12 ms·

Keybase.pub Shutting Down on March 1 2023

165 points by Wingy 4y ago

rvz 4y ago
Exactly as suspected. [0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34696606 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34696606
photoGrant 4y ago
Sucks.
LoganDark 4y ago
I am, honestly, really upset at this. I understand there was no guarantee that it would be up for any length of time, but it was a really convenient solution to a problem we had. I guess we have to find a different place for our passwords database that can be accessed over unauthenticated HTTP, but still very easily updated/accessed from any of our computers (without requiring manual uploads/transfers like with FTP). -Emily
- eropple 4y ago
  Keybase is still running. The web hosting is being shut down.
  - LoganDark 4y ago
    Yes, and the web hosting is why we used them. It's not just the file sync. It's the file sync and being able to access the file from any browser on any computer just by typing in a short, memorable URL. -Emily
- jacooper 4y ago
  Use CF pages?
  - LoganDark 4y ago
    No, because what we need isn't just a static file host. If we wanted one, we'd use logandark.net. We use that server to host many static files. It's just not easy to upload them; it requires logging into a control panel, navigating to the directory, and manually uploading the file. And we're not particularly interested in provisioning a set of shell scripts or cron jobs or whatever to make it easier, because that's not an easily reproducible setup. -Emily
    - jacooper 4y ago
      Use git? That depends if you are familiar with it or not.
      - LoganDark 4y ago
        We do use git for our Maven but git requires us to manually commit changes and push them every time there is one. I've decided we're probably going to use WebDAV with our website~ -Emily
- JonChesterfield 4y ago
  > I guess we have to find a different place for our passwords database that can be accessed over unauthenticated HTTP That's a strange sentence. Passwords shouldn't go over plain text (e.g. HTTP) and shouldn't be world-readable without authentication. If the database itself is encrypted then you could put it on any web server, even ye olde ftp, as a replacement for this service.
  - dewey 4y ago
    Unauthenticated http != plain text Looks like it's encrypted, so it shouldn't really matter: https://keybase.pub/logandark/passwords.kdbx https://keybase.pub/logandark/passwords.kdbx
    - LoganDark 4y ago
      Indeed, that is it~ we use argon2id with some decent parameters. We may even up the parameters significantly when we switch to our desktop with an overclocked 12400F as a daily driver. -Emily
  - LoganDark 4y ago
    The purpose is to be able to download the encrypted database onto things like mobile devices that can't do anything like connect to FTP servers. Having a virtual filesystem is convenient because we don't need to do constant shuffling and transferring when updating our database from a computer. "just put it on a normal web server" ignores the rest of the convenience that keybase.pub provided. It provided a virtual file system that can be accessed over plain HTTP. Sure, SSHFS exists but it's terrible and not fault-tolerant at all. Keybase did it way better. -Emily
    - JonChesterfield 4y ago
      Ah yes, that I sympathise with. Thank you for clarifying
    - JimDabell 4y ago
      > It provided a virtual file system that can be accessed over plain HTTP. It sounds like you want WebDAV? It’s an extension to HTTP and you can mount it as a folder in most desktop environments without any additional software.
client4 4y ago
I still use Keybase and KBFS daily. It sounds like those services are around to stay -- but I hope if Zoom ever decides they don't want to keep running them anymore they spin it off to a non-profit to keep it running.
- qbasic_forever 4y ago
  I would make plans to migrate to an alternative service sooner rather than later. Zoom is shedding employees and clearly in a cost cutting mode. It's only a matter of time before someone does the math and realizes shutting down a few of these services will save some more money.
  - drcongo 4y ago
    What alternative would you suggest? I really like Keybase and can't seem to find anything that covers the same functionality - been keeping an eye out since Zoom bought them.
    - qbasic_forever 4y ago
      Yeah it sucks there isn't anything 100% like it. For just simple file syncing with end to end encryption I like syncthing. For encrypted data in a git repo there are more DIY options like using sops or similar tools.
    - mperham 4y ago
