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FOKS: Federated Open Key Service

foks.pub

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Re: FOKS: Federated Open Key Service

#51

Post by aspenmayer »

hofrogs wrote: post #12

[flagged]

I think this complaint is likely against HN guidelines against these kinds of complaints about the site layout or how the page is designed. Will be flagging this complaint every time in the future because I consider it against guidelines.

That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without consideration, per Hitchens’s Razor. I don’t think research exists about a relation between AI generated images and quality of the project using them, so your complaint seems like motivated reasoning because you believe that generated images are a sign of poor quality or judgement in an area that would reflect on other aspects of the project. The fact that our perceptions are colored in this way is not accurate, and is gamed by marketers. Criticism of the promotional aspects of a project like this which isn’t commercial or customer facing is not very convincing on your part and deserves being called out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchens%27s_razor

Re: FOKS: Federated Open Key Service

#52

Post by rapnie »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #40
maxtaco wrote: post #2

Max here, author of FOKS. I find it interesting how much glue is required to perform basic cryptographic operations, even in 2025. Imagine a very simple idea like encrypting a secret with a YubiKey. If it's an important secret, that you really don't want to lose, then now you need a second YubiKey as a backup, in case the primary is lost or breaks. But now how do you encrypt and how do you rotate the primary out if n…

If you haven't seen KERI they're worth a read, I found out about them at an Internet Identity Workshop. It has all those quality of life features for public keys - revocation, rotation, recovery. "Key Event Receipt Infrastructure". Relies on "witnesses" which I don't know if I love it but their presentation impressed me. https://keri.one/

A good 3-part "Hitchhiker guide" introduction to Keri is available to get a quick overview. Here part two "What exactly is KERI?":

https://medium.com/finema/the-hitchhikers-guide-to-keri-part...

Re: FOKS: Federated Open Key Service

#53

Post by raphinou »

I am working on an open source project where users provide signatures of their projects artifacts (this is oversimplified for the sake of the discussion).

Started using Minisign as the signature scheme. But we're struggling to find a clean solution for users keys renewal, revocation and updated public key distribution. I thought foks might help for that but the examples don't seem to confirm this. Basically the question I need to answer is :how can users trusting an existing signing key also trust the new key replacing it? I hoped we might outsource this to foks, but I think I misunderstood foks in the first place.

Re: FOKS: Federated Open Key Service

#54

Post by akafazov »

raphinou wrote: post #53

I am working on an open source project where users provide signatures of their projects artifacts (this is oversimplified for the sake of the discussion). Started using Minisign as the signature scheme. But we're struggling to find a clean solution for users keys renewal, revocation and updated public key distribution. I thought foks might help for that but the examples don't seem to confirm this. Basically the quest…

Try looking into SSI (self-sovereign identity) and verifiable credentials - the use-case you are referring to.

Re: FOKS: Federated Open Key Service

#55

Post by maxtaco »

raphinou wrote: post #53

I am working on an open source project where users provide signatures of their projects artifacts (this is oversimplified for the sake of the discussion). Started using Minisign as the signature scheme. But we're struggling to find a clean solution for users keys renewal, revocation and updated public key distribution. I thought foks might help for that but the examples don't seem to confirm this. Basically the quest…

This would be a great application for us! We are not exactly there yet, for reasons of privacy. Right now, there is no way for alice@host to allow unauthenticated users to view her profile. But we can definitely allow this on a host-by-host basis. With this small change, I think your application fits very naturally.

I wonder, what sort of interface is right for you? A library to compile against or a CLI app to shell out to? If a library, which languages?

Re: FOKS: Federated Open Key Service

#56

Post by silon42 »

throwaway328 wrote: post #49
kstrauser wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that different from disliking their font preference? It's an aesthetic choice, made by someone who's not advertising their web design expertise, that's purely subjective. If this site were their product, maybe that'd matter. But why does that matter in this context?

If someone used comic sans for their cryptographic software landing page, and someone else said: "this font makes me wonder if I can have any faith in this human being's aesthetic sense", I am willing to bet a nickel that you wouldn't be employing any of the same arguments that you're now employing to defend their choice of LLM images so devotedly. Many people find using LLM images tacky and garish. It screams low-ef…

Hmm, maybe I need to reconsider having my choice of fonts enforced in my web browser settings (or have a whitelist of "comic sans", at least)

Re: FOKS: Federated Open Key Service

#57

Post by hobofan »

It looks cool, and I agree with the creators that something like this ought to exist and optimally free from monetization incentives.

From a user standpoint it does seem like quite the undertaking to introduce it though. Most of the needs I'm looking for from such a system are currently already filled quite well by SOPS[0], where I would say I get 80% of the features (I care about) for 10% of the complexity.

[0]: https://getsops.io

Re: FOKS: Federated Open Key Service

#58

Post by raphinou »

maxtaco wrote: post #55
raphinou wrote: post #53

I am working on an open source project where users provide signatures of their projects artifacts (this is oversimplified for the sake of the discussion). Started using Minisign as the signature scheme. But we're struggling to find a clean solution for users keys renewal, revocation and updated public key distribution. I thought foks might help for that but the examples don't seem to confirm this. Basically the quest…

This would be a great application for us! We are not exactly there yet, for reasons of privacy. Right now, there is no way for alice@host to allow unauthenticated users to view her profile. But we can definitely allow this on a host-by-host basis. With this small change, I think your application fits very naturally. I wonder, what sort of interface is right for you? A library to compile against or a CLI app to shell…

Interesting! We're at a very early stage of the implementation and develop in rust. We aim to provide multi-sig capabilities, as defined in a JSON file where the public keys of the signers can be found. If a signer looses a key, we want this 'signers' file to be updatable with the new key. We decided that signers can be humans of processes, so the keys are not an identity of a person, which might be an important detail. Currently, to update a signers file, other members of the multi-sig must sign the update. This works fine, but we are early enough in the project implementation to explore other approaches, hence my question.

We'd rather not shell out to a cli, and would preferably go with a lib or rest interface.

Re: FOKS: Federated Open Key Service

#59

Post by raphinou »

akafazov wrote: post #54
raphinou wrote: post #53

I am working on an open source project where users provide signatures of their projects artifacts (this is oversimplified for the sake of the discussion). Started using Minisign as the signature scheme. But we're struggling to find a clean solution for users keys renewal, revocation and updated public key distribution. I thought foks might help for that but the examples don't seem to confirm this. Basically the quest…

Try looking into SSI (self-sovereign identity) and verifiable credentials - the use-case you are referring to.

Thanks for the pointers. Are first glance, SSI seem to be mainly Blockchain based, which we diverted from to be able to have easy on premise deployments. Verifiable credentials look interesting, but need to check usability. We want our solution to be very easy to use.

Re: FOKS: Federated Open Key Service

#60

Post by KronisLV »

chowells wrote: post #28
kstrauser wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that different from disliking their font preference? It's an aesthetic choice, made by someone who's not advertising their web design expertise, that's purely subjective. If this site were their product, maybe that'd matter. But why does that matter in this context?

Because it shows a lack of respect for and understanding of the work graphic artists actually do. Now if that's your brand, great. You are communicating it effectively. If it's not your brand, it's probably worth considering the subtext in your presentation.

> Because it shows a lack of respect for and understanding of the work graphic artists actually do.

If I cannot afford a graphic designer, then my choices are:

  - AI slop
  - MS Paint graphics (or really poorly made stuff in Inkscape)
  - stealing someone else's icons and graphics off of Google Images (or trying to find stuff with an open license)
  - not including graphics
Obviously the first one is the easiest when you want something, but also quite controversial.
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