[ocdtrekkie]

I wonder if the Mastodon community will pick up Keybase chat as the de facto chat option with this integration in place. Chat or private messaging has always been considered the weak link of the fediverse since it's easy for bad servers to mishandle "private" toots.

[0xb100db1ade]

I wish that Keybase could work with the Signal team on something.

Signal has a lot of experience in UI [1] and security, and Keybase had the identity proofs. I'd love to see them work together rather than compete.

[1] Signal UI used to be horrible but as of the past few months it's improved a ton! It's now my preferred SMS client.

[giggles_giggles]

>Signal UI used to be horrible but as of the past few months it's improved a ton!

That's funny, I've had the opposite experience. Once I got everyone I know to start using it and was completely locked-in, I started having all kinds of weird issues.

My favorite is when my phone has been off awhile. After I turn it back on, I get a notification for every message I sent/received on another device while it was off. Usually takes about 30 minutes for it to fully sync, buzzing and/or producing popups for every message along the way. I have about a dozen equally frustrating issues I could, if I had the time, enumerate.

And of course because it's free, there's no real support. Signal has been a huge disappointment for me. I'm preparing to move back to regular SMS, but now I have to untangle all of the users like my mother that I convinced to use Signal. Caveat emptor!

[pault]

You'd rather opt in to global passive surveillance than deal with an inconvenient UX?

[giggles_giggles]

It's not inconvenient, it's broken. The issue I described above is not the only misbehavior to which I'm frequently subjected. Another example: messages are delayed, often.

Recently I failed to reply to an urgent text about a medical diagnosis from my fiance due to Signal failing to push the message to my phone. This is unacceptable behavior from a critical application.

Do I get on a soapbox about how surveillance is terrible and miss being there for her by insisting on using Signal? No! I want her to be able to get in contact with me if there's an emergency, and that's the #1 priority.

[arthur_pryor]

(note: not trying to say the medical diagnosis scenario you describe is less important than your contribution to getting the world off SMS, just spitballing how we can work towards timely updates in our current world and wean off SMS)

in the situation you describe, or any urgent situation where speed of communication is paramount, what about bombardment through multiple channels? like, i'll often leave my phone out of my pocket, and not pay super close attention to it. and if it lights up with one text message, or one signal message, or whatever, i might not look at it. but if it's buzzing like crazy, or someone starts calling, i'd pick it up.

i guess what i'm saying is, "urgent" to me means signal/text/call/call someone that might be around the person/whatever, until the message gets through. if something is urgent, i would not send it solely by text. i've certainly had SMS messages get dropped or delayed many many times over the years.

can you really only use one messaging app at a time? signal is my primary messaging app, but i don't really find it bothersome to use whatsapp and regular SMS also. different people i communicate with prefer different channels, and often the same person will use different channels with me depending on the purpose (e.g., my dad mostly chats with me by SMS, and most of my immediate family's group chat is on SMS, but when my dad is texting with me about some sensitive personal financial info, it's over signal).

also, i hope that whatever the urgent issue was, it was resolved in an ok way. like i said, not trying to shortchange the urgency of a medical emergency or second guess your decision making or frustration at the time.

[pault]

Yeesh, that is really terrible, I'm sorry to hear that. I understand your reasons, but in signal's defense it is a free service, which is pretty amazing considering the number of users they are able to support. I suppose reliability is a trade-off, but it would be nice if they offered a paid tier with better performance.

[deadbunny]

You are aware that SMS is "best effort" as well? SMS is in no way guaranteed to be delivered in anything approaching an urget timeframe.

[dcbadacd]

The phone number requirement is a killing feature for me, makes it useless. I wouldn't put it even close to the UX bar Keybase has for me.

[0xb100db1ade]

I do, to some extent agree.

I think the idea is that privacy != anonymity. Signal provides the former, but not the latter.

It's tough. I think that usernames could become messy, but I also think it'd be amazing to anonymously tip a news reporter via Signal, but at the same time the latter would not be as safe as Tor etc.

[ocdtrekkie]

I would much rather have more competitors than fewer monolithic systems in this space, to be honest.

[phoe-krk]

How is Keybase chat federated? Using a centralized service defeats the purpose of a decentralized Fediverse.

[ocdtrekkie]

It's not, but decentralization isn't super effective for private channels of communication, particularly where neither end is running the software in question. (Most Mastodon users aren't site admins.)

But presumably if proving a Keybase user and a Mastodon user are the same is given, when a Mastodon user wants to contact another outside of Mastodon, Keybase Chat may be the new default choice.

[rickycook]

i think that’s pretty incorrect tbh; xmpp/otr, and matrix handle federation and private chat/encryption just fine

id much prefer to see chat that’s just thinly wrapped in a pgp implementation that gets its keys from keybase (maybe just initial secrets transferred with pgp for handshake or something)

[phoe-krk]

> but decentralization isn't super effective for private channels of communication

The two examples of that not being the case are OTR XMPP and PGP e-mail.

> particularly where neither end is running the software in question

You cannot have useful encrypted communication if your software does not support it.

[insomniacity]

Yeah, interesting point - this could actually pick up chat functionality for a whole heap of sites that don't have it, but are prepared to do the Keybase integration work.

[jdormit]

Why not Matrix? A federated chat protocol to go with a federated social media protocol.

[silvermast]

Please no. Centralization is always abused (eventually). Email + mastodon + IRC = happy little hackers.

[eridius]

Email is de-facto centralized at this point, with the overwhelming majority of email going through a small handful of giant providers. I don't remember the number anymore but some scary-high percentage of all email volume goes through Google servers.

[eitland]

1. There are still multiple options working options within the same ecosystem. And yes you can still self-host or pay to host[0]. Unlike on WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal where you have to choose one (or more) providers.

2. I find it weird how busy we are as a community are: scaring each other away from the solutions we should use by pushing Joe Average in front of us (like the post in this thread about mastodon.com being up for sale).

[0]: yes, there are problems. But FWIW mail disappeared before Gmail as well: I have memories of customers complaining about mail from "central USA" (or something) not arriving and after hassling our email provider and having them hassling their connections mail suddenly started to arrive. (And no I don't think it was acceptable then and I don't think it is acceptable now.)

[codetrotter]

Do you mean for encryption or do you mean using their servers also?

[coldacid]

My bet would be both. After all, why handle all the dirty work of implementing real-time chat that works across multiple different sites when you can just plug in Keybase instead? After all, if you're using it for encryption you already require people to have a Keybase account to have their chats encrypted.

[jeena]

Why would you install different Mastodon servers when you can go to twitter.com instead?

[dcbadacd]

I don't :P It's too tedious to keep an eye on multiple communities and manage my single identity.