      I use the free Resilio Sync tier to keep a shared fold in sync between several servers. It's worked incredibly well for the last decade, no issues at all. You configure a secret token and all servers which know the token automatically sync via BitTorrent. You don't need to manage lists of server IDs like with syncthing, it's completely peer-to-peer.
    - mwest 4y ago
      The only one I've seen that comes close is https://keys.pub/ https://keys.pub/ but it still misses a lot of what keybase gives (sigchains, etc.) Previous HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22995792 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22995792 Are there any others to consider? It's been quite sad to see Keybase so stifled after being acquired. :-(
bchase 4y ago
I didn't know this exists. If I know this earlier, I have used it. Anyways, there's Github or IPFS.
- capableweb 4y ago
  Clearly, you don't understand what Keybase is if you're suggesting that GitHub or IPFS is good alternatives :) As far as I know, there isn't anything that covers the same amount of features with the same security as Keybase, particularly the whole webring/authenticated accounts/chain that it's based on.
pydry 4y ago
I'm glad encrypted git is still running although its days are probably also numbered :(
- kreetx 4y ago
  What will be your alternative?
  - pydry 4y ago
    I don't have one. I keep hoping one comes out before it dies. I'd switch tomorrow if somebody did a clean $5 / month equivalent.
    - kreetx 4y ago
      Similar situation here. I really like the fact that I can push any repo out into to the cloud without having to trust it, then access it anywhere and don't have to manage the hosting. Kind of wish Signal built this into their product.
lprd 4y ago
I'm honestly surprised that keybase is still around. It's really cool what they've built, but how exactly are they keeping the lights on?
- mynameisvlad 4y ago
  Simple, they were bought by Zoom in 2020.
  - dcchambers 4y ago
    It seems like it was actually the acquisition by Zoom that seems to have sent Keybase down this slow death march. It was obvious that the acquisition was in order to acquire the team to improve Zoom's own security posture, and they had no interest in the Keybase product itself. Since then, activity on the open source keybase repos has been minimal and they have not made any major product changes.^1,2 Basically just keeping the lights on. I give big props to the few folks at Zoom that are still pushing commits. Keybase is/was awesome. [^1]: https://github.com/keybase/client/graphs/contributors https://github.com/keybase/client/graphs/contributors [^2]: https://github.com/orgs/keybase/repositories https://github.com/orgs/keybase/repositories
    - avree 4y ago
      well they had raised $10 million and burned through almost all of it so I'm not sure you can describe the acquisition that effectively saved their company as "sending them down a death march" however, it's clear you're right - Zoom doesn't prioritize the product.
      - dcchambers 4y ago
        Oh yeah no arguments from me there, they were definitely burning through cash without a clear vision about where they were going to start making money. But had they not been acquired I am 100% positive they could have raised boatloads of more money in that crazy market from late 2020-early 2022.
    - 4y ago
VadimPR 4y ago
This is a shame, Keybase's future is looking increasingly rocky. Has anyone got alternatives for team-based secrets sharing in an open-source project? Github secrets is one place but that's a one-way, write-only street.
- capableweb 4y ago
  Keybase been on life-support since 2020, when Zoom acquired them and moved the entire team over to work on Zoom instead. If you haven't already, put a reminder for the near future to migrate away from Keybase, at one point it will disappear.
  - coffeekitkat 4y ago
    I agree with that. Since the Zoom acquisition, developments on Keybase started to fall down, no quality and major updates. Zoom acquired Keybase not for the Keybase as product but only to get the talents of the E2EE and Security Engineers behind Keybase to work with Zoom. I'll mark this 'keybase.pub being shutdown' as the second downfall of Keybase. Yes, others will say that "its only keybase.pub" but it's the start. Keybase will slowly disappear. Are there any open source alternatives with quality UX and documentation?
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  I like SOPS [0], but it might be a bit heavyweight. You can also use team versions of password managers for simpler tasks. [0] https://github.com/mozilla/sops https://github.com/mozilla/sops
energybar 4y ago
are there any alternatives ?
