of one time passwords.
- philsnow 9y ago
  > I can make backups with `adb` does it follow that an attacker can make a "backup" of your 2fa codes as well, if they get ahold of your phone for a minute or two?
  - craftyguy 9y ago
    No, because you can (and should) disable usb connectivity/debugging.
  - scrollaway 9y ago
    Physical device access is where this kind of security ends. If someone stealing your phone just to get your 2fa codes is a threat vector for you, you should be using different/additional factors. In any event, as was pointed out, adb needs usb debugging turned on, which needs the device unlocked to be enabled.
  - veeti 9y ago
    You need to authorize each adb key on the phone, so a screen lock prevents this.

Angostura 9y ago

> In order to give everyone confidence that the people shown in the Keybase are who they say they are, Keybase encourages users to attest to their identity cryptographically on social media. Keybase is its own social network, but it’s not one for sharing pictures of food or sad status updates. It’s a place for Mary to say “This really is Bill” and for Bill to say “this really is Mary.” With enough attestations like that, it becomes really hard for people to pose as someone they are not. Doesn’t this sound like a nightmare in terms of social engineering attacks?

captn3m0 9y ago
If your social account (twitter/..) gets taken over, you'll have to publish a new proof on it, which will then need to be attested by multiple people, before it becomes trustworthy anywhere.
- egwynn 9y ago
  Right. Plus your KB identity will still have all of your other online identities vouching for it. So an attacker would need to commandeer a large fraction of your accounts in order to get people to trust the fraud.
niftich 9y ago
The quote from the article is the writer jumping through some creative contortion to try to explain keybase prove [1] feature to a layperson. The idea is to prove control of some social identity; then correspondingly, others on Keybase will have increasing confidence that the person in question who has proven a few third-party accounts is indeed the same person. This doesn't mean that that person is actually-actually George Washington (which is a much more difficult problem to solve), just that the person who purports to be George Washington on Keybase does indeed control some accounts on Facebook, Twitter, etc, so if you would have vested some trust into their Facebook identity, you can vest at least equivalent trust into their corresponding Keybase identity. [1] https://keybase.io/docs/command_line https://keybase.io/docs/command_line

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

fairpx 9y ago

If there's anyone working on an Open Source Slack (or Keybase) alternative, hit me up. I run a UI design agency and we'd love to help design a better interface for an open solution that we and others can use. Find my details in my profile, or go to http://fairpixels.pro http://fairpixels.pro

brunoqc 9y ago
I think I heard that the matrix people are looking for ux/ui people to improve Riot. https://matrix.org https://matrix.org
- ThatGeoGuy 9y ago
  Do note that matrix.org is the homepage for Matrix, which is more about the protocol itself. https://riot.im https://riot.im is probably more relevant for design / UI / UX work. Note that they will need UI/UX experience more and more as time goes on, especially if Purism's Librem 5 is fully funded.
- Arathorn 9y ago
  yup, we are! if you’re interested in helping us (we’re the decentralised e2e encrypted open option) then would love to talk: i’m matthew at matrix.org.
xyzzy_plugh 9y ago
There's a few. One's Mattermost: https://about.mattermost.com https://about.mattermost.com My company has been using it for a while.
- fairpx 9y ago
  We'd love to contribute (with design). Are you aware of anyone interested in collaborating. We're looking for something that we can use ourselves and thus contribute to crafting a better experience around the software.
  - 9y ago

paxy 9y ago

They don't really address the fact that every single Slack "leak" is from someone already part of the team taking screenshots of the conversation. How does any kind of encryption help that? Also doesn't mention everything you lose out on with this approach - like searching through message history. It's a neat product I guess, but mentioning Slack in every single line seems more to get eyeballs than a valid comparison.

nikcub 9y ago
> like searching through message history You can do this[0] I'm personally rooting for them - e2ee group chat is a common request I get [0] https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~dawnsong/papers/se.pdf https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~dawnsong/papers/se.pdf
- samstave 9y ago
  What is e2ee; everyone to everyone else? What does that mean, if so..
  - swsieber 9y ago
    I'm guessing "end to end encrypted".
    - samstave 9y ago
      /r/iamanidiot
eridius 9y ago
Search could be done locally if the client downloads the whole message history. I don't know enough about how Teams works to know if that's actually something a client can do right now, but it should at least be technically possible. Another alternative is simply running a bot that indexes everything and provides search. You can run the bot in-house so you keep control over your data.

misterbowfinger 9y ago

This is going to sound like a dumb question, but.... how much would encryption help? Even if we encrypted all of our data at rest and on the wire, I feel like a lot of security vulnerabilities wouldn't have been prevented with encryption. If you have any way of interacting with the application or the database, it's basically game over, no? Is there any data on this?

egwynn 9y ago
I’m not sure what threat model you’re proposing. If an attacker has control of your computer or the keybase app, then yes, it’s game over. But encryption removes the hosting entity as what would otherwise be a single point of failure. If you hack keybase the organization, you don’t immediately get access to everyone’s everything (in contrast with Equifax). An attacker would need to infiltrate the codebase and then release a malicious version to everyone that makes their apps decrypt/reroute/whatever the data.
- misterbowfinger 9y ago
  I suppose I'd like to see what threat models actually apply to companies, and what vectors are most often used to get pwned (outside of social engineering). I understand what encryption prevents, but I don't understand how helpful it is in practice.

alexasmyths 9y ago

I've come to the belief that crypto and security are a 'feature' and never a product. As important as these issues are - I find that businesses and consumers don't often opt for these things as a primary choice except in specific circumstances, or for specific consumers with specific needs. The fact is - I think - most people don't care. Even most startups don't care that much. If their conversations are 'reasonably secure' then they're good with it. I think HN readers are way to one side on this issue - we care a lot about it. I think our views are different from that of most people. This could change but I think we're still in this mode.

dogruck 9y ago

Ok, I'll bite. Is this actually a thing?? > You texted that dude about the weird thing you like to do with silicone ice trays and that admission will remain in the bowels of the Match Group forever.

MBlume 9y ago

I don't really get it. I have a Keybase account. It's attested on my social media accounts (including on HN). It includes a private key on my personal laptop and one on my phone. I haven't extended it to my work laptop because I don't want my company IT having access to a key that I've gone and told all my friends they can trust. So I'm confused about how this is supposed to work.

lysium 9y ago

How does keybase make money? I am afraid they are in the business of selling my online identity.

Jedd 9y ago
> How does keybase make money? I am afraid they are in the business of selling my online identity. This comes up semi-regularly. Within the recent announcement of Teams [1] it was noted that: "Put most simply, we eventually want to find a way for actual enterprises to pay, while keeping personal and community use free. And any use now is grandfathered in." I've seen similar sentiments in earlier announcements. They also have a clear privacy policy [2]. [1] https://keybase.io/blog/introducing-keybase-teams https://keybase.io/blog/introducing-keybase-teams [2] https://keybase.io/docs/privacypolicy https://keybase.io/docs/privacypolicy
- lysium 9y ago
  Thank you very much for your answer! I'm wondering how key base can find an investor with such a weak hope. Anyways, the privacy policy gave me the answer: everybody can can check my online identities, it is public and not deletable. Or, if the block chain is encrypted, they can sell it in a merger. Too bad!

asymmetric 9y ago

> It’s mission: to make encryption mainstream. Not to be pedantic, but is this normal in a major(?) publication?

jasonmp85 9y ago
From what I've seen of writers, they're barely literate before an editing pass.

Kinnard 9y ago

Was the title on this story changed mods? If so, it'd be cool if there was some sort of annotation for when that's done.