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Keybase launches encrypted Git

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Re: Keybase launches encrypted Git

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I don't understand what GitHub/GitLab does that makes branches different from Git itself (which seemed to be the claim I was replying to).

Thanks for replying, I understand your position better now. > I guess I don't understand what GitHub/GitLab does that makes branches different from Git itself [in the GP] The GP is mistaken. Their understanding of objects & refs seems different to how I've seen them refered to in the majority of git literature. For passing readers: refs (branches and tags) are just git's way of labelling a commit (which are stored as…

Right, there's no PRs/MRs in Git itself, but branches are there, specifically in that there's nothing about the existence of or use of branches in GitHub/GitLab that needs to be brought back into Git, that stuff is already there.

I recognize and accept the argument that it might be nice for Git to track merge-requests and issues (hence my link to Fossil SCM)

Re: Keybase launches encrypted Git

#252
post #10

Keybase team member here. Interesting fact: git doesn't check the validity of sha-1 hashes in your commit history. Meaning if someone compromises your hosted origin, they can quietly compromise your history. So even the fears about data leaks aside, this is a big win for safety. From an entrepreneurial perspective, this is my favorite thing we've done at Keybase. It pushes all the buttons: (1) it's relatively simple,…

So I love Keybase unconditionally and if you guys weren't rolling in physical offices (and not one in Boston) I'd have been beating down your door to come work there--I think what Keybase is doing is important and it's something I'd love to work on. But I have a serious question that maybe you can answer, and it's something everybody who I've showed this to has asked me: How is Keybase gonna make money? How am I assu…

https://keybase.io/jobs

Re: Keybase launches encrypted Git

#253
post #212
post #208

Wait, what exactly _is_ keybase? The home page says: > Keybase is a new and free security app for mobile phones and computers. ok, so, what does it do? > For the geeks among us: it's open source and powered by public-key cryptography. Still have no idea what it does .. > Keybase is for anyone. Imagine a Slack for the whole world, except end-to-end encrypted across all your devices. Or a Team Dropbox where the server…

It's a lot, isn't your third quote a pretty good description? > Keybase is for anyone. Imagine a Slack for the whole world, except end-to-end encrypted across all your devices. Or a Team Dropbox where the server can't leak your files or be hacked. It's not much of a reach to assume familiarity with Slack and Dropbox; the message is clearly that Keybase is those (via Keybase Chat & FS) but encrypted. For what it's wor…

> isn't your third quote a pretty good description?

It's not. I think the person who wrote it think it's good marketing, but even that, it is not.

Here, try to see if this makes any sense as a product description:

> FeedHamster is for anyone! Imagine a Yelp that's customized just for you! Or a YouTube feed that only shows you interesting videos that _you_ would like!

> Install FeedHamster now!

Now, can you guess what FeedHamster does? Maybe it curates content? Honestly I have no idea. I just made it up. It doesn't really say anything useful at all, but I think it makes more sense that that description on Keybase's website.

Re: Keybase launches encrypted Git

#254
post #230
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me one big benefit is that it's distributed. I like to keep my important documents backed up on all the computers i have, on a USB drive stored in a safe location and also store the data with a cloud provider. Now, if i update one document on computer A, and another document using computer B, i have to sync it to all other devices which is a PITA without git. You get into the situation where you don't know if the…

Wouldn't encrypted files with a service like Dropbox help? Containers usually sync well (only syncs changed parts). Only downside is that you can't access files without decryption software.

Dropbox, as all other "just-works" sync services, don't handle merge conflicts very good. Suddenly you have thousands of Filename_EditedByX(3).txt in every folder and dont know which one of them is the newest and don't have their most common ancestor version easily available for a 3-way merge.

Re: Keybase launches encrypted Git

#255
post #254
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't encrypted files with a service like Dropbox help? Containers usually sync well (only syncs changed parts). Only downside is that you can't access files without decryption software.

Dropbox, as all other "just-works" sync services, don't handle merge conflicts very good. Suddenly you have thousands of Filename_EditedByX(3).txt in every folder and dont know which one of them is the newest and don't have their most common ancestor version easily available for a 3-way merge.

To be fair, they cannot handle merge conflicts with encrypted containers. I find that merge conflicts almost always cause more trouble than the work of avoiding them from the start. As long as you don't share data (with containers unlikely), merge conflicts should be extremely rare (and anticipated).

Re: Keybase launches encrypted Git

#256
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi pass uses gpg encryption on the text files my only concern are the file names which can leak meta info, for example just searching GitHub https://github.com/zurchpet/pass shows this person has passwords in a public repository but encrypted. Nevertheless I can see that the file names are credit card info and other sensitive info. It's like having a safe with a label "important stuff inside" ! Does keybase solve thi…

Yes, the contents of the git repository holding your pass files are encrypted, meaning that the file names are not visible to anyone without the private key (you). You may also want to look at https://github.com/roddhjav/pass-tomb

Thanks for that I'll consider it.

Re: Keybase launches encrypted Git

#257
On Linux, you can try this encrypted Git without installing Keybase or using the Keybase GUI. You need the following Go binaries from keybase*.deb: keybase, git-remote-keybase and kbfsfuse.

Start kbfsfuse (specify a directory as a mount point); put get-remote-keybase to your $PATH; run keybase git create myrepo; you can stop kbfsfuse now; then this works (after substituting $KEYBASEUSER):

  git clone keybase://private/$KEYBASEUSER/myrepo

Re: Keybase launches encrypted Git

#258

I made a test repository and proceeded to clone it using the keybase:// uri, expecting it not to work, but by some dark magic, it just did. Impressive!

Not in my case.

$:~/projectes$ git clone keybase:// [uri] Cloning into 'something'... fatal: I don't handle protocol 'keybase'

I'm on an ubuntu machine. What can I do to solve the problem? Keybase version 1.0.34-20171006000413+5fe91ae13

Re: Keybase launches encrypted Git

#259
post #84

Nice to see people work on git remote helpers, a shame that there's already a fine remote helper that is not tied to a specific hosting provider & uses GPG[0] already. 0: https://spwhitton.name/tech/code/git-remote-gcrypt/

I came here precisely to see how this compares to git-remote-gcrypt (which I use to protect my password-safe filenames). Anyone from keybase prepared to comment?

I'm not a Keybase developer, but I'm a user of Keybase Git, git-remote-gcrypt and git-gpg, and I've just written a comparison of the 3. Here you are:

http://ptspts.blogspot.com/2017/10/comparison-of-encrypted-g...

If I missed some of the aspects, please let me know.

Re: Keybase launches encrypted Git

#260
post #93

Keybase team member here. Interesting fact: git doesn't check the validity of sha-1 hashes in your commit history. Meaning if someone compromises your hosted origin, they can quietly compromise your history. So even the fears about data leaks aside, this is a big win for safety. From an entrepreneurial perspective, this is my favorite thing we've done at Keybase. It pushes all the buttons: (1) it's relatively simple,…

How does this compare to git-gpg, mentioned below in this thread? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15403360

See my comparison of Keybase Git, git-remote-gcrypt and git-gpg here: http://ptspts.blogspot.com/2017/10/comparison-of-encrypted-g...
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