WXLCKNO 4y ago
I really like Keybase. I don't even use it much but if I had the choice of paying a few dollars per month or having it be shut down, I'd pay for sure. Maybe it's because development slowed down to a crawl but it has such an "old internet" feel to it. Like I'm using Kazaa or something. Edit: To clarify, I understand that Keybase is not shutting down. I'm just saying hypothetically if it shuts down, which isn't unlikely in the next few years.
- vel0city 4y ago
  From what I understand, Keybase will continue to exist and KBFS will even still keep the files. They just won't be publicly hosting those files as websites anymore.
  - soulofmischief 4y ago
    To further clarify, Keybase Sites based hosting should still work as far as I understand. I don't use keybase.pub and I'm a hardcore Keybase user, so I imagine most don't. You can still get hosting through Keybase Sites. EDIT: No, I'm probably wrong. https://book.keybase.io/sites https://book.keybase.io/sites
    - bluehatbrit 4y ago
      Are you sure about that? It's under the keybase.pub domain name according to the docs you linked. I would have thought that means it's going as well.
      - soulofmischief 4y ago
        I'm not sure, and under further investigation you might be right.
- oefrha 4y ago
  For commenters who can’t be bothered to RTFA, and is somewhat confused because the Keybase name is used for a couple of not terribly related (on the surface) products: keybase.io the popular identity hosting service isn’t going anywhere, what is being shut down is an unpopular file hosting service: > Although the service was a great showcase for the kinds of cool things that could be built with Keybase, the usage of this product never took off.
chrisweekly 4y ago
FTA: It's just the keybase.pub web hosting service per se that's shutting down. > "No Keybase Filesystem (KBFS) data will be removed from any user public folders. All data will remain safe and viewable by others running Keybase. Other features of Keybase including Chat, KBFS, Teams, Git, Wallet and others will continue to run normally as well."
- sleepybrett 4y ago
  for now. With zoom cutting 15% ...
soulofmischief 4y ago
All of these complaints in the comments... Not realizing the diplomacy probably involved in keybase.pub being the only real hit Keybase takes in this round of layoffs. I would take this as a glimmer of hope that the folk at Zoom still appreciate Keybase for the same reason they bought it.
- blitzar 4y ago
  > Zoom still appreciate Keybase for the same reason they bought it Didnt they buy it to ick it up with some dirty form of surveillance capitalism?
  - morley 4y ago
    No. Zoom bought the company during the pandemic -- after a period of being criticized for their security practices -- to beef up their security engineering team. (I worked with several Keybase members when they worked at OkCupid, and later worked on projects with Keybase.)
    - soulofmischief 4y ago
      It's inspiring to hear about teams who follow each other from project to project. That is what software development is about: collaborating with others to build cool stuff.
- Rebelgecko 4y ago
  Isn't Keybase pretty much a dead man walking now? Their android app hasn't been updated in 8 months (shortly after the acquisition) even though it had some showstopping bugs like crashes/hangs when typing indicators are enabled
  - Aachen 4y ago
    Last week I installed an app that had its last update 6 years ago. Does exactly what it should, no complaints. 8 months is not a problem, at least if the software isn't super complex and has a ton of bugs (both recently introduced and there since forever) and missing critical features (such as end to end encryption verification, the whole reason they exist). I'm sure it's a coincidence that no updates came out anymore after Zoom took over the team. Anyway, without sarcasm, I don't use Keybase anymore but age isn't really the metric by which I define a dead app walking...
voidfunc 4y ago
KBFS was awesome for a small startup I worked at where we just needed some quick and dirty shared filesystems for development document sharing, quick scripts etc. Our onboarding for new folks used to be as simple as install your favorite distro, install keybase, run the onboarding script at $kbfsMountPoint and go get some coffee.
jimt1234 4y ago
Keybase (the chat app) was hot for a while. However, everyone I know switched to Signal the day after Zoom acquired it. It's basically a ghost town now. ;(
- sleepybrett 4y ago
  If all you want is chat, it's a fine alternative. If you want the other features, key managment, web of trust... less great.
  - Aachen 4y ago
