81–90 of 751 posts
> Ultimately Keybase's future is in Zoom's hands Well, that definitely translates to uncertainty and ultimately the death of Keybase.
"We are excited to integrate Keybase’s team into the Zoom family to help us build end-to-end encryption that can reach current Zoom scalability."
not a word about what happens to the existing technology which doesn't sound very reassuring to existing keybase users.
I'm seeing a certain pattern here, aren't we all just fooling ourselves? Isn't this just all inevitable? Aren't all these startups just lining up all in the hopes just to get acquired? I guess when we see VC Funded™ on any startup what it _really means_ is that: "We are prioritising a return for our investors even if it means violating our mission statement".
For example, if it was optional to connect to the Keybase network to begin with.
Imagine a keybase-type app that is built on web of trust rather than centralized servers.
> Zoom does not and will not proactively monitor meeting contents, but our trust and safety team will continue to use automated tools to look for evidence of abusive users based upon other available data. > Zoom has not and will not build a mechanism to decrypt live meetings for lawful intercept purposes. > We also do not have a means to insert our employees or others into meetings without being reflected in the part…
> Zoom does not and will not proactively monitor meeting contents, but our trust and safety team will continue to use automated tools to look for evidence of abusive users based upon other available data. > Zoom has not and will not build a mechanism to decrypt live meetings for lawful intercept purposes. > We also do not have a means to insert our employees or others into meetings without being reflected in the part…
Zoom trading at ~1,700 P/E which to me seems absurd. Wonder if the acquisition involved much stock! Seems like a good time for Zoom to make transactions like this.
I'm seeing a certain pattern here, aren't we all just fooling ourselves? Isn't this just all inevitable? Aren't all these startups just lining up all in the hopes just to get acquired? I guess when we see VC Funded™ on any startup what it _really means_ is that: "We are prioritising a return for our investors even if it means violating our mission statement".
We need a new type of company that can never be acquired.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, it's pretty clearly an aquihire. Zoom gets a team of highly skilled cryptographers and Internet protocol experts. Good for them. But that means the team that created Keybase as an innovate PKI store won't be working on that anymore. That's not Zoom's business, and probably won't be, as Keybase themselves never figured out how to turn it into a business.
It bothers me that they even tried, honestly. Keybase seems like something that should be small, isolated, FOSS, supported by a foundation, etc. They could have built a business _around_ Keybase I'd imagine, but all they managed to do with this is invalidate Keybase and make people like myself, who feared their business motivations, feel vindicated for being paranoid. I'll never blame anyone for wanting to make money…
Keybase' post about the acquisition: https://keybase.io/blog/keybase-joins-zoom > What the Keybase team will be doing > Initially, our single top priority is helping to make Zoom even more secure. There are no specific plans for the Keybase app yet. Ultimately Keybase's future is in Zoom's hands, and we'll see where that takes us. Of course, if anything changes about Keybase’s availability, our users will get plenty…
I don’t necessarily read it that way. Keybase is 100% functional and has worked well for a long time. Zoom needs people who know how to make modern client software and chat if they want to compete with the Slacks and Teams, etc. You can’t even screen share on wayland... it’s that bad. If keybase ultimately gets secure video, and zoom a security architecture overhaul, how is that a bad thing?
I can't think of a single instance where acquisition of a smaller company like this resulted in an improved version of the original product. How many of us are running RHL? Skype is now close to Microsoft spyware that's impossible to remove from a Windows installation. Facebook purchasing Whatsapp, another service that formerly stressed encryption, resulted in things like plaintext backups of your texts on Facebook servers being aggressively promoted as soon as you loaded the app.
It's pretty much always cheaper to gut the original product, ignore the problems with your software, and enjoy the enhanced price of your shares while effectively spending no more money than you had for the original acquisition. As far as I can tell, Keybase has never had a business model or constant source of revenue.
Keybase helped me to identify a trend in the software industry: using a pretty UI to cover up the disruption of an open ecosystem with a closed, centralized replacement. Keybase seemed cool on the face of it - making encryption easier is a laudible goal, and PGP certainly could use the improvement. But, thanks to Keybase, now I ask different questions upfront. Beware the Keybase formula: 1. Integrates with an existin…
Given the security concerns around Zoom, and the apparent lack of QC that might have prevented those concerns, this news is appalling. I love Keybase, it's used by many people, but I suspect it will now die a quick death. More accurately I suspect it will slide into a coma - not quite dead, but not in wide use anymore either.
Yeah holy crap. I've been a big fan of Keybase since they launched, but this is a deathknell. I guess I'm not too surprised, Keybase didn't seem to have a business model, but still, disappointing that they're going to go into death this way. Attention people starting businesses: VC funding is fun and all, but please, have a business model. Your users and employees depend on it.
So perhaps better advice is, start a business even if you don’t have a plan and someone may buy it anyway.