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Last post Author Topic: Keybase and the Keybase Filesystem (KBFS)  (Read 24110 times)

Deozaan

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Keybase and the Keybase Filesystem (KBFS)
« on: February 05, 2016, 01:10 PM »
This is something I don't fully understand, so it's hard for me to summarize it or find the shortest relevant quote to share with you. Sorry.

[TL;DR]
Keybase sounds a little bit like a filesystem similar to IPFS, but with encryption built-in and made super easy. You don't have to know someone's Keybase account info to connect with them. You can create encrypted, shared files/folders with someone who doesn't even have a Keybase account. If you only know them on Twitter, you can use their Twitter account name, and Keybase will allow them (and you?) to link the Twitter handle to their Keybase account (when they finally create one).

For more info, check out this page on Keybase, which is more colorful and has lots of pictures and visually pleasing things and is written by someone who knows what they're talking about:

https://keybase.io/i...e-keybase-filesystem
[/TL;DR]

It has public directories shared with everyone as well as private ones, shared with no one or only the people you select.

Quote related to Public directories:

Public, signed directories for everyone in the world

You can now write data in a very special place:

/keybase/public/yourname

Every file you write in there is signed. There's no manual signing process, no taring or gzipping, no detached sigs. Instead, everything in this folder appears as plaintext files on everyone's computers. You can even open /keybase/public/yourname in your Finder or Explorer and drag things in.

Quote related to Private directories:

But there's more!

Keybase mounts end-to-end encrypted folders in /keybase/private.

/keybase/private/{people}

This is your own encrypted folder, just for you:

/keybase/private/yourname

And here's a folder only you and I can read. You don't have to create this folder, it implicitly exists.

/keybase/private/yourname,chris

Again, maybe you know me on twitter, and prefer to assert that:

/keybase/private/yourname,malgorithms@twitter

These folders are encrypted using only your device-specific keys and mine.

The Keybase servers do not have private keys that can read this data. Nor can they inject any public keys into this process, to trick you into encrypting for extra parties. Your and my key additions and removals are signed by us into a public merkle tree, which in turn is hashed into the Bitcoin block chain to prevent a forking attack.

And more about sharing with people who don't even use Keybase (yet):

Frictionless sharing

Soon, you'll be able to throw data into /keybase/private/yourname,pal@twitter, even if that Twitter user hasn't joined Keybase yet. Your app will encrypt just for you and then awake and rekey in the background when that Twitter user joins and announces a key.

And it may even answer the question about signing code which was asked by f0dder a few days ago:

Encryption's a pleasure...but what about verifying some source code release or announcement online? Keybase to the rescue; files, messages, streams: all can be signed, encrypted, decrypted, verified, with a keybase username.

Verifying a signature from someone you don't know will summarize all their public accounts and check them for you to make sure the signatures match up.
« Last Edit: September 24, 2017, 07:36 PM by Deozaan »

MilesAhead

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Re: The Keybase Filesystem
« Reply #1 on: February 05, 2016, 02:26 PM »
Microsoft was crying about giving OneDrive users 15 GB.  This keybase is going to have a directory for everyone in the world.  Roughly 7 billion people.  So every byte ends up costing them somewhere between 6 and 7 GB of storage.   Ouch.  That's a lot of disk farm to air condition!

Deozaan

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Re: The Keybase Filesystem
« Reply #2 on: February 05, 2016, 02:47 PM »
Microsoft was crying about giving OneDrive users 15 GB.  This keybase is going to have a directory for everyone in the world.  Roughly 7 billion people.  So every byte ends up costing them somewhere between 6 and 7 GB of storage.   Ouch.  That's a lot of disk farm to air condition!



Keybase gives 10GB to everyone.

Storage

We're giving everyone 10 gigabytes. Our quota model:

  • only the writer's quota is affected when writing in shared dirs. Woo-hoo! So you never have to worry about hurting another's quota or disk space (again: friction). Keybase has to work this way, since it doesn't work on the sync model or require approval before encrypting and sharing with someone.
  • history data does count towards your quota, and you'll soon have controls for how long to keep deleted blocks around.

There is no paid upgrade currently. The 10GB free accounts will stay free, but we'll likely offer paid storage for people who want to store more data.

