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Ask HN: Does anyone actually use Keybase?
Every other HN profile lists a Keybase public key and a proof, but has anyone actually needed to prove their identity on HN? Does anyone use Keybase for encrypted communication?
- rman666 8y agoWhy would anyone tell you if they did?
- aportnoy 8y agoWhy would anyone want to hide that? Not an expert in security, maybe I don't have the mental model.
- insomniacity 8y agoIt's just a way of minimising your footprint. If you google me, and can't find what services I use, it makes it that much harder to try and find a foothold into hacking something, or building up a profile.
- Nadya 8y agoThen you wouldn't be using Keybase if that was part of your threat model - since a significant point of using it is to tie together and prove identities across some popular sites on the net. See: https://keybase.io/nadya https://keybase.io/nadya
- icedchai 8y agoThis is why I use a different username on each site. Some people use the same username on HN, github, reddit, gmail, etc. (and then they complain about internet privacy and being tracked.)
- cascom 8y agoIt's hard enough to get people to use signal...
- joeblau 8y agoI created an account last week, but I haven't used it yet.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- coralreef 8y agoFor cloud storage backups
- chrismatheson 8y agoI don’t, but I’ve rarely needed to send files etc to other hacker news users. I would LOVE it if I could use keybase to send a copy of my passport to companies (for example) which is nessesary for day to day life, and always done in a redicously insecure way. :(
- chrismatheson 8y agoTo be clear, I 100% support keybase, and if I thought there was a chance in hell of getting some other non-tech person to use it, I would put in the effort. I just don’t see myself being able to convince some recruiter, or HR person or something to sign up and install keybase just to get a file from me
- 21 8y agoI'd be more worried about where they store that passport picture instead of how it gets there.
- michaelmior 8y agoSounds like what Telegram Passport is trying to do. https://telegram.org/blog/passport https://telegram.org/blog/passport
- chrismatheson 8y agoIts a much bigger stretch to have companies change the underlying method of verification instead of the method of transport though ...
- ssalazars 8y agoI've thought about this problem, specially in LATAM countries were gov agencies are still ages behind in terms of security/compliance and sharing these type of documents. There is definitely a need for this.
- leviathant 8y agoI've been using it for encrypted communication for years, but I only provided an HN identity because I was essentially collecting stamps.
- y4mi 8y agospecifically to prove my identity? no. i used the filestorage/filesharing earlier and was happy about the git repository support though. there were however very few of us, and we all dropped it when they jumped on the crypto currency wagon.
- Nelkins 8y agoI use it solely for hacker cred.
- egwynn 8y agoI’ve had others use their browser-based encryption form to send me sensitive data before — that’s pretty handy.
- thebiglebrewski 8y agoI used it to sign my "will"...reading this reminds me I gotta get a real lawyer to take a look at that!
- directionless 8y agoIt has mostly replaced gpg in my usage. It's not common, but it's present. HashiCorp Vault has a nice integration.
- donkey-hotei 8y agoMy current team and I use it to share files for the most part.
- ecesena 8y agoProve identity: no Encrypted communication (and files): yes, we use it for Solo, and we also have a public team https://keybase.io/team/solokeys.public https://keybase.io/team/solokeys.public
- gip 8y agoFew engineers at my start-up were using keybase to share credentials between them, as well as between company and/or personal laptops. A lot of information was exposed to the wild internet (machine names, developer names, connection between them,...) posing a clear security risk. My experience is that most engineers do not understand how to safely use keybase at that point.
- sargun 8y agoHow is that information a security problem greater than say LinkedIn? Also, I'm curious where machine names were being exposed in Keybase?
- insomniacity 8y agoMachine names, example from a Keybase founder: https://keybase.io/chris/devices https://keybase.io/chris/devices
- lokedhs 8y agoYou choose those names when you add the device. It can be anything. That said, it would probably be good if they added a note saying that the device name you choose is public, which is not really clear in the current UI.
- jachin 8y agoI use it. I've been impressed with all the improvements they've made over the years. I've struggled to get other people to use it though, but I have had some success and when I've talked other people into signing up it has worked well.
- vaer-k 8y agoI've reached out to people with it, and it turns out that they actually respond! Who'd've thunk? It's nice for encrypted cloud storage too.
- KMuncie 8y agoYes, I use its git feature for certain projects, and have used it for chat for a while. I have found if I come across a developer who has a profile its the easiest way to get in touch with them.
- apatil 8y agoI've started using kbfs for personal notes and encrypted git for financial planning code. We're also trying Keybase out as a family chat channel. I really like the CLI interface and the integration with kbfs, and of course the e2e encryption. We're probably going to stick with Slack for now, though, mainly because it runs on Chromebooks.