    Web of trust is one of the biggest omissions on Signal in my opinion, right after the having of a public key in the first place (technically they do, much as moxie hates on pgp for having a long-term stable key, but they obfuscate it so that you can't use it without getting a lengthy explanation and comparing two of your contacts' fingerprints). I'd love if our new employee could just verify me or one other colleague and mark that I'm/we're trusted for one layer of verifications also. Now, they have to open up our directory and compare everyone manually before being able to safely make use of the big circle group chats. Wire is even worse: you get to verify individual devices instead of users. Doesn't require a phone (or a number, but I mean a phone here), though. And that's pretty much it for feature-complete-ish chat applications. Not that unreliable/buggy (Element) or incomplete (Threema) software has this either. It's basically down to PGP but those clients (GnuPG, Thunderbird) are so horrible that almost nobody uses it there, even if PGP use in general is comparatively high in Germany. Where now we trust the server for 99% of chats, a web of trust might let an order of magnitude more Signal users have a local root of trust. At least when considering the key distribution attack vector; there are more, such as update distribution, but we'll get there one attack at a time. Except when we take steps backwards by not implementing what predecessors already had...
epalm 4y ago
Keybase was really nice, until it started talking about wallets and coins and Stellar Lumens and no thank you. I jumped ship a while ago.
- carrja99 4y ago
  Hey I didn’t mind. During the latest bull run I looked into my wallet and realized I had $800 of stellar lumens on it. Transferred it out and got some additional money from it.
  - anaganisk 4y ago
    Me too, i was actually thrilled to get some random free money by doin nothing.
  - sleepybrett 4y ago
    I looked and didn't bother .. I think it was at about ~$900. I'm not into crypto at all so don't have the infrastructure to sell it or whatever. Now it's worth... 127.47!
- ocdtrekkie 4y ago
  This is the only time a startup company meaningfully gave me anything that was worth something long term. (Money.) I still appreciate it. I sold the crypto when it was worth like $700 or so. If I could pay to subscribe to Keybase, I could probably subscribe to it for several years before it cost me more than I made from using it. :D
xn 4y ago
I'm a daily keybase user, and I didn't even know keybase.pub existed.
- kreetx 4y ago
  It is (was) great! Even for as trivial as quick web dev demos.
StreamBright 4y ago
Keybase is the only chat client I would pay for without hesitation.
crepererum 4y ago
https://keyoxide.org/ https://keyoxide.org/ might grow into an alternative. It's still missing some convenience features, but the foundation looks sane.
- ocdtrekkie 4y ago
  Keyoxide's developer has gotten some grants to really beef it up. One of the things Keybase really shines at is documentation, it makes a lot of GPG things pretty stress-free to deal with, and Keyoxide has room to improve on the user experience, polish, and documentation side. But since Keyoxide doesn't depend on a central authority to manage proofs, it is definitively going to be the future in this space. Nobody can really kill it.
benatkin 4y ago
Incredibly short notice. That feels like a sign of panic.
andrewstuart 4y ago
What a waste. There's a real need for identified users on the Internet - a service that other companies can subscribe to verify all sorts of users actions. I thought this would be it but they never seemed to see themselves as fulfilling that role, despite from the outside it looked like that was their big opportunity.
- t3e 4y ago
  Check out https://www.hello.coop/ https://www.hello.coop/ – super early, but they're building this, with an unusual governance structure designed to keep control in the hands of users. (I'm not affiliated with them.)
- wohfab 4y ago
  Keybase isn't going anywhere. It's just the file system keybase.pub
kodah 4y ago
I think I'd be happier if Keybase and Zoom would publicly commit to a direction for Keybase. I don't know what the acquisition details were for the OKCupid alumni but this dance of slow and no updates makes Keybase a risk when it comes to it's prospective usefulness in the future. I am glad it's just keybase.pub that's affected atm.
notpushkin 4y ago
Related: Open source the server components of Keybase (GitHub issue, 147 comments) https://github.com/keybase/client/issues/24105 https://github.com/keybase/client/issues/24105
biggerChris 4y ago
[dead]
adon123 4y ago
Olympus

