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Keybase and the Keybase Filesystem (KBFS)
Deozaan:
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/introducing-the-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.
-https://keybase.io/introducing-the-keybase-filesystem
--- End quote ---
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.-https://keybase.io/introducing-the-keybase-filesystem
--- End quote ---
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.-https://keybase.io/introducing-the-keybase-filesystem
--- End quote ---
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.-https://keybase.io/
--- End quote ---
MilesAhead:
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:
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!
-MilesAhead (February 05, 2016, 02:26 PM)
--- End quote ---
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.-https://keybase.io/introducing-the-keybase-filesystem
--- End quote ---
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:
Keybase gives 10GB to everyone.
-Deozaan (February 05, 2016, 02:47 PM)
--- End quote ---
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:
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.
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