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Zoom Acquires Keybase

keybase.io

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Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#121

Post by formercoder »

momokoko wrote: post #98
INTPenis wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can they be so obvlivious though? Their own blog post doesn't even mention the tarnished reputation Zoom has acquired lately. A lot of people will stop developing integrations for Keybase because of this. It's sad.

They aren’t. They are making a lot of money which is what the business was made for. The post is actually refreshingly honest that keybase is now abandoned and will probably die at some point. The idea that companies were stupid enough to place their internal identity on some random 3rd party is so incredibly stupid that it’s hard to feel too bad for anyone. Congrats Keybase!

Thank you. Keybase had investors and I’m sure the premium Zoom offered was unbeatable. Zoom can effectively pay infinity with equity. Those investors knew that this was the best way they’d ever have to realize gains. That’s why they invested in the first place.

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#122

Post by floatboth »

techntoke wrote: post #45
Galaxeblaffer wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need a new type of company that can never be acquired.

DAO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_autonomous_organ...

That definitely cannot be acquired. No sane business would want to convert actual money into fun bucks and put those into a buggy script that would lock everyone out if someone pwns it.

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#123

Post by mpweiher »

dcow wrote: post #61
andrepd wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why acquire? Why not just hire as a consultant?

Because keybase obviously needs money and zoom has a lot of it right now..

That, and this is probably in large part a marketing/PR move.

Public perception of zoom/security is "beyond horrible", thus visibly spending lots of money on an acquisition of a very well respected name in security helps them polish that image at least a little.

And who knows, maybe they'll even work on actually improving security. Always the hopeless romantic/optimist, me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#124

Post by jklinger410 »

> Engineer: Sir, it would be easier to just start over and build a video app for security from the ground up.

> CEO: But that would cost millions over the course of years!

> Engineer: Or we could just buy an already secure video app and put our features inside of that instead?

> CEO: Genius!

And that's how Keybase became Zoom.

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#125

Post by RL_Quine »

pot8n wrote: post #114

Keybase went from ranking 30,000 to 65,000 in 3 months. What happened here? It seems like Keybase has been falling in traffic already for the past 3 months and it's reputations has been tarnished in HN for months now. https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/keybase.io

The product is simply not good in its current form. It's a strange mix of instant messaging, web of trust, and cryptocurrency scam. It doesn't strongly give any particular goal. The tools are shiny, pleasant enough to look at any use, but isn't going in any direction.

A lot of push recently has been into making it a "team chat" platform, which is great except that all of the participants are public, and tied to their name. It makes for hideously bad opsec if any company were to seriously use it.

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#126

Post by falcolas »

coldpie wrote: post #30
Communitivity wrote: post #26

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.

Sometimes, acquihire is the business model. It makes money for the VCs and money for the founders. It's just the fools^wconsumers who bought in early (and the non-essential employees) who get the shaft.

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#127

Post by _Microft »

coldpie wrote: post #30
Communitivity wrote: post #26

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.

What's our business model, how are we making money? Umm... don't ask me - I'm just the founder!

The sad thing is that you need to remind people of it. I would never start a business without an idea of a viable business model for it. What do they expect? Growing until they are too large to fail and then ... Godot arrives and everything is fine?

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#128

Post by floatingatoll »

dcow wrote: post #78

Honest question, why does Zoom’s security reputation matter more than Keybase’s? There’s so much pessimism in here but I really don't get it. I disliked zoom long before any of the security issues because frankly it’s rough, unpolished, software that’s never really worked well for me. I, for one, would be excited to get a functional Zoom with better security integrated into Keybase as an option for UI so that you hav…

The missing piece here isn’t a factor driven by technical logic, but a factor by human logic.

It was “cool” to use Slack until it became widely used, and then it was “cool” to use Keybase instead. Zoom is currently seen as “uncool” (E2EE screwup + widely used), so when they purchase “cool” Keybase, now Keybase automatically becomes “uncool” as well and people will look for something “cool” to migrate to next.

This isn’t a complete explanation of all possible reasons, but it’s absolutely a contributing factor.

EDIT: I predict Riot/Matrix will be the replacement “cool” for Keybase.

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#129

Post by blackkat »

cbg0 wrote: post #25

> 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…

“...will not proactively monitor...”

“...will not build a mechanism to decrypt live meetings...”

So, this means that they can record meetings, then retroactively decrypt and monitor meeting contents :)

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