8 ms·

As far as I can tell none of these "alternatives" implement what is at least for me the most interesting feature of PGP: web of trust and key servers. It would

by pera 8y ago

As far as I can tell none of these "alternatives" implement what is at least for me the most interesting feature of PGP: web of trust and key servers. It would be really nice to see a modern take on this. > No one was sending you encrypted emails anyway I actually use PGP for e-mailing quite often, for instance: how am I supposed to report security issues without gpg? (please don't suggest Whatsapp...)

sneakernets 8y ago
Anyone suggesting anything owned by Facebook as an alternative to Pretty Good Privacy should be ignored.
NelsonMinar 8y ago
Keybase is one version of a modern take on Web of Trust. https://keybase.io/ https://keybase.io/
- diafygi 8y ago
  Keybase is centralized. The GPG keyserver pool is a decentralized gossip network of volunteer servers (I run one). https://sks-keyservers.net/status/ https://sks-keyservers.net/status/
  - WorldMaker 8y ago
    Depends on what you think of their Blockchain/Merkle tree work, though. The attestation chain that Keybase uses is a public merkle tree, and though currently built to be centrally signed, at the root level, still has some built in decentralized redundancy at the user/client level. Interesting gray areas between easy determinations of whether or not something is centralized/decentralized or now. https://keybase.io/docs/server_security https://keybase.io/docs/server_security
  - eridius 8y ago
    Keybase is a centralized service but AIUI you don't need to actually trust the centralized Keybase service because all the actual validation is performed client-side (i.e. verifying all the proofs that the people you follow have posted) and all of the changes people make to their profiles are publicly published as a chain that is then periodically embedded into the Bitcoin blockchain. As long as you're ok with relying on the keybase service being reachable and functional, trust is still decentralized and verifiable.
    - diafygi 8y ago
      Correct. Relying on keybase's service to keep the PKI running is the definition of centralized architecture, no matter if it's publicly verifiable or not. Also, I'm not sure how easy it is to run a private keybase PKI (anyone done this before?). For GPG/SKS keyservers, you can spin up separate pools of keyservers for private PKI pretty easily.
    - Boulth 8y ago
      Proofs are still stored on Keybase servers so if Keybase goes bust tomorrow it's all gone. For the record there is a way to encode Keybase-like proofs in plain OpenPGP: https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-vb-openpgp-linked-ids-01 https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-vb-openpgp-linked-ids-01 for some reason Keybase decided to keep this validation centralized.
  - NelsonMinar 8y ago
    Yup, the "centralized" is what I meant by "modern take".
- ChrisSD 8y ago
  Wow the mobile website really doesn't want me to know what keybase is.
  - lallysingh 8y ago
    Yeah, their website says nothing until you hit the docs. But I've found the app quite useful. Essentially: a keyserver facility where you attest to your keys in public identities (like my hn profile), plus a bunch of end-to-end encrypted stuff built atop of it.
- twothamendment 8y ago
  I like keybase, I even got a bunch of my family to use it. To them it is just a free messaging app.I use it for messages and git. I still keep PGP/GnuPG keys up and working with email because it is universal and simple. The encrypted messages I have are easy to open and get on using a fresh machine/phone as long as I keep my key around. I don't depend on anyone to maintain their servers, etc. I'm still waiting for a modern replacement, but so far it hasn't happened for me.
klodolph 8y ago
No web of trust? I would say that’s exactly the point. For tons of applications, you don’t need web of trust at all. Using PGP when you don’t want the web of trust features is an utter pain in the ass. I want to be able to encrypt/sign and have web of trust be a different issue.
- taeric 8y ago
  I feel like this is asking past the point. Without a web of trust, how are you securely signing? You can go with somewhat centralized trust, but that only gets you do far. Or, rather, that forces everyone to deal with that centralized source. Much like the web of trust.
  - resoluteteeth 8y ago
    If you own a domain and have a webserver running ssl you can distribute your public key in a secure manner. What situations are you encountering in 2019 where you really need a distributed web of trust?
    - jakeogh 8y ago
      It's almost like not needing to roll your own key distribution mechanism is a nice feature.
    - zeveb 8y ago
      > If you own a domain and have a webserver running ssl you can distribute your public key in a secure manner. That means that I'd be trusting GUANG DONG CERTIFICATE AUTHORITY and every other CA not to issue a fraudulent certificate against my domain. I don't think that's very secure.
      - yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
        Use a domain that requires certificate transparency and you're basically set.
      - 8y ago
AmericanChopper 8y ago
>how am I supposed to report security issues without gpg? I’ve never understood this obsession with using PGP to deliver security reports (even a lot of pen testing firms do it). We trust TLS to secure all sorts of remarkably sensitive data, why do we need to add an extra layer of encryption to security reports? It just seems like an unnecessary barrier to delivering the report to me, and the user experience is terrible. On top of that managing keys and ciphertexts is an unnecessary pain. Any time I see a public key that’s some org published years or even months ago, all I can think is that in the time since they generated that, they have absolutely had a number of people who had access to the private key resign. To me, the only threat model where something like that makes sense, is if you think your critical service providers or the government is a threat actor, and in that case PGP probably isn’t going to be enough.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- pera 8y ago
  Wrong layer? PGP is for person to person(s) communications, TLS is for client to server. Sometimes you can use the latter as a substitution, but not always.
criddell 8y ago
For me the most interesting feature that PGP lacks is perfect forward secrecy. I use GPG for my email (Thunderbird + Enigma) but wish I had something more modern.
- throwaway415415 8y ago
  To have forward secrecy you need sessions for each correspondence. To have that, you need something more reliable than mail.
throwaway415415 8y ago
This ^ People are quick to point to "modern" alternatives like Signal but they miss the web of trust which, correctly implemented would be a killer.
Mediterraneo10 8y ago
Web of trust and keyservers can be an undesirable feature among that community of users that PGP was supposed to serve: people in authoritarian states. If a community of those people sign each others’ keys, it only takes one person uploading his keyring to a public keyserver, for that authoritarian state to have a convenient map of the social network of its citizens trying to subvert its surveillance and their foreign contacts.
giomasce 8y ago
Very true! I am completely ok with saying that GPG is not modern cryptography, but it gives me an important asset that I do not want to lose: I have a nice key with many signatures, that means that it is relatively easy for people to check whether my signatures are mine and whether they can send me an encrypted something. As far as I know, OpenPGP's web of trust is not cryptographically broken: it is a bunch of public key signatures over other keys, and modern signing algorithms and hasing functions are supported and used. So I think that any tool that want to present itself as "GPG done better" should at least enable me to leverage the web of trust that is already in place. Otherwise, it might be a very nice tool, but for me is a very nice tool for doing something else.

