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Zoom Acquires Keybase

keybase.io

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Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#401

Post by rvz »

schoolornot wrote: post #357

Surprised they took the path of acquiring Keybase and hiring Alex Stamos (ex FB CISO) vs. hiring Moxie Marlinspike and other respectable professionals. Keybase's reputation has become eroded with their recent crypto currency signing nonsense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moxie_Marlinspike

Exactly. It was part of their 90-day strategic move in Zoom Security.

From this article: [0]

> Within days, Stamos was on the phone with Keybase co-founder Max Krohn, and the teams started working toward a deal. Yuan said after he talked with Krohn and dug into Keybase’s software, he was convinced this was the right deal.

[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/07/zoom-buys-keybase-in-first-d...

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#403

Post by Arathorn »

seemslegit wrote: post #340
Legogris wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a key difference here is fully open and collaborative specs, with Apache-licensed reference implementations for server and client that they dogfood themselves. It's also getting federated. So protocol, tech and network can live on regardless of who's running the servers people are using or driving the development of implementations.

Until one day the foundation decides federation is not in the best interest of the community, the standards and reference implementation start to reflect closely the interests of the leading player[s] with other implementations having to play catchup. It would have been a very cynical take if it wasn't business as usual in our industry.

That would be like the W3C declaring that interoperable hypertext is not in the best interest of the Web community. Or the Linux Foundation declaring that the Linux being open source is not in the best interest of the community.

It would be utterly sabotaging, and in the case of the Matrix Foundation, the Foundation is independently regulated by the UK Government as a Community Interest Company - and so anyone would be welcome to complain to the regulator (via https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/office-of-the-re...) that the Foundation was breaking its charter, and the Directors would face fines and/or legal action.

This is why Matrix is in a fundamentally different situation to Keybase, or Zoom, or pretty much any other communication project out there, and why we spent so much time (and money) setting it up properly as a non-profit Foundation.

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#406

Post by purple-dragon »

wutbrodo wrote: post #398
purple-dragon wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm doing neither. I'm pointing out a logical fallacy in the parent comment. Hiring people part-time and buying a company does not, on its own, convey anything about improvements to product quality, security, or the corporate culture of either. I can only infer from your comment that you might think I have some beef or issue with Zoom. I said no such thing.

Sure, but it's not "on its own", it's in the context of the investment in security mentioned by the parent comment.

At this point, I'm confused, and I'm not sure what point you or the other commenter are looking for me to concede. Zoom is paying some security consultants, pushed out some product updates, and bought Keybase, so it's a story book ending?

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#407

Post by SAI_Peregrinus »

Arathorn wrote: post #393
SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ease of use is the big elephant-in-the-room issue for Matrix. The only way I've found to join a room is the `/join` command. There's a GUI search, but it doesn't work. Users have to pick their identity provider, their home server, etc. Lots of choices, scary messages, and generally annoying to set up. Services that depend on someone who is technically inclined setting things up never become widespread outside technic…

The GUI search should work fine these days. (It was broken about 6 months ago due to the room lists getting too big, but was fixed in https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/pull/6019 ). It's true you have to pick a server to use, but we try to provide decent defaults (although it's true matrix.org has been overloaded recently). We're trying to simplify onboarding via P2P Matrix - by default, you'd start off entirely P…

I last used it for the recent (Thursday, April 30th) Rust Zurich meetup. I've got it installed via apt, and updated to

riot-web version: 1.6.0 olm version: 3.1.3

Search didn't find the room. /join did.

Also it just took me over a minute to find the version number, because the client settings are hidden in a dropdown menu under my user name, not in the gear icon (tooltip "settings") on the upper left or the hamburger menu that says explore, and even in the right dropdown it's under "settings->help & about" instead of just under "help" where the "about" box has lived in every single program since the '90s...

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#409

Post by folex »

Arathorn wrote: post #393
SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ease of use is the big elephant-in-the-room issue for Matrix. The only way I've found to join a room is the `/join` command. There's a GUI search, but it doesn't work. Users have to pick their identity provider, their home server, etc. Lots of choices, scary messages, and generally annoying to set up. Services that depend on someone who is technically inclined setting things up never become widespread outside technic…

The GUI search should work fine these days. (It was broken about 6 months ago due to the room lists getting too big, but was fixed in https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/pull/6019 ). It's true you have to pick a server to use, but we try to provide decent defaults (although it's true matrix.org has been overloaded recently). We're trying to simplify onboarding via P2P Matrix - by default, you'd start off entirely P…

Awesome work, thank you for that! Keep it up! :)

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#410

Post by dewey »

zelly wrote: post #397
dijit wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't tie identity to keys. Not to mention it's notoriously slow and has been shown to be an insecure method of distributing keys (due to the fact that anybody can upload any key).

Anyone can upload a key to keybase dot com too. You should never trust a key belongs to someone unless you have verified the fingerprint by other means e.g. speaking to them. This is basic security we have known since the 80s. Keybase dot com is a step backwards if anything because of the false sense of security it creates, as if they don't have a giant attack surface.

You don't understand what Keybase does.

The whole point is that you don't just use it to upload a key. You link various verified identifies of yours across the web to your Keybase account so people know the PGP key there is the one of the verified person. It's a way to tie all your verified identifies together.

If someone would manage to compromise a bunch of identities of someone on the internet, and then create a Keybase account with them and then upload a compromised PGP key that would be a problem if you don't verify the key. But that's a bit of a stretch.

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