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Introducing the Keybase filesystem

keybase.io

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Re: Introducing the Keybase filesystem

#103
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to say pretty much the same thing. It's slick and easy to use. It's actually the 'dropbox' I've always wanted and if they introduce a storage limit I'd pay. https://keybase.io/jgrahamc

What's also impressive is doing away with Dropbox's clunky "selective sync". While having everything stored locally sounds like a good idea at first, as you store more and more data is gets less and less user-friendly; in other words, power-users get the worst user experience. Additionally, creating an easy way to share files with friends without taking up their quota is awesome. This looks like it could be a very, v…

At one point OneDrive used a similar approach, and power users loved it.

But they've since moved away from that in favor of Dropbox-style selective sync for reasons that didn't seem very convincing to me. [1]

[1] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/11/onedri...

Re: Introducing the Keybase filesystem

#104
Maybe it's because I am not a keybase user, but can somebody explain this product in human terms? I am not an idiot, and it does sound interesting, but the post is too long and I just want to know what makes it unique compared to dropbox, etc. in one sentence.

Re: Introducing the Keybase filesystem

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Centralised Crypto" in what sense? Unless I'm very much mistaken, your private key never leaves your control - signing/encryption is done client-side.

They are the trusted source for my public key.

Are you talking about the announced file storage service here? Or about the "drudru claims to be foobar on Twitter" service?

The former should be good - that sounds like a smart client in front of a dumb server. The latter is a different problem and as far as I'm aware the service is merely aggregating proves - and can link to those. Verify them?

Re: Introducing the Keybase filesystem

#106
post #14

Is this all centralized? How about something completely decentralized, but permanent: https://ipfs.io/ https://youtu.be/HUVmypx9HGI The InterPlanetary File System (IPFS)

I'm all for IPFS, but I think you're missing the forest for the trees. Crypto is hard, especially PKI. KeybaseFS is crypto first, global FS second, while IPFS just says "do crypto yourself" - which, as we've seen with email and texting and literally everything else, doesn't work.

I would love for KeybaseFS to work via IPFS instead of their own servers. But pointing at IPFS as a /replacement/ for this crypto+FS project is disingenious.

Re: Introducing the Keybase filesystem

#107
post #106
post #14

Is this all centralized? How about something completely decentralized, but permanent: https://ipfs.io/ https://youtu.be/HUVmypx9HGI The InterPlanetary File System (IPFS)

I'm all for IPFS, but I think you're missing the forest for the trees. Crypto is hard, especially PKI. KeybaseFS is crypto first, global FS second, while IPFS just says "do crypto yourself" - which, as we've seen with email and texting and literally everything else, doesn't work. I would love for KeybaseFS to work via IPFS instead of their own servers. But pointing at IPFS as a /replacement/ for this crypto+FS projec…

I think parent only wanted to give examples of what direction we should be looking in.

Re: Introducing the Keybase filesystem

#108

> Your app will encrypt just for you and then awake and rekey in the background when that Twitter user joins and announces a key. Isn't this the weak link in the chain? If you can convince the client that you're the person the data was encrypted for, it will re-encrypt it with a new key and send it to you, thus making the encryption useless. What's the protection against this, other than "don't worry, we won't introd…

I'm not sure about that either. The weakest link seems to be a national security letter to Keybase where they distribute a backdoored version of the FS driver to Alice, and adds the key of Eve to all messages also encrypted to Bob.

However, Keybase can't just broadcast "Eve on twitter is Bob!" - the client gets that announcement and links you to the tweet that claims it, where you audit the twitter handle, key fingerprint, etc.

Re: Introducing the Keybase filesystem

#109
post #3
post #2

I've been using this for a couple weeks. Along with Zcash, it is the most amazing crypto-engineering project I've seen in years. Imagine being able to share files on an ad hoc basis with anyone -- on any network. Share with someone based on Twitter, on Facebook, or email address. Even better, all with cryptographic proofs of identity, strong crypto at every level, and open source.

Came here to say pretty much the same thing. It's slick and easy to use. It's actually the 'dropbox' I've always wanted and if they introduce a storage limit I'd pay. https://keybase.io/jgrahamc

Hi John, mind sharing an invitation?
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