by pera 8y ago

sneakernets 8y ago

Anyone suggesting anything owned by Facebook as an alternative to Pretty Good Privacy should be ignored.

NelsonMinar 8y ago

Keybase is one version of a modern take on Web of Trust. https://keybase.io/ https://keybase.io/

diafygi 8y ago
Keybase is centralized. The GPG keyserver pool is a decentralized gossip network of volunteer servers (I run one). https://sks-keyservers.net/status/ https://sks-keyservers.net/status/
- WorldMaker 8y ago
  Depends on what you think of their Blockchain/Merkle tree work, though. The attestation chain that Keybase uses is a public merkle tree, and though currently built to be centrally signed, at the root level, still has some built in decentralized redundancy at the user/client level. Interesting gray areas between easy determinations of whether or not something is centralized/decentralized or now. https://keybase.io/docs/server_security https://keybase.io/docs/server_security
- eridius 8y ago
  Keybase is a centralized service but AIUI you don't need to actually trust the centralized Keybase service because all the actual validation is performed client-side (i.e. verifying all the proofs that the people you follow have posted) and all of the changes people make to their profiles are publicly published as a chain that is then periodically embedded into the Bitcoin blockchain. As long as you're ok with relying on the keybase service being reachable and functional, trust is still decentralized and verifiable.
  - diafygi 8y ago
    Correct. Relying on keybase's service to keep the PKI running is the definition of centralized architecture, no matter if it's publicly verifiable or not. Also, I'm not sure how easy it is to run a private keybase PKI (anyone done this before?). For GPG/SKS keyservers, you can spin up separate pools of keyservers for private PKI pretty easily.
  - Boulth 8y ago
    Proofs are still stored on Keybase servers so if Keybase goes bust tomorrow it's all gone. For the record there is a way to encode Keybase-like proofs in plain OpenPGP: https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-vb-openpgp-linked-ids-01 https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-vb-openpgp-linked-ids-01 for some reason Keybase decided to keep this validation centralized.
- NelsonMinar 8y ago
  Yup, the "centralized" is what I meant by "modern take".
ChrisSD 8y ago
Wow the mobile website really doesn't want me to know what keybase is.
- lallysingh 8y ago
  Yeah, their website says nothing until you hit the docs. But I've found the app quite useful. Essentially: a keyserver facility where you attest to your keys in public identities (like my hn profile), plus a bunch of end-to-end encrypted stuff built atop of it.
twothamendment 8y ago
I like keybase, I even got a bunch of my family to use it. To them it is just a free messaging app.I use it for messages and git. I still keep PGP/GnuPG keys up and working with email because it is universal and simple. The encrypted messages I have are easy to open and get on using a fresh machine/phone as long as I keep my key around. I don't depend on anyone to maintain their servers, etc. I'm still waiting for a modern replacement, but so far it hasn't happened for me.

