keybase.io chat software - Any opinions?

Development
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https://keybase.io is now also offering a chat software.

Any opinions?

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  • I don’t see source code.
  • No fleshed out technical spec for audits - I wouldn’t touch it.
  • They seem to criticize tried and tested crypto implementations and suggest their own homebrewed solutions - that makes me cringe a bit.
  • Anyone who praises the RAM munching turd that is Slack is suspect.
  • No server side components of keybase itself or the chat client ever released to the public
  • AFAICT Keybase is really just a glorified keyserver that managed to market themselves really well and score VC funding. They don’t seem to care for or respect Free Software so I don’t care about them :slight_smile:
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FWIW, the client source is available under BSD 3-clause: GitHub - keybase/client: Keybase Go Library, Client, Service, OS X, iOS, Android, Electron

I can’t disagree with any of your other comments though.

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Any updates?

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I am also interested in any other opinions. Or maybe HulaHoop changed his mind? Maybe it’s worth coming back to the subject, in the end it’s been two years.

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https://anarc.at/blog/2016-03-10-keybase/#privacy-policy-issues

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=792916#21

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Has there been any change in opinion on this? The devs actively maintain quite a few repos on GitHub. I’m not sure if it’s as open as we’d like, but we’re using their v3 onion in sdwdate (sdwdate/30_default.conf at aa087324f021e3118615aec2990b6653de05c2b8 · Kicksecure/sdwdate · GitHub) and they’re a stable, Tor-friendly site at least.

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related:
new, fixed keyserver - keys.openpgp.org

Please see sdwdate Time Sources Criteria and raise that here in case that seems inappropriate:
Suggest Trustworthy Tor Hidden Services as Time Sources for sdwdate

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