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Introducing Keybase Chat

keybase.io

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Re: Introducing Keybase Chat

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know for sure, but my assumption is that she is 'Alice'[0] which is a common name used when explaining cryptography [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_and_Bob

And apparently Alice looks like Pebbles (Flinstones)! A key in her hair sounds like a good place to keep. Visible yet on her person at all times.

Looks more like Little Mu from Moomins to me :)

http://capello.nu/wp-content/uploads/lilla-my.jpg

Re: Introducing Keybase Chat

#153

OP here! I had to trim the post down for brevity, but I thought the HN community in particular might be interested in the API side of things. Undocumented in the post: you can invent channels for app-to-app communication from the JSON API. For example, it's possible with Keybase chat to have a program posting encrypted messages for another person or program, without cluttering up the visual chat interface. Also - to…

I'm entirely unconvinced by your argument regarding backing up a perfect forward secrecy chat. PFS is about preventing any listener of the messages in-transit from ever effectively decrypting those messages - it says nothing about security guarantees once the message is received.

It'd be like arguing that by enabling PFS also creates a social contract that the receiver guarantees that their device isn't compromised. Or that webservers that use PFS in TLS don't log most/all of the details for the requests they receive. I don't believe either of these to be true.

You seem to have extrapolated some social properties from a purely technical property and assumed everyone must think about it in the same way as you. But in doing so, you've made your protocol weaker against realistic attacks.

Oh, and the likelihood of an attacker stealing a device with WhatsApp installed and only being able to extract the identity keys and not the cached messages seems absurdly improbable.

Personally, I wish you'd either tried to work with OWS/WhatsApp/whoever to integrate in what makes keybase.io great (providing identity verification - something that all these could use) and not gone about adding to the already crowded area of chat providers.

Re: Introducing Keybase Chat

#155
post #121

Warning to all OS X users: The Keybase Chat desktop app does a number of shady things that ultimately led me to delete it from my system. I am writing this purely as a public service announcement, to those who worry about installing unknown apps on their Macs. The Keybase Chat app: (1) Requires administrator privileges to launch on first run, to install a "Helper Tool". The app does not explain what this tool does, w…

I'm not qualified or interested enough to investigate this but I can tell you that on Windows Trend Micro have blocked keybase as potential malware. It's reported on github and keybase have requested an exception but reading your post one starts to wonder why Trend Micro would get that idea.

Re: Introducing Keybase Chat

#156
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used the Unix "locate" command-line tool. I just searched for "keybase". Note that you have to build up a locate DB first by calling "sudo /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb". Type "man locate" in Terminal to learn more.

"locate" is not an Apple command-line tool. It is a Unix command.

For those who are curious: To be accurate, locate is a command provided by mlocate package (shipped by most modern distributions) which supersedes GNU slocate.

mlocate is a locate/updatedb implementation. The 'm' stands for "merging": updatedb reuses the existing database to avoid rereading most of the file system, which makes updatedb faster and does not trash the system caches as much.

The locate(1) utility is intended to be completely compatible to slocate. It also attempts to be compatible to GNU locate, when it does not conflict with slocate compatibility.

Reference: https://fedorahosted.org/mlocate/

Re: Introducing Keybase Chat

#157

Why do all new chat clients look like Slack? We're rapidly moving towards a monoculture of chat UIs. I'd like to see a return to less intrusive chat apps, with more minimal UIs that don't take up most of the desktop real estate. The most common screen resolution out there? 1366x768. I kid you not. IRC has it's many flaws, but the clients still understood the meaning of good information density. People seem to forget…

Electron is the short answer to that. From what I've seen pretty much all the "new wave" cross platform chat apps are based on electron and a lot of the companies are emulating slack. In combination that leads to a lot very similar looking programs.

Re: Introducing Keybase Chat

#159

OP here! I had to trim the post down for brevity, but I thought the HN community in particular might be interested in the API side of things. Undocumented in the post: you can invent channels for app-to-app communication from the JSON API. For example, it's possible with Keybase chat to have a program posting encrypted messages for another person or program, without cluttering up the visual chat interface. Also - to…

Oh! And I was wondering whether someone has invited me and I haven't noticed, or if you don't need invitations anymore. Thanks

Re: Introducing Keybase Chat

#160
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great, but I also need a web client for friends who can't use irssi.

Can't they use pidgin/gtalk? Gtalk works with bitlbee/irssi-otr.

They can't install anything on their computer, so no pidgin. Is it possible to use the web interface with Gtalk without having your personal email open?
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