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Zoom Acquires Keybase

keybase.io

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Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#71

Post by searchableguy »

geerlingguy wrote: post #46
Communitivity wrote: post #26

Given the security concerns around Zoom, and the apparent lack of QC that might have prevented those concerns, this news is appalling. I love Keybase, it's used by many people, but I suspect it will now die a quick death. More accurately I suspect it will slide into a coma - not quite dead, but not in wide use anymore either.

Yeah for the few people in the world who actually used Keybase and understood (at least partially) why it was a neat thing... most of those people are also those who have been following the Zoom debacle, and will likely consider abandoning the platform.

Might not be significant part of keybase and bots don't need privacy. ;)

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#72

Post by deathhand »

dcow wrote: post #37
rvz wrote: post #20

Looks like it wasn't a good idea to leave your private keys in Keybase's servers was it? Perhaps the moment that Keybase took VC funding a while back, it was over to begin with and the principles of being a "Slack competitor" and respecting their users privacy went straight out of the window and into the bin. I really had high hopes for Keybase as a Slack competitor, the cryptocurrency stuff I actively ignored, but t…

Or, maybe Keybase needs video, and Zoom needs chat and security, in order to compete with the new wave of “productivity” suites. Why would Keybase suddenly be a failure or get worse in the security department because they are owned by a successful video conferencing company?

It's deeper than "Chat Security". There is current litigation against Zoom marketing of the misuse of 'end to end' encryption. This is the best way forward of claiming ineptitude and their path to rectify.

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#73

Post by nathcd »

Mergers and acquisitions make me so sad :/ I need to stop letting myself get excited about VC funded companies, because it always ends in disappointment. I really should know better by now!

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#74

Post by bamboozled »

coldpie wrote: post #42
gspr wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, what? People gave Keybase their private keys?? Isn't keybase just some glorified modernized web of trust infrastructure?

It was well-intentioned. For a time, Keybase provided users the option to upload their private keys so they didn't have to maintain them themselves. You could just log into Keybase and send signed messages, decrypt messages, etc without the hassle of managing your keys locally. It was definitely a bad idea and I think they dropped it a few months/years later, but it at least wasn't totally out of left field.

They don't have access to your unencrypted private key, it's just a backup of your private key which is encrypted by (hopefully) a very strong password.

This feature saved my skin on one occasion.

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#75

Post by asdkhadsj »

coldpie wrote: post #66
dcow wrote: post #60

Earlier 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?

Well, it's pretty clearly an aquihire. Zoom gets a team of highly skilled cryptographers and Internet protocol experts. Good for them. But that means the team that created Keybase as an innovate PKI store won't be working on that anymore. That's not Zoom's business, and probably won't be, as Keybase themselves never figured out how to turn it into a business.

It bothers me that they even tried, honestly.

Keybase seems like something that should be small, isolated, FOSS, supported by a foundation, etc. They could have built a business _around_ Keybase I'd imagine, but all they managed to do with this is invalidate Keybase and make people like myself, who feared their business motivations, feel vindicated for being paranoid.

I'll never blame anyone for wanting to make money, to make a business, etc. But if you make a product that walks talks and acts like a FOSS project, but keep it to center your business around... I'll always be longing for a real, true FOSS replacement.

In this case a good looking FOSS alternative came out a few months ago iirc. Though for the life of me I can't remember the name.

edit: https://keys.pub/ - though I will still miss KBFS

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#76

Post by lord-squirrel »

jrockway wrote: post #27
richardknop wrote: post #8

Strange combination.

Why? Keybase's product is team chat. Zoom wants to kill Slack. Seems perfect. (Keybase's crypto stuff is nifty, but we all know there is no money in that. They tried to make money by integrating cryptocurrency, and people did NOT seem to like that. So here we are.)

Never thought of Keybase as a team chat product. Maybe thats just because I'm one of the older users :)

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#77

Post by edraferi »

ddevault wrote: post #53

Keybase helped me to identify a trend in the software industry: using a pretty UI to cover up the disruption of an open ecosystem with a closed, centralized replacement. Keybase seemed cool on the face of it - making encryption easier is a laudible goal, and PGP certainly could use the improvement. But, thanks to Keybase, now I ask different questions upfront. Beware the Keybase formula: 1. Integrates with an existin…

I wonder if we’ll get a fully open source release of the Keybase server out of this. It would be so awesome as a federated ecosystem...

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#78

Post by dcow »

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 have a serious “productivity” app. Why does the fact that zoom needs help in the security department automatically spell the end of times?

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#79

Post by mtmail »

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.

Zoom is publicly traded. Assume their blog post had to be approved by Zoom's press department.

Re: Zoom Acquires Keybase

#80

Post by plebian »

dcow wrote: post #60
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…

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?

Zoom is actually one of the view applications that can screen share on Wayland

I believe it's only enabled for a few distros though

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