Keybase.pub Shutting Down on March 1 2023
keybase.pub
keybase.pub
Maybe it's because development slowed down to a crawl but it has such an "old internet" feel to it. Like I'm using Kazaa or something.
Edit: To clarify, I understand that Keybase is not shutting down. I'm just saying hypothetically if it shuts down, which isn't unlikely in the next few years.
EDIT: No, I'm probably wrong.
> Although the service was a great showcase for the kinds of cool things that could be built with Keybase, the usage of this product never took off.
Maybe unclear wording here, but to clarify: KBFS (Keybase FileSystem) is not being shut down, only Keybase.pub is, which is a service which exposes selected files from KBFS on the web.
The file hosting (KBFSF) will still be a part of Keybase and remain working as-is.
It's already in a state where a new platform, major os change, architecture change could kill the apps usability for me. It's just coasting now.
It's pretty wild that you can see exactly the moment when Zoom bought them on their github activity graph: https://github.com/keybase/client/graphs/code-frequency
Didnt they buy it to ick it up with some dirty form of surveillance capitalism?
8 months is not a problem, at least if the software isn't super complex and has a ton of bugs (both recently introduced and there since forever) and missing critical features (such as end to end encryption verification, the whole reason they exist). I'm sure it's a coincidence that no updates came out anymore after Zoom took over the team.
Anyway, without sarcasm, I don't use Keybase anymore but age isn't really the metric by which I define a dead app walking...
Based on their github issues and PRs, it looks like all they have to do to fix it is upgrade their version of react. The fact that they haven't done that yet is what tells me the app is dead.
Since then, activity on the open source keybase repos has been minimal and they have not made any major product changes.^1,2 Basically just keeping the lights on. I give big props to the few folks at Zoom that are still pushing commits. Keybase is/was awesome.
[^1]: https://github.com/keybase/client/graphs/contributors [^2]: https://github.com/orgs/keybase/repositories
however, it's clear you're right - Zoom doesn't prioritize the product.
There's clearly value there, but yeah they need to find a way to make it sustainable.
It turns out the number of zeros required was zero.
A fork of Ripple XRP after Ripple was sold
Same dude that did both ^ also created and sold MtGox (likely insolvent) to Mark Karpeles
Need articbull to do all the citations on Jed/ripple/stellar and how keybase ended up having a stellar wallet
If I had to choose between them not existing, or existing to be acquired then I'm glad they choose what they did.
That said, Zoom is the reason the lights are still on, even if not a lot of work is being done on the product. Keybase never really had a solid marketable product to begin with, so I honestly don't see it going down another way. They seemed to be entirely set up to get acquired at some point, regardless who or what their plans were.
You configure a secret token and all servers which know the token automatically sync via BitTorrent. You don't need to manage lists of server IDs like with syncthing, it's completely peer-to-peer.
Previous HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22995792
Are there any others to consider? It's been quite sad to see Keybase so stifled after being acquired. :-(
I'll miss coin flipping [0] dearly, though.
They probably need to charge close to $10/m just to break even for what you get for free.
echo Hello >> /keybase/private/Alice,Bob/chat.txt
while the recipient types
tail -f /keybase/private/Alice,Bob/chat.txt
and it just works!
edit: end-to-end encrypted too!
It only ever was a proof-of-concept and I haven't touched it for years. It may not be working anymore.
It's just the keybase.pub web hosting service per se that's shutting down.
> "No Keybase Filesystem (KBFS) data will be removed from any user public folders. All data will remain safe and viewable by others running Keybase. Other features of Keybase including Chat, KBFS, Teams, Git, Wallet and others will continue to run normally as well."
But since Keyoxide doesn't depend on a central authority to manage proofs, it is definitively going to be the future in this space. Nobody can really kill it.
Github secrets is one place but that's a one-way, write-only street.
I'll mark this 'keybase.pub being shutdown' as the second downfall of Keybase. Yes, others will say that "its only keybase.pub" but it's the start. Keybase will slowly disappear.
Are there any open source alternatives with quality UX and documentation?
I am glad it's just keybase.pub that's affected atm.
As far as I know, there isn't anything that covers the same amount of features with the same security as Keybase, particularly the whole webring/authenticated accounts/chain that it's based on.
Kind of wish Signal built this into their product.
I'd love if our new employee could just verify me or one other colleague and mark that I'm/we're trusted for one layer of verifications also. Now, they have to open up our directory and compare everyone manually before being able to safely make use of the big circle group chats.
Wire is even worse: you get to verify individual devices instead of users. Doesn't require a phone (or a number, but I mean a phone here), though.
And that's pretty much it for feature-complete-ish chat applications. Not that unreliable/buggy (Element) or incomplete (Threema) software has this either. It's basically down to PGP but those clients (GnuPG, Thunderbird) are so horrible that almost nobody uses it there, even if PGP use in general is comparatively high in Germany.
Where now we trust the server for 99% of chats, a web of trust might let an order of magnitude more Signal users have a local root of trust. At least when considering the key distribution attack vector; there are more, such as update distribution, but we'll get there one attack at a time. Except when we take steps backwards by not implementing what predecessors already had...
If I could pay to subscribe to Keybase, I could probably subscribe to it for several years before it cost me more than I made from using it. :D
-Emily
-Emily
If we wanted one, we'd use logandark.net. We use that server to host many static files. It's just not easy to upload them; it requires logging into a control panel, navigating to the directory, and manually uploading the file. And we're not particularly interested in provisioning a set of shell scripts or cron jobs or whatever to make it easier, because that's not an easily reproducible setup.
-Emily
I've decided we're probably going to use WebDAV with our website~
-Emily
That's a strange sentence. Passwords shouldn't go over plain text (e.g. HTTP) and shouldn't be world-readable without authentication. If the database itself is encrypted then you could put it on any web server, even ye olde ftp, as a replacement for this service.
Looks like it's encrypted, so it shouldn't really matter: https://keybase.pub/logandark/passwords.kdbx
-Emily
"just put it on a normal web server" ignores the rest of the convenience that keybase.pub provided. It provided a virtual file system that can be accessed over plain HTTP. Sure, SSHFS exists but it's terrible and not fault-tolerant at all. Keybase did it way better.
-Emily
It sounds like you want WebDAV? It’s an extension to HTTP and you can mount it as a folder in most desktop environments without any additional software.
-Emily
-Emily
Here's the brochure/"marketing-y" link to the nextcloud info around sharing, such as via links: https://nextcloud.com/sharing/
And, here's the more in depth info that goes a little deeper: https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/latest/user_manual/en/file...
Note: Instead of sharing the file via memorable links, if possible, having each user download the nextcloud client and sync the file that way is more ideal/better/faster...of course, that approach may not align with your use-case. I hope the above helps! Good luck!
I thought this would be it but they never seemed to see themselves as fulfilling that role, despite from the outside it looked like that was their big opportunity.
(I'm not affiliated with them.)