- ShakataGaNai 8y agoI have used Keybase since it first showed up on HN for Comms and Git. Technically I have done the proofs for identity, but no one cares about that. The Git usage was really nice. It's fast and secure. While I didn't use it for most projects (because I want them on github/gitlab for various reasons), it was very useful for backing up machine specific configs and history (using a script and mackup). Knowing that it was well encrypted made me not worry about what was being backed up, if there were credentials, etc. As for comms, I used the 1:1 chat with a friend for quite a while. While it worked, it's slow. Sending messages is a little slow, sending images is VERY slow. Anytime the app is closed (like constantly on the phone), re-open times were slow (for decryption). Eventually I gave it up and moved those few chats over to Telegram (Because it's secure enough for most conversations).
- rever 8y agoDid you consider Signal when you moved to Telegram, if so any particular reason(s)?
- amdelamar 8y agoI tried Signal and Telegram. But I prefer Wire instead. Its secure by default, cross-platform, multi-device, and simple enough for Mom & Dad to use.
- simplify 8y agoHow does that differ from Signal?
- espadrine 8y agoNo Signal Web app. So, not as cross-platform.
- solarkraft 8y agoWire & Telegram are both cloud connected, while Apps on the Signal protocol depend on your phone to be functioning and in reach AFAIK (huge annoyance/problem for me).
- james_pm 8y agoOur team uses it to share sensitive docs (logs, user details, api keys etc.) and occasionally as a secure chat channel (i.e. if we want to communicate off work Slack). I have a copy of some important docs (taxes, etc.) in my private KBFS.
- gelatocar 8y agoThe Keybase filesystem docs still contain the text: "At the time of this document, there are very few people using this system. We're just getting started testing. Note that we could, hypothetically, lose your data at any time. Or push a bug that makes you throw away your private keys. Ugh, burn." And considering that kbfs is one of the more mature parts of Keybase, it has never inspired confidence in me that any of it is really ready for serious use.
- lapinot 8y agoKeybase is shitty. They had the ambition to somehow build a new generation of keyservers, they built it using technology that could easily be a distributed protocol and then they made it a completely centralized and commercial bs crypto startup. So much waste since keyservers and distributed identity (and reputation, and naming system in general) is a field where everything is still to do. They could have overthrown DNS (machine names) and HTTPS (certified names; any CA-based ssl system) and google contact ("people" names). I'm very salty that they've diverted so much hype in that area for so few results.
- eganist 8y agoYes, mostly as a means of verifying identity across accounts. I'd probably pay a few bucks a year (thinking 20) for the base identity service, if we're being frank. Even if the only separation between a free tier and a paid tier is e.g. more service integrations and an uptime SLA... sure, why not?
- stock_toaster 8y agoI deleted my account after not using it for a long time for anything.
- Leace 8y agoI used it initially but then found out that bare gpg covers most of my needs. For example: - passwords using pass [0] decrypted with Yubikey, and with Password Store [1] on Android (the same repo, the same Yubikey), - FDE with LUKS decrypted on boot with Yubikey [2], - encrypted e-mails with Enigmail and K9/OpenKeychain on Android, works with the same Yubikey 4C token! Web Key Directory on own domain for easy e-mail -> key mapping, - OpenKeychain also has "linked identities" (verifying social profiles) but at this point I consider it barely useful stamp collection, - for E2E instant messages Conversations [3] with OMEMO. [0]: https://www.passwordstore.org/ https://www.passwordstore.org/ [1]: https://github.com/zeapo/Android-Password-Store https://github.com/zeapo/Android-Password-Store [2]: https://github.com/fuhry/initramfs-scencrypt https://github.com/fuhry/initramfs-scencrypt [3]: https://conversations.im/ https://conversations.im/
- TranquilMarmot 8y agoI use it for a few of my personal Git repos, but that's about it. Some file storage but nothing too huge or important.
- mnem 8y agoFrequently for chat and file sharing.
- ScarZy 8y agoI use it the git aspects of it heavily for projects where I get lazy and should be using proper secret storage (for example Ansible playbooks with secrets not secure...). This is far from ideal, but makes personal development a great experience. Secondly to that, we heavily considered and trialed it a work to unseal Hashicorp Vault. You can add a single identity that is able to unseal, and having that person verify in the keybase-esque method is a great idea.
- ngonzal 8y agoI use it for git repo management on some of my home things. Have not used it for much outside of that.
- pixelperfect 8y agoRight now I use it for encrypted file storage and private git repositories that I don't want anyone looking at. I don't have 100% trust in the security of the platform, but I prefer it to Dropbox or Google Drive where the probability of someone snooping around my files seems higher.
- lokedhs 8y agoAt least the Keybase code is open, so even if you can't personally validate that it's secure, someone else can. Neither Dropbox nor Google encrypts and keeps the keys client side, so not trusting them is probably the right thing to do (also Dropbox has been misleading in the past about their security, so that's another reason one should be careful).