165 points by Wingy 4y ago

rvz 4y ago

Exactly as suspected. [0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34696606 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34696606

photoGrant 4y ago

Sucks.

LoganDark 4y ago

I am, honestly, really upset at this. I understand there was no guarantee that it would be up for any length of time, but it was a really convenient solution to a problem we had. I guess we have to find a different place for our passwords database that can be accessed over unauthenticated HTTP, but still very easily updated/accessed from any of our computers (without requiring manual uploads/transfers like with FTP). -Emily

eropple 4y ago
Keybase is still running. The web hosting is being shut down.
- LoganDark 4y ago
  Yes, and the web hosting is why we used them. It's not just the file sync. It's the file sync and being able to access the file from any browser on any computer just by typing in a short, memorable URL. -Emily
jacooper 4y ago
Use CF pages?
- LoganDark 4y ago
  No, because what we need isn't just a static file host. If we wanted one, we'd use logandark.net. We use that server to host many static files. It's just not easy to upload them; it requires logging into a control panel, navigating to the directory, and manually uploading the file. And we're not particularly interested in provisioning a set of shell scripts or cron jobs or whatever to make it easier, because that's not an easily reproducible setup. -Emily
  - jacooper 4y ago
    Use git? That depends if you are familiar with it or not.
    - LoganDark 4y ago
      We do use git for our Maven but git requires us to manually commit changes and push them every time there is one. I've decided we're probably going to use WebDAV with our website~ -Emily
JonChesterfield 4y ago
> I guess we have to find a different place for our passwords database that can be accessed over unauthenticated HTTP That's a strange sentence. Passwords shouldn't go over plain text (e.g. HTTP) and shouldn't be world-readable without authentication. If the database itself is encrypted then you could put it on any web server, even ye olde ftp, as a replacement for this service.
- dewey 4y ago
  Unauthenticated http != plain text Looks like it's encrypted, so it shouldn't really matter: https://keybase.pub/logandark/passwords.kdbx https://keybase.pub/logandark/passwords.kdbx
  - LoganDark 4y ago
    Indeed, that is it~ we use argon2id with some decent parameters. We may even up the parameters significantly when we switch to our desktop with an overclocked 12400F as a daily driver. -Emily
- LoganDark 4y ago
  The purpose is to be able to download the encrypted database onto things like mobile devices that can't do anything like connect to FTP servers. Having a virtual filesystem is convenient because we don't need to do constant shuffling and transferring when updating our database from a computer. "just put it on a normal web server" ignores the rest of the convenience that keybase.pub provided. It provided a virtual file system that can be accessed over plain HTTP. Sure, SSHFS exists but it's terrible and not fault-tolerant at all. Keybase did it way better. -Emily
  - JonChesterfield 4y ago
    Ah yes, that I sympathise with. Thank you for clarifying
  - JimDabell 4y ago
    > It provided a virtual file system that can be accessed over plain HTTP. It sounds like you want WebDAV? It’s an extension to HTTP and you can mount it as a folder in most desktop environments without any additional software.

client4 4y ago

I still use Keybase and KBFS daily. It sounds like those services are around to stay -- but I hope if Zoom ever decides they don't want to keep running them anymore they spin it off to a non-profit to keep it running.

qbasic_forever 4y ago
I would make plans to migrate to an alternative service sooner rather than later. Zoom is shedding employees and clearly in a cost cutting mode. It's only a matter of time before someone does the math and realizes shutting down a few of these services will save some more money.
- drcongo 4y ago
  What alternative would you suggest? I really like Keybase and can't seem to find anything that covers the same functionality - been keeping an eye out since Zoom bought them.
  - qbasic_forever 4y ago
    Yeah it sucks there isn't anything 100% like it. For just simple file syncing with end to end encryption I like syncthing. For encrypted data in a git repo there are more DIY options like using sops or similar tools.
  - mperham 4y ago
    I use the free Resilio Sync tier to keep a shared fold in sync between several servers. It's worked incredibly well for the last decade, no issues at all. You configure a secret token and all servers which know the token automatically sync via BitTorrent. You don't need to manage lists of server IDs like with syncthing, it's completely peer-to-peer.
  - mwest 4y ago
    The only one I've seen that comes close is https://keys.pub/ https://keys.pub/ but it still misses a lot of what keybase gives (sigchains, etc.) Previous HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22995792 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22995792 Are there any others to consider? It's been quite sad to see Keybase so stifled after being acquired. :-(

