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Keys.pub – Manage cryptographic keys and user identities

keys.pub

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Re: Keys.pub – Manage cryptographic keys and user identities

#11

Post by stingraycharles »

StavrosK wrote: post #10
vorpalhex wrote: post #4

I was a very early user of Keybase and I've been super disappointed in the direction they've gone. They've had some neat ideas along the way but packing them onto the key service and the cryptocurrency missteps have caused me to shy away from them. This looks like a good start for a real competitor. Obviously it's early but I'm seeing the right things.

I see this from a lot of people and I'm puzzled, can you not just avoid using the features you don't like? I don't see anyone going "I used to use VS Code but they added a database viewer so I stopped".

This is kind of different. It’s more like, “I used this database viewer and suddenly it became VS Code”. It used to be something lean and simple, but now you’re simply not the target audience anymore at all.

Re: Keys.pub – Manage cryptographic keys and user identities

#12

Post by prophesi »

cortesoft wrote: post #7
prophesi wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the cruft. If they separated those out into separate apps, I'd be happy. It's an E2E-encrypted Slack-clone, public key management system, encrypted file storage, and a crypto wallet.

I guess one man's cruft is another man's crucial feature.

Precisely the reasoning for writing tools that do one thing very well.

Re: Keys.pub – Manage cryptographic keys and user identities

#13

Post by ithkuil »

One of the things I liked about keybase is that it pooled identity proofs from different providers. If somebody manages to replace a proof in my gihub account, other people can (independently) verify that there is something wrong.

I'm not sure if I misread the documentation, but it seems that with keys.pub each "service" offers a disconnected world. If somebody manages to publish a proof in my github account, it can trick people using keys.pub to think that's still me.

OTOH, with keys.pub I don't need to trust any server.

Am I misunderstanding something?

Re: Keys.pub – Manage cryptographic keys and user identities

#14

Post by JNRowe »

StavrosK wrote: post #10
vorpalhex wrote: post #4

I was a very early user of Keybase and I've been super disappointed in the direction they've gone. They've had some neat ideas along the way but packing them onto the key service and the cryptocurrency missteps have caused me to shy away from them. This looks like a good start for a real competitor. Obviously it's early but I'm seeing the right things.

I see this from a lot of people and I'm puzzled, can you not just avoid using the features you don't like? I don't see anyone going "I used to use VS Code but they added a database viewer so I stopped".

I'm one of those people, and the thing that worries me is the huge amount of code that I'm not interested in that is hovering around my keys. If it was a collection of smaller tools I doubt I'd feel the same, but as things stand grabbing a binary means a 500mb installed package with very little functionality I actually want.

Not that I'm saying they should support just me, everyone has their own set of a magical does-just-enough feature set.

Re: Keys.pub – Manage cryptographic keys and user identities

#15

Post by jks »

StavrosK wrote: post #10
vorpalhex wrote: post #4

I was a very early user of Keybase and I've been super disappointed in the direction they've gone. They've had some neat ideas along the way but packing them onto the key service and the cryptocurrency missteps have caused me to shy away from them. This looks like a good start for a real competitor. Obviously it's early but I'm seeing the right things.

I see this from a lot of people and I'm puzzled, can you not just avoid using the features you don't like? I don't see anyone going "I used to use VS Code but they added a database viewer so I stopped".

I stopped using Keybase when they started sending me cryptocurrency spam.

Re: Keys.pub – Manage cryptographic keys and user identities

#17

Post by ahnick »

jsumrall wrote: post #6
meddlepal wrote: post #3

One of the killer features for Keybase is the combination of teams + KeybaseFS. Unfortunately this doesn't look like it has either of those features.

Sounds interesting, how is this feature useful?

One way we use it is for shared team secrets (e.g. API tokens) in infrastructure scripts.

https://github.com/plyint/encpass.sh/blob/master/extensions/...

Re: Keys.pub – Manage cryptographic keys and user identities

#18

Post by corobo »

StavrosK wrote: post #10
vorpalhex wrote: post #4

I was a very early user of Keybase and I've been super disappointed in the direction they've gone. They've had some neat ideas along the way but packing them onto the key service and the cryptocurrency missteps have caused me to shy away from them. This looks like a good start for a real competitor. Obviously it's early but I'm seeing the right things.

I see this from a lot of people and I'm puzzled, can you not just avoid using the features you don't like? I don't see anyone going "I used to use VS Code but they added a database viewer so I stopped".

No. When they started doing cryptocurrency spam every device I had Keybase on alerted me to each new message, even with the spamming bot blocked

Re: Keys.pub – Manage cryptographic keys and user identities

#19

Post by eeZah7Ux »

StavrosK wrote: post #10
vorpalhex wrote: post #4

I was a very early user of Keybase and I've been super disappointed in the direction they've gone. They've had some neat ideas along the way but packing them onto the key service and the cryptocurrency missteps have caused me to shy away from them. This looks like a good start for a real competitor. Obviously it's early but I'm seeing the right things.

I see this from a lot of people and I'm puzzled, can you not just avoid using the features you don't like? I don't see anyone going "I used to use VS Code but they added a database viewer so I stopped".

> can you not just avoid using the features you don't like

No: people cat take a moral stance against things that look sleazy like asking for uploading private keys or trying to sell cryptocurrencies.

> can you not just avoid

"can you just" is a bit patronizing, would you mind not using that tone?

Re: Keys.pub – Manage cryptographic keys and user identities

#20

Post by vorpalhex »

StavrosK wrote: post #10
vorpalhex wrote: post #4

I was a very early user of Keybase and I've been super disappointed in the direction they've gone. They've had some neat ideas along the way but packing them onto the key service and the cryptocurrency missteps have caused me to shy away from them. This looks like a good start for a real competitor. Obviously it's early but I'm seeing the right things.

I see this from a lot of people and I'm puzzled, can you not just avoid using the features you don't like? I don't see anyone going "I used to use VS Code but they added a database viewer so I stopped".

The keybase client went from a small CLI to a persistently connected app that ties into a filesystem, cryptocurrency platform, chat ecosystem and more.

Nothing is free. Adding features takes up resources, adds complexity and errors and increases attack surface. Sometimes that's an OK tradeoff - I like being able to see images in my email client. Sometimes the tradeoff is not worth it - my text centric IDE has no business touching database files.

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