Of course there won't be any space used for files/accounts that don't yet exist.

And I think I was wrong about it being decentralized storage. It looks like it is centralized, but uses some decentralization methods to verify ownership/identity, such as writing/checking signatures in the Bitcoin blockchain.

MilesAhead

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Re: The Keybase Filesystem
« Reply #3 on: February 05, 2016, 09:02 PM »
Keybase gives 10GB to everyone.

I am no math expert.  What is the name of a billion times a GB?  If they give 10GB/person and there are 7 billion people then it is 1024 * 1024 * 1000000000 * 7 bytes of free storage.  That is one hell of a big USB stick.  :)

Mark0

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Re: The Keybase Filesystem
« Reply #4 on: May 01, 2016, 07:37 AM »
I found this thread some times ago when I  tried looking for a Keybase invite.
Now that I got an account, I have some invites myself, so if you are interested, just let me know and I'll send one in PM.

MilesAhead

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Re: The Keybase Filesystem
« Reply #5 on: May 01, 2016, 06:32 PM »
I found this thread some times ago when I  tried looking for a Keybase invite.
Now that I got an account, I have some invites myself, so if you are interested, just let me know and I'll send one in PM.



wraith808

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Re: The Keybase Filesystem
« Reply #6 on: May 01, 2016, 07:50 PM »
I found this thread some times ago when I  tried looking for a Keybase invite.
Now that I got an account, I have some invites myself, so if you are interested, just let me know and I'll send one in PM.

I'll take one, if you still have any.

Mark0

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Re: The Keybase Filesystem
« Reply #7 on: May 02, 2016, 06:01 AM »
OK, gave out the invites I had, for the moment. 

Deozaan

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Re: The Keybase Filesystem
« Reply #8 on: May 02, 2016, 01:07 PM »
Now that I got an account[...]

How did you get an account? Did you install the Keybase filesystem and request access, or did you manage to get an invite from someone?

Mark0

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Re: The Keybase Filesystem
« Reply #9 on: May 02, 2016, 01:41 PM »
How did you get an account? Did you install the Keybase filesystem and request access, or did you manage to get an invite from someone?

I got a Keybase invite. Actually I haven't even tried the FS, as I was more interested in the keys discovery part, the multiple identities proofs based model in alternative to PGP Web of Trust, and the saltpack crypto.

wraith808

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Re: The Keybase Filesystem
« Reply #10 on: May 02, 2016, 03:10 PM »
If you need an invite, Deo, PM me.

Deozaan

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Re: The Keybase Filesystem
« Reply #11 on: May 02, 2016, 04:12 PM »
How did you get an account? Did you install the Keybase filesystem and request access, or did you manage to get an invite from someone?

I got a Keybase invite. Actually I haven't even tried the FS, as I was more interested in the keys discovery part, the multiple identities proofs based model in alternative to PGP Web of Trust, and the saltpack crypto.

Thanks. I installed the filesystem and requested an account about the same time I originally created this thread. I was trying to get an idea of how long the wait times were, wondering if you had requested an account about the same time I did or not. So I guess since you got an invitation, the wait time is still a mystery. :-\

If you need an invite, Deo, PM me.

OK. Thanks. :)

Deozaan

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Re: The Keybase Filesystem
« Reply #12 on: May 03, 2016, 12:50 AM »
I installed the Keybase client. But I haven't found any information in the CLI or documentation about how to access the filesystem. Where does this stuff reside?

wraith808

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Re: The Keybase Filesystem
« Reply #13 on: May 03, 2016, 12:56 PM »
Check out the following resources:

https://keybase.pub/
https://keybase.io/docs/kbfs

Short of it is that it's released to a limited few.

If you're a Keybase user on OSX or Debian/Ubuntu and want early access to try it, email me at [email protected]. Make sure to read all the notes below. Windows users will be a couple weeks behind.

Deozaan

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Re: The Keybase Filesystem
« Reply #14 on: May 03, 2016, 01:48 PM »
Check out the following resources:

https://keybase.pub/
https://keybase.io/docs/kbfs

Short of it is that it's released to a limited few.

If you're a Keybase user on OSX or Debian/Ubuntu and want early access to try it, email me at [email protected]. Make sure to read all the notes below. Windows users will be a couple weeks behind.