bchase 4y ago

I didn't know this exists. If I know this earlier, I have used it. Anyways, there's Github or IPFS.

capableweb 4y ago
Clearly, you don't understand what Keybase is if you're suggesting that GitHub or IPFS is good alternatives :) As far as I know, there isn't anything that covers the same amount of features with the same security as Keybase, particularly the whole webring/authenticated accounts/chain that it's based on.

pydry 4y ago

I'm glad encrypted git is still running although its days are probably also numbered :(

kreetx 4y ago
What will be your alternative?
- pydry 4y ago
  I don't have one. I keep hoping one comes out before it dies. I'd switch tomorrow if somebody did a clean $5 / month equivalent.
  - kreetx 4y ago
    Similar situation here. I really like the fact that I can push any repo out into to the cloud without having to trust it, then access it anywhere and don't have to manage the hosting. Kind of wish Signal built this into their product.

lprd 4y ago

I'm honestly surprised that keybase is still around. It's really cool what they've built, but how exactly are they keeping the lights on?

mynameisvlad 4y ago
Simple, they were bought by Zoom in 2020.
- dcchambers 4y ago
  It seems like it was actually the acquisition by Zoom that seems to have sent Keybase down this slow death march. It was obvious that the acquisition was in order to acquire the team to improve Zoom's own security posture, and they had no interest in the Keybase product itself. Since then, activity on the open source keybase repos has been minimal and they have not made any major product changes.^1,2 Basically just keeping the lights on. I give big props to the few folks at Zoom that are still pushing commits. Keybase is/was awesome. [^1]: https://github.com/keybase/client/graphs/contributors https://github.com/keybase/client/graphs/contributors [^2]: https://github.com/orgs/keybase/repositories https://github.com/orgs/keybase/repositories
  - avree 4y ago
    well they had raised $10 million and burned through almost all of it so I'm not sure you can describe the acquisition that effectively saved their company as "sending them down a death march" however, it's clear you're right - Zoom doesn't prioritize the product.
    - dcchambers 4y ago
      Oh yeah no arguments from me there, they were definitely burning through cash without a clear vision about where they were going to start making money. But had they not been acquired I am 100% positive they could have raised boatloads of more money in that crazy market from late 2020-early 2022.
  - 4y ago

VadimPR 4y ago

This is a shame, Keybase's future is looking increasingly rocky. Has anyone got alternatives for team-based secrets sharing in an open-source project? Github secrets is one place but that's a one-way, write-only street.

capableweb 4y ago
Keybase been on life-support since 2020, when Zoom acquired them and moved the entire team over to work on Zoom instead. If you haven't already, put a reminder for the near future to migrate away from Keybase, at one point it will disappear.
- coffeekitkat 4y ago
  I agree with that. Since the Zoom acquisition, developments on Keybase started to fall down, no quality and major updates. Zoom acquired Keybase not for the Keybase as product but only to get the talents of the E2EE and Security Engineers behind Keybase to work with Zoom. I'll mark this 'keybase.pub being shutdown' as the second downfall of Keybase. Yes, others will say that "its only keybase.pub" but it's the start. Keybase will slowly disappear. Are there any open source alternatives with quality UX and documentation?
robertlagrant 4y ago
I like SOPS [0], but it might be a bit heavyweight. You can also use team versions of password managers for simpler tasks. [0] https://github.com/mozilla/sops https://github.com/mozilla/sops

energybar 4y ago

are there any alternatives ?