- INTPenis 8y agoMaybe if I had the need to prove my identity but I'm just an anonymous coward. I do like keybase but practically in my day-to-day life GPG ends up filling all my needs.
- DanielBMarkham 8y agoSure thing. I do. I keep asking my friends to join up. Let's try the team feature! So far, no luck.
- hprotagonist 8y agoI use keybase almost exclusively as an encrypted git tool. My personal notebooks live there.
- sargun 8y agoI use it, in the sense my public key is on there, and I follow a bunch of people on there, but since they invented their own crypto model, it's just a place to store public keys.
- qertoip 8y agoYes, it's critical to bind pubkey to identity: https://keybase.io/qertoip https://keybase.io/qertoip
- Nadya 8y agoI've used it in several communities to prove identity and statements in cases where I both have either authority or a need to be trusted, since I choose to remain pseudonymous. It's easier for people to grasp/verify than the alternative ("pure PGP"). They go to /verify, paste in my message, and make sure it confirms as me. Keybase being compromised is outside the scope of the threat model - the threat model is mostly "impostors pretending to be me trying to get you to download potentially harmful files". People have no reason to know who I am but they do have a need to verify I am who I say I am.
- quickthrower2 8y agoA Keybase key could be used to signal you are a 'real hacker'. A bit like using Vim, Emacs or butterflies could be used to that end.
- t0mbstone 8y agoWhen I first heard about it, I signed up for it and set it up on all of my computers and devices. I also evangelized it pretty heavily and managed to get about 10 other people to use it. Unfortunately, I ran into some pretty major issues with the desktop clients. They seemed to be coded pretty poorly, eating up massive amounts of CPU and/or RAM, and sometimes even causing my computer to freeze. In practice, there also didn't seem to be much point to encrypting conversations if there was no password required to actually see them (if someone got a hold of my computer). And (at the time) there was no way to delete a message. Due to these issues, I ended up installing it. I'm curious if things have gotten any better since then?
- baumandm 8y agoEditing/deleting messages is now possible, along with options for automatically expiring messages. Not sure if the desktop clients have improved, but I haven't had any issues in the last year or so.
- thraxil 8y agoWe use it as a quick and dirty shared secret storage at work (when you need to pass someone an API key or stash some service credentials somewhere). It works, and keeps those things from sitting around in plaintext, but I've been trying to move everything that's stored there to something like Hashicorp Vault or GCP/AWS KMS so we have a proper audit trail and key rotation.
- castillar76 8y agoI'm currently using it for git, principally for storing personal dotfiles (.ssh/config, etc.) that I need on a couple workstations. It looks neat, but it suffers from a mindshare problem as a social network.
- absorber 8y agoI considered using it, tried registering but had some issues. Tried reaching out to them but it seems like there is absolutely no way to contact them (other than their twitter, which looks somewhat abandoned). This made me pretty suspicious, but especially since https://keybase.io/support https://keybase.io/support is just another user claiming to be Keybase support. That's a huge red flag in my book, more so for a security product. I don't know, but for me this didn't really inspire much confidence.
- lokedhs 8y agoI've had good luck communicating with them on the public team keybasefriends. They have various channels for different features, but asking on #general is usually a good way to get help, either from someone from Keybase or someone else who knows the answer to the question.
- absorber 8y agoInteresting. I guess only being available for help on the app one made is one way to crank up the number of installs.
- nautist 8y agoI host my website on keybase and use git and messaging to do freelance jobs. If anyone's interested here it is https://turbocafe.keybase.pub https://turbocafe.keybase.pub
- crgwbr 8y agoI’ve been using the encrypted git feature to backup dot files and other bits of system config. At work, my dev team uses the FS and chat features for sharing sending sensitive files we don’t want sitting around on email, google drive, etc. Overall I think it’s a pretty great product and I hope it stays around for a while.
- dfischer 8y agoI use it for private repos and convos. I want to use it a lot more. It just makes sense. Unfortunately not a lot of people I know use it. Add me if you care to make a pen pal. https://keybase.io/dfischer https://keybase.io/dfischer
- etu 8y agoWhen it was new I was excited about it and it pushed me over the edge to actually starting my usage of GPG and setting it up properly with smartcards etc. Then I started to go to keysignings etc and started using the keyserver infrastructure etc. And then it took a while and I realized that I never used keybase and removed my account.
- delcaran 8y agoI would use it if they provide a way to "lock" local installation or to make it portable: I want to use it in my office PC, which can be accessed by lots of people...
- johnnyRose 8y agoI use KBFS and encrypted Git almost every day. I've never needed the identity proofs. The teams/chat features are great but I rarely use those either. Maybe when adoption increases, but until then I'm loving my free 250 GB cloud drive and unlimited Git repos up to 100 GB.