I was starting to look at the space of public trustworthy identities, are there any viable alternatives out there that are vouched for in the community?
Zoom Acquires Keybase
381–390 of 751 posts
Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase
#382The negativity here is astounding. This really comes down a company putting their money where their mouth is. Think about the reasons you'd decide to acquire Keybase. It certainly isn't for PR as most people have no idea what Keybase is. What we are seeing is that Zoom is truly concerned about how their security posture is hurting their business. Remember they aren't the only game in town and there are plenty of comp…
I am a Keybase user.
I am disappointed by Keybase's impending doom.
If that comes across as negative, it's because it is.
Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase
#383Keybase' 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 remember thinking they were neat a few years ago, I made an account and tried out exchanging some keys. It’s slick but I don’t see how it was ever going to be a mainstream product for non technical users who mostly don’t even understand what encryption is. Haven’t heard anything about them since, I kinda already assumed they were dead.
It doesn’t have to be mainstream. A niche product can be viable.
Unless you begin to accept investors money who want an exponential growth at all cost. But if that’s what you want as an investor, no idea why you would invest in Keybase.
Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase
#384Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, and here is a counterexample from the 1600-1800s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company Literally they bought an army and took over India for money.
Need to keep in mind we now remember this endeavor as ethically challenged, but was it literally 100% for money or did want of these goods play a role: > cotton, silk, indigo dye, salt, spices, saltpetre, tea, and opium. Surely access to those provides some benefit other than making money, which it also did for them. Also worth noting that not every company is ... that one .
> was it literally 100% for money or did want of these goods play a role:
> cotton, silk, indigo dye, salt, spices, saltpetre, tea, and opium. Surely access to those provides some benefit other than making money, which it also did for them.
This is an utterly meaningless distinction. Money is fungible with all of those goods.
Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase
#385So, 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.
I'm pretty sure I ended up receiving a load of XLM without opting in at all.
Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase
#386Earlier quoted context omitted.
> communication company that has its entire dev team in China citation needed Also, what are you trying to imply by this assertion?
"Zoom is based in California’s Silicon Valley, but it owns three companies in China that develop its software. The Citizen Lab said the structure allowed the company to lower its development costs, but added “this arrangement may make Zoom responsive to pressure from Chinese authorities.”" https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/apr/24/uk-governmen... The implication is that China is hostile and leverages their powe…
I don't think it's true that Zoom has its "entire dev team in China"; doing some research myself reveals Zoom definitely has engineering operations in the US[0][1].
I'm not disagreeing with you on the implications of having engineering teams in China, I think you would like to put that paragraph in your original post to give some context.
[0] Tech job postings in US: https://zoom.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/Zoom/0/refreshFacet/318c8...
[1] H1b filing on engineering positions: https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=Zoom+Video+Communications+...
edit: better formatting and grammar
Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase
#387I have been working on this decentralized key-value database: https://github.com/kevacoin-project/kevacoin
Together with W3C's draft Decentralized Identifiers (DID: https://www.w3.org/TR/did-core/), it could provide a decentralized alternative.
Not sure what is the best way to verify Twitter/Github account though. This has to be managed by users themselves. E.g. one user posts a proof in the Twitter account, the other user verifies the proof by checking the proof against the public key posted in the database.
Edit: updated description.
Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase
#388Earlier quoted context omitted.
why not look at the problem the other way around? I don't have much respect for zoom's security practices, while I do have much respect for the keybase team. Perhaps this is Zoom's way of admitting that there is no way they can just solve the problem internally by keeping doing what they're doing and they need to get some fresh blood and build upon good practices designed outside their current culture.
It seems that we live in an era where if you made bad decisions in the past, you can never be trusted to make good decisions ever again. Even if you own your bad decisions and show lots of improvement. Nope. Once a pariah, always a pariah.
Organizations don't change without throwing out a massive number of people. The people who made bad decisions at Zoom are still there.
Leopards can't change their spots.
Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase
#389Earlier quoted context omitted.
> communication company that has its entire dev team in China citation needed Also, what are you trying to imply by this assertion?
Another citation: https://investors.zoom.us/static-files/09a01665-5f33-4007-8e... (warning, PDF) > We also operate research and development centers in China, employing more than 700 employees as of January 31, 2020. You can find more stories from last year talking about that was how Zoom had such a large engineering staff, is that it was cheaper for them to pay for R&D in china than in the US[0]. [0] https://www.cnbc…
The emphasis is on entirety, please see my other reply.
Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase
#390Earlier 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?
If Keybase acquired Zoom (haha), then, sure. This is a PR move for a public company. They'll probably gut Keybase, move their Chinese server generated AES128 keys to AES256 keys generated by you and uploaded to their Chinese server, then call it a day. 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…
Apple aquired NeXT and completely reinvented their organisation based on that.