WXLCKNO 4y ago

I really like Keybase. I don't even use it much but if I had the choice of paying a few dollars per month or having it be shut down, I'd pay for sure. Maybe it's because development slowed down to a crawl but it has such an "old internet" feel to it. Like I'm using Kazaa or something. Edit: To clarify, I understand that Keybase is not shutting down. I'm just saying hypothetically if it shuts down, which isn't unlikely in the next few years.

vel0city 4y ago
From what I understand, Keybase will continue to exist and KBFS will even still keep the files. They just won't be publicly hosting those files as websites anymore.
- soulofmischief 4y ago
  To further clarify, Keybase Sites based hosting should still work as far as I understand. I don't use keybase.pub and I'm a hardcore Keybase user, so I imagine most don't. You can still get hosting through Keybase Sites. EDIT: No, I'm probably wrong. https://book.keybase.io/sites https://book.keybase.io/sites
  - bluehatbrit 4y ago
    Are you sure about that? It's under the keybase.pub domain name according to the docs you linked. I would have thought that means it's going as well.
    - soulofmischief 4y ago
      I'm not sure, and under further investigation you might be right.
oefrha 4y ago
For commenters who can’t be bothered to RTFA, and is somewhat confused because the Keybase name is used for a couple of not terribly related (on the surface) products: keybase.io the popular identity hosting service isn’t going anywhere, what is being shut down is an unpopular file hosting service: > Although the service was a great showcase for the kinds of cool things that could be built with Keybase, the usage of this product never took off.

chrisweekly 4y ago

FTA: It's just the keybase.pub web hosting service per se that's shutting down. > "No Keybase Filesystem (KBFS) data will be removed from any user public folders. All data will remain safe and viewable by others running Keybase. Other features of Keybase including Chat, KBFS, Teams, Git, Wallet and others will continue to run normally as well."

sleepybrett 4y ago
for now. With zoom cutting 15% ...

soulofmischief 4y ago

All of these complaints in the comments... Not realizing the diplomacy probably involved in keybase.pub being the only real hit Keybase takes in this round of layoffs. I would take this as a glimmer of hope that the folk at Zoom still appreciate Keybase for the same reason they bought it.

blitzar 4y ago
> Zoom still appreciate Keybase for the same reason they bought it Didnt they buy it to ick it up with some dirty form of surveillance capitalism?
- morley 4y ago
  No. Zoom bought the company during the pandemic -- after a period of being criticized for their security practices -- to beef up their security engineering team. (I worked with several Keybase members when they worked at OkCupid, and later worked on projects with Keybase.)
  - soulofmischief 4y ago
    It's inspiring to hear about teams who follow each other from project to project. That is what software development is about: collaborating with others to build cool stuff.
Rebelgecko 4y ago
Isn't Keybase pretty much a dead man walking now? Their android app hasn't been updated in 8 months (shortly after the acquisition) even though it had some showstopping bugs like crashes/hangs when typing indicators are enabled
- Aachen 4y ago
  Last week I installed an app that had its last update 6 years ago. Does exactly what it should, no complaints. 8 months is not a problem, at least if the software isn't super complex and has a ton of bugs (both recently introduced and there since forever) and missing critical features (such as end to end encryption verification, the whole reason they exist). I'm sure it's a coincidence that no updates came out anymore after Zoom took over the team. Anyway, without sarcasm, I don't use Keybase anymore but age isn't really the metric by which I define a dead app walking...

voidfunc 4y ago

KBFS was awesome for a small startup I worked at where we just needed some quick and dirty shared filesystems for development document sharing, quick scripts etc. Our onboarding for new folks used to be as simple as install your favorite distro, install keybase, run the onboarding script at $kbfsMountPoint and go get some coffee.

