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Zoom Acquires Keybase

keybase.io

271–280 of 751 posts

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#271
post #257
post #54

> Ultimately Keybase's future is in Zoom's hands Well, that definitely translates to uncertainty and ultimately the death of Keybase.

I saw that coming when they shoehorned a pointless cryptocurrency that nobody uses into it.

It was actually a really nice stellar wallet implementation. A bad bet perhaps, in hindsight. Unfortunately, this acquisition means I won’t be using it anymore for the foreseeable future.

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#272
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Is wayland support even a femto blip on Zoom's radar ?

They do keep saying "multiplatform", but I guess that's Windows/macOS/iOS/Android, not Linux.

They're not the only ones though, this is what most companies call "on any device".

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#273
post #214

So, the company that got bribed by a shitcoin promoter to backdoor the keybase app so it can abuse your secret keybase identity keys to place permanent, non-removable shitcoin ads on your profile[1] (and then immediately denied that it was a backdoor and also lied about implementing the ability for users to remove the ads keybase got paid to place[2]) is now joining up with the company that has shipped sketchy backdo…

1: it wasn't a backdoor 2: it wasn't a backdoor

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#275
post #244
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who works at an open-source-focused business, I respectfully disagree. Unlike proprietary software, open source software doesn't depend on the broken window fallacy. As a result, it's really hard to make open source profitable. There's lots of different avenues to get there, and I don't like to fault someone for their efforts if the bulk of their work goes towards improving open source software, as I think…

I mean, there's a fatal flaw in the broken window fallacy anyway: > It is not seen that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one thing, he cannot spend them upon another. It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way, which this accident has prevented.[1…

That feels like strict oposit of the falacy claim, which would hold in case of perfectly stable and suppied currency is employed. Still would be rational to invest research, diversify against theft etc.

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't follow your reasoning about proprietary software depending on the broken window fallacy. I don't see how Google's proprietary search engine or Facebook's proprietary interface to our social network rely on the broken window fallacy. Would you mind elaborating?

Sure! The idea is that each proprietary project is wasting effort implementing their own clones of everyone else's software. To use your example, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Yandex etc etc are all developing their own search engines. Instead they could all be contributing to one search engine to push the state of search engine software forward, instead of all spinning their wheels re-doing what everyone else is doing.…

Aside from whether this matches the typical meaning of "broken window fallacy," I think the substance of what you're saying doesn't match reality.

Open source is famous for fostering a bunch of different approaches to the same problem, and slightly different forks of the same concept. That's the "bazaar" in the famous metaphor, as opposed to the "cathedral" of monolithic, hierarchical, linear proprietary development within a closed-source company.

"Everyone working on the same thing" only works well when there is broad agreement on what that thing should be, and strong governance to resolve disputes. National highway systems, militaries, and power grids are good examples.

I don't think search engines are a good example of where this would work; it's not clear in advance what will make a given search engine better. Thus we benefit from a variety of competing approaches, essentially to expand the space in which we're searching for the optimum.

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#277
post #66
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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 doesn't seem certain that they won't dogfood in addition to using the expertise internally.

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#278
post #28

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".

The fact that the ultimate goal of most startups is to "exit" says an awful lot. It's an obvious signal that they are not prioritizing your needs in the long-term.

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#279

It's kinda ironic that Keybase disappears into Zoom the day after Matrix/Riot enabled end-to-end encryption by default, with cross-signed device verification similar to Keybase's concept of connected keys - see https://blog.riot.im/e2e-encryption-by-default-cross-signing... . In other words, a fully open source (and open standardised) alternative continues to exist in the form of Matrix. [disclaimer: project lead for…

What endgame do you think your company has other than eventually selling out its userbase in one way or another ?

Matrix isn’t a company, it’s a non-profit foundation, expressly set up to protect its users: see https://matrix.org/foundation for details.

Riot is a Matrix client made by New Vector (https://vector.im), the company started by the team who originally created Matrix. The endgame there is to sell Matrix hosting (https://modular.im), support and other value-added services for Matrix. We are categorically not going to sell out our userbase - and we have no reason to; if we did, they’d just move to a different Matrix service provider.

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#280
post #214

So, the company that got bribed by a shitcoin promoter to backdoor the keybase app so it can abuse your secret keybase identity keys to place permanent, non-removable shitcoin ads on your profile[1] (and then immediately denied that it was a backdoor and also lied about implementing the ability for users to remove the ads keybase got paid to place[2]) is now joining up with the company that has shipped sketchy backdo…

After reading part of [1], I have no idea how you draw the conclusions you do.

I was playing around with a bunch of different crypto currencies when Keybase did the airdrop with Stellar. At every point in the process, it was opt in. Then I received ~$60 and that was it.

It seems your article was going for sensationalism and was highly disputed by all commenters on HN, not covered up by some capital driven conspiracy.

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