[Cryptography] Any opinions on keybase.io?

Tony Arcieri bascule at gmail.com
Mon Dec 15 20:37:46 EST 2014


Keybase speaks to how terrible and unusable the existing SKS keyserver
system is.

However, they're trying to raise the usability bar, but the first thing you
have to do is install Node.js and run a bunch of crap from the command line.

How is that going to help Johnny encrypt?

Justin Troutman just wrote a really interesting article about this: if we
really want to help Johnny encrypt, we need to fix the tools that he is
already using, not make crypto-centric solutions, and certainly not
requiring Johnny to do anything on the command line:

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/533456/people-want-safe-communications-not-usable-cryptography/

Ideally encryption should be transparent to Johnny, and something Johnny's
email provider can flip on transparent to him (unless he actually wants to
knuckle down and dig into the crypto-details of what's going on behind the
scenes)

Beyond that I second the philosophical objections to centralization and
Keybase's proprietary nature: whatever replaces the SKS system should be
openly federated and open source.

-- 
Tony Arcieri
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