jimt1234 4y ago

Keybase (the chat app) was hot for a while. However, everyone I know switched to Signal the day after Zoom acquired it. It's basically a ghost town now. ;(

sleepybrett 4y ago
If all you want is chat, it's a fine alternative. If you want the other features, key managment, web of trust... less great.
- Aachen 4y ago
  Web of trust is one of the biggest omissions on Signal in my opinion, right after the having of a public key in the first place (technically they do, much as moxie hates on pgp for having a long-term stable key, but they obfuscate it so that you can't use it without getting a lengthy explanation and comparing two of your contacts' fingerprints). I'd love if our new employee could just verify me or one other colleague and mark that I'm/we're trusted for one layer of verifications also. Now, they have to open up our directory and compare everyone manually before being able to safely make use of the big circle group chats. Wire is even worse: you get to verify individual devices instead of users. Doesn't require a phone (or a number, but I mean a phone here), though. And that's pretty much it for feature-complete-ish chat applications. Not that unreliable/buggy (Element) or incomplete (Threema) software has this either. It's basically down to PGP but those clients (GnuPG, Thunderbird) are so horrible that almost nobody uses it there, even if PGP use in general is comparatively high in Germany. Where now we trust the server for 99% of chats, a web of trust might let an order of magnitude more Signal users have a local root of trust. At least when considering the key distribution attack vector; there are more, such as update distribution, but we'll get there one attack at a time. Except when we take steps backwards by not implementing what predecessors already had...

epalm 4y ago

Keybase was really nice, until it started talking about wallets and coins and Stellar Lumens and no thank you. I jumped ship a while ago.

carrja99 4y ago
Hey I didn’t mind. During the latest bull run I looked into my wallet and realized I had $800 of stellar lumens on it. Transferred it out and got some additional money from it.
- anaganisk 4y ago
  Me too, i was actually thrilled to get some random free money by doin nothing.
- sleepybrett 4y ago
  I looked and didn't bother .. I think it was at about ~$900. I'm not into crypto at all so don't have the infrastructure to sell it or whatever. Now it's worth... 127.47!
ocdtrekkie 4y ago
This is the only time a startup company meaningfully gave me anything that was worth something long term. (Money.) I still appreciate it. I sold the crypto when it was worth like $700 or so. If I could pay to subscribe to Keybase, I could probably subscribe to it for several years before it cost me more than I made from using it. :D

xn 4y ago

I'm a daily keybase user, and I didn't even know keybase.pub existed.

kreetx 4y ago
It is (was) great! Even for as trivial as quick web dev demos.

StreamBright 4y ago

Keybase is the only chat client I would pay for without hesitation.

crepererum 4y ago

https://keyoxide.org/ https://keyoxide.org/ might grow into an alternative. It's still missing some convenience features, but the foundation looks sane.

ocdtrekkie 4y ago
Keyoxide's developer has gotten some grants to really beef it up. One of the things Keybase really shines at is documentation, it makes a lot of GPG things pretty stress-free to deal with, and Keyoxide has room to improve on the user experience, polish, and documentation side. But since Keyoxide doesn't depend on a central authority to manage proofs, it is definitively going to be the future in this space. Nobody can really kill it.

benatkin 4y ago

Incredibly short notice. That feels like a sign of panic.

andrewstuart 4y ago

What a waste. There's a real need for identified users on the Internet - a service that other companies can subscribe to verify all sorts of users actions. I thought this would be it but they never seemed to see themselves as fulfilling that role, despite from the outside it looked like that was their big opportunity.

t3e 4y ago
Check out https://www.hello.coop/ https://www.hello.coop/ – super early, but they're building this, with an unusual governance structure designed to keep control in the hands of users. (I'm not affiliated with them.)
wohfab 4y ago
Keybase isn't going anywhere. It's just the file system keybase.pub

kodah 4y ago

I think I'd be happier if Keybase and Zoom would publicly commit to a direction for Keybase. I don't know what the acquisition details were for the OKCupid alumni but this dance of slow and no updates makes Keybase a risk when it comes to it's prospective usefulness in the future. I am glad it's just keybase.pub that's affected atm.

notpushkin 4y ago

Related: Open source the server components of Keybase (GitHub issue, 147 comments) https://github.com/keybase/client/issues/24105 https://github.com/keybase/client/issues/24105

biggerChris 4y ago

[dead]

adon123 4y ago

Olympus