TheBitStick #BLM #ACAB @thebitstick@librem.one

Keybase, the company that asks you to upload your private keys to their servers, has just been acquired by Zoom, an essentially Chinese company notorious for having terrible concepts on how encryption should be implemented.

Even if you gave Keybase the benefit of the doubt beforehand, this is corporate suicide at it's most graphic. Delete your Keybase keys. Close your account. Rotate everything that Keybase touched, be that password or cryptomaterial.

https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2020/05/07/zoom-acquires-keybase-and-announces-goal-of-developing-the-most-broadly-used-enterprise-end-to-end-encryption-offering/

Zoom acquired Keybase today.

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 existing, open ecosystem
2. May have open-source clients, but server is closed source and does not federate
3. Pretty UI and good marketing
4. VC funded