klodolph 8y ago

No web of trust? I would say that’s exactly the point. For tons of applications, you don’t need web of trust at all. Using PGP when you don’t want the web of trust features is an utter pain in the ass. I want to be able to encrypt/sign and have web of trust be a different issue.

taeric 8y ago
I feel like this is asking past the point. Without a web of trust, how are you securely signing? You can go with somewhat centralized trust, but that only gets you do far. Or, rather, that forces everyone to deal with that centralized source. Much like the web of trust.
- resoluteteeth 8y ago
  If you own a domain and have a webserver running ssl you can distribute your public key in a secure manner. What situations are you encountering in 2019 where you really need a distributed web of trust?
  - jakeogh 8y ago
    It's almost like not needing to roll your own key distribution mechanism is a nice feature.
  - zeveb 8y ago
    > If you own a domain and have a webserver running ssl you can distribute your public key in a secure manner. That means that I'd be trusting GUANG DONG CERTIFICATE AUTHORITY and every other CA not to issue a fraudulent certificate against my domain. I don't think that's very secure.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
      Use a domain that requires certificate transparency and you're basically set.
    - 8y ago

AmericanChopper 8y ago

>how am I supposed to report security issues without gpg? I’ve never understood this obsession with using PGP to deliver security reports (even a lot of pen testing firms do it). We trust TLS to secure all sorts of remarkably sensitive data, why do we need to add an extra layer of encryption to security reports? It just seems like an unnecessary barrier to delivering the report to me, and the user experience is terrible. On top of that managing keys and ciphertexts is an unnecessary pain. Any time I see a public key that’s some org published years or even months ago, all I can think is that in the time since they generated that, they have absolutely had a number of people who had access to the private key resign. To me, the only threat model where something like that makes sense, is if you think your critical service providers or the government is a threat actor, and in that case PGP probably isn’t going to be enough.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
pera 8y ago
Wrong layer? PGP is for person to person(s) communications, TLS is for client to server. Sometimes you can use the latter as a substitution, but not always.

criddell 8y ago

For me the most interesting feature that PGP lacks is perfect forward secrecy. I use GPG for my email (Thunderbird + Enigma) but wish I had something more modern.

throwaway415415 8y ago
To have forward secrecy you need sessions for each correspondence. To have that, you need something more reliable than mail.

throwaway415415 8y ago

This ^ People are quick to point to "modern" alternatives like Signal but they miss the web of trust which, correctly implemented would be a killer.

Mediterraneo10 8y ago

Web of trust and keyservers can be an undesirable feature among that community of users that PGP was supposed to serve: people in authoritarian states. If a community of those people sign each others’ keys, it only takes one person uploading his keyring to a public keyserver, for that authoritarian state to have a convenient map of the social network of its citizens trying to subvert its surveillance and their foreign contacts.

giomasce 8y ago

Very true! I am completely ok with saying that GPG is not modern cryptography, but it gives me an important asset that I do not want to lose: I have a nice key with many signatures, that means that it is relatively easy for people to check whether my signatures are mine and whether they can send me an encrypted something. As far as I know, OpenPGP's web of trust is not cryptographically broken: it is a bunch of public key signatures over other keys, and modern signing algorithms and hasing functions are supported and used. So I think that any tool that want to present itself as "GPG done better" should at least enable me to leverage the web of trust that is already in place. Otherwise, it might be a very nice tool, but for me is a very nice tool for doing something else.