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Zoom Acquires Keybase

keybase.io

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Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#131

Post by MiroF »

sdlkfgj wrote: post #113
degenerate wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider these promises a warrant canary. They will be removed at some point.

only that it is not. warrant canaries must be written in the past tense. This is future tense. So they can monitor millions of calls, and give your information away at every second. This text only tells you about the next second (a promise they will break too, but then the text will be about the next second)

Perhaps it's my inexperience with the english language showing, but I thought "has" in this context was past tense.

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#132

Post by vz8 »

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…

Just out of curiosity, what was it about Zoom that never worked well for you? I work with oodles of academics, and that was the singular reason they flocked to Zoom - out of box ease of setup / ease of use that trumped WebEx and GoTo Meeting.

Privacy considerations were secondary and only came to light (from their perspective) during the increased scrutiny brought during COVID-19.

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#133

Post by bjoli »

INTPenis wrote: post #52
roblabla wrote: post #34

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…

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.

Sure, the reputation might be tarnished, but to it seems like they have hired recently to ensure people that they are taking measures to change that.

This seems like an extension of that. If anyone has thought a lot about multi-party encrypted communication it is the keybase folks.

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#134

Post by pwinnski »

OJFord wrote: post #105
roblabla wrote: post #34

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…

Isn't getting bought and there being no plans for your business bonkers? Or at least, it's a bonkers/highly-unusual admission that it's an acqui-hire.

Bonkers how? Zoom gave them money, they took the money.

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#135

Post by AgloeDreams »

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!

> They are making a lot of money which is what the business was made for.

I miss the days when businesses existed not just to serve investors but also their employees and the common good. It's like a 1%-er meta profit model where the actual business is in buying and selling the business and the core business is really just a temporary front that is designed to never make a profit, just create fancy looking charts and eventually bait and switch consumers when it is sold to the highest bidder and the employees all eventually lose their jobs.

One day, VC funding will either be illegal or required. considering the flow of money in this exchange, I'm betting on the second.

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#136

Post by zoomablemind »

andrepd wrote: post #55
ithkuil wrote: post #40

Earlier 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.

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

Zoom may be also managing the perceptions. Some users will jump to conclusions that the aquisition means integration, like an plug-in, bam! the bad part swapped with a good one.

Hiring consultants may be perceived like starting an investigation, not getting the fix now.

The question remains how soon and how true this will translate to the stated goal of true end to end encryption.

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#137

Post by SamBam »

thecureforzits wrote: post #111
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…

Rough and unpolished, perhaps... but zoom is super popular because it's dead simple and gets the job done, and all the big players could learn a lot from them about putting end users first and not trying to leverage them just to push other products. To me the only question is whether Zoom will screw it up by emulating the mistakes that the big players have made.

Yes to all this.

I've been juggling a lot of meetings between Zoom and my kid's school on different platforms, and the difference between Zoom and Google Meet is night and day. Schools are mostly switching to the latter because of the security concerns, but damn is it terrible. It's like Skype from 15 years ago.

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#138

Post by dcow »

coldpie wrote: post #108
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…

What I want is PKI that works for real people. Keybase was trying to be that, and I was really excited about it. But, that's not what Zoom is selling. So Keybase being acquired by Zoom means what I wanted is dead.

Thats fair. And it‘s a much more interesting discussion IMO. Why is Keybase only really used for chat? I mean you can `keybase pull` all your friends’ pgp keys into your local keyring. It’s way way better than reading off fingerprints at a key-signing party. And yet that still didn't lower the barrier enough for people to actually use crypto for shit. Maybe the key is email. Maybe Keybase missed an opportunity to bring email into the equation so everybody could do “web stuff” backed by social pgp without a second thought.

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#139

Post by mdtusz »

sdlkfgj wrote: post #113
degenerate wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider these promises a warrant canary. They will be removed at some point.

only that it is not. warrant canaries must be written in the past tense. This is future tense. So they can monitor millions of calls, and give your information away at every second. This text only tells you about the next second (a promise they will break too, but then the text will be about the next second)

> Zoom has not and will not build a mechanism to decrypt live meetings for lawful intercept purposes.

That seems to include past tense.

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#140

Post by smacktoward »

frogpelt wrote: post #102
ithkuil wrote: post #40

Earlier 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.

Tell that to Microsoft.
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