Thanks. I was aware of http://keybase.pub/ but that's just a way to browse (read-only) the public folders. It looks like Windows users are out of luck for the time being on using (writing to) the Keybase filesystem. That's a pity, as it was the filesystem that I most wanted to try out.

I guess this is just another project I need to tuck away in the back of my mind and check on in a year or so to see if they've made any progress.

wraith808

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Re: The Keybase Filesystem
« Reply #15 on: May 03, 2016, 02:20 PM »
They said a couple of weeks behind.  But there's no indication of date on that post.  So it's possible it is available by now?

Deozaan

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Re: The Keybase Filesystem
« Reply #16 on: May 03, 2016, 02:32 PM »
It's possible, but I can't find any indication that KBFS is useable (writeable) on Windows sytems in any of the documentation.

Deozaan

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Re: The Keybase Filesystem
« Reply #17 on: August 26, 2016, 03:38 PM »
I just got an email with a bunch more invites and some details about new ways to invite other people.

I'd kind of forgotten about Keybase until I received this email and decided to check up on the latest progress of the project, but I can't find any news or official info about recent developments. Even the official blog hasn't been updated in almost 200 days.

Has anyone actually been using Keybase successfully in "the real world"?

Jibz

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Re: The Keybase Filesystem
« Reply #18 on: August 27, 2016, 03:14 AM »
The client repo (https://github.com/keybase/client) looks active, perhaps they just don't need more users for testing?

Would be nice if the Windows client got some love though .. it's not exactly in a state the average Windows user is likely to figure out what to do.

Mark0

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Re: The Keybase Filesystem
« Reply #19 on: February 09, 2017, 09:48 AM »
Interesting new development:

Introducing Keybase Chat
It's bigger than your address book

At Keybase we collectively use and love WhatsApp, Signal, Slack, and iMessage, to name a few. However, in all those apps: recipients are looked up by phone number or email.
That works ok with friends and coworkers.
But it sucks with people you know on the Internet. First off, they have to give you their phone number in a preliminary back and forth. That takes time and prevents you from sending your message until you hear back.
Then, to make sure you're really secure, you're supposed to compare special codes by meeting in person. That's impossible in most cases.
Keybase is different. For example, in Keybase chat, I can simply use my Hacker News name, malgorithms, as my secure address; no phone number or email needed. My Twitter username would work, too. Or even my Reddit username.


Deozaan

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Re: The Keybase Filesystem
« Reply #20 on: February 09, 2017, 01:07 PM »
Cool. Thanks for posting this. I'd have missed it. :Thmbsup:

Deozaan

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Re: The Keybase Filesystem
« Reply #21 on: February 09, 2017, 01:13 PM »
Anyone on Windows (10) got the Keybase client working? When I launch it I just see a Loading screen forever.

Keybase Loading.pngKeybase and the Keybase Filesystem (KBFS)

EDIT: I got it to work. It seems there was a problem migrating from my old version of Keybase to the latest version. I had to uninstall Keybase, move everything from my AppData/Roaming/Keybase folder into the AppData/Local/Keybase folder, reinstall Keybase, and now it works. :Thmbsup:
« Last Edit: February 09, 2017, 03:30 PM by Deozaan »

wraith808

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Re: The Keybase Filesystem
« Reply #22 on: February 09, 2017, 05:39 PM »
Thanks for that... probably would have taken me more time to figure that out  ;D

Deozaan

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Re: The Keybase Filesystem
« Reply #23 on: February 09, 2017, 07:30 PM »
Thanks for that... probably would have taken me more time to figure that out  ;D

It's not due to any intuition of my own. While trying to figure out the problem, I came across this and decided to give it a try:

There was recently a change in target installation directory, from %APPDATA%\Keybase to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Keybase. Sometimes the migration of settings fails. As a last resort, it should be OK to:

  • uninstall old Keybase + Dokan
  • copy everything remaining from %APPDATA%\Keybase to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Keybase
  • install the latest version from keybase.io

Deozaan

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Re: The Keybase Filesystem
« Reply #24 on: February 17, 2017, 02:31 PM »
Keybase updated itself today and now I'm stuck on the loading screen again...