What and why the heck… Keybase?!

Me: Writing this story…

Meanwhile in a parallel world: Sapiens! Identified by their public keys. Talking to each other, which are end to end encrypted.

Fantasy… and the day is very near. That’s gonna happen soon.

Maybe in that world, Keybase would be their communication medium and mastodon could be their social media.

Well, dreams apart. Let’s jump to the content now.

Logo of Keybase

How about an application with integrated storage, version control system, ability to make payments, end-to-end encrypted, privacy sound and secure.

So that is KEYBASE!

In short, keybase is partially a d-app with many cool features of various important applications clubbed together… … … wait, what is a d-app now??!

Decentralized Application, in short, d-app, is an application which is based on blockchain. As the name suggests, it is decentralises i.e there is no one owner/boss of a product. Everyone who use it, has equal rights.

Moving forward, here’s a quick glance of it’s awesome features:

• Free storage (250 Gigs) per account
• Concept of Teams and Big teams
• Integrations i.e Bots
• Integrated Stellar Wallet
• Integrated git
• End-to-end encrypted chats

Hodl on! I will explain everything clearly.

Pros:

• IPFS
• No questions asked
• Identities
• Different encryption key for bots.
• Exploading messages
• Crypto features
• Read old chats
• Roles of members

Cons:

• IPFS
• Owned by zoom
• UI/UX

So here’s complete explanation.

Every account on keybase gets free storage of 250 Gigs. It means, one can use it as a personal cloud drive. Added encrytion on top of other traditional apps like Google Drive, One Drive etc.

Screenshot showing Files section in keybase desktop application.

No more paying for cloud storage. Ha ha

Teams are similar to groups in other commincation media, like in Telegram or WhatsApp.

Big teams are examples of Slack Workspaces or Discord servers. In simpler terms, huge teams have #channels which are meant for specific purpose.

So, multiple slack workspaces/discord servers at one place.

Image showing Teams and Big Teams

WOW! How cool it is.

Not everything can happen manually, there must be some life savers to help us to schedule meets, remind us important tasks, take down calender events etc…

Bots can do them all. Keybase has a great set of Bots developed which can be added to a team or channel in a single click.

Image showing featured bots on Keybase

!mediumBot insert a quote 😅

Integrated stellar waller and git.

Stellar is basically a crypto blockchain. Keybase has integrated wallet of Stellaer with which we can send or receive crypto assests. Ya, it’s like a UPI app for next generation currency. #worldNeedsCrypto

Git is a version control software, nothing much explanation required about it. Keybase has integrated git.

Git repos of team @mkbot which is Keybase bot creator community

Code and community at one place. Yo!

No third person can read your chats. Everything is end-to-end encrypted.

This shows that every message is encrypted and signed.

Let’s see some cool stuff now! Really COOL.

IPFS: Interplanetary file system. The decentralisation is here!

Just imagine: Your family invaded Mars and made a place to live there. Unfortunately, there are no YouTube servers on Mars, but you are in desperate need to watch a video. It takes 10 mins to buffer 1 min content. Just assume.

To watch 5 mins, we need to wait for nearly an hour. My bad! Assume you want to watch it again after some time. An hour again! No PLEASE!

IPFS to the rescue! In this concept, when a file is served for a node, it then acts as a server. So, your dad watched the video on Mars waiting for an hour, now, you can watch it without buffering.

OH MY GOD!

Keeping that concept on mind, Keybase named their idea, KBFS, abbreviated as Keybase File System. Where your computer can act as a node as well as a server. A cool use case is: You can host a static website with keybase. Click here to know how.

This falls in both pros and cons. This is also a reason for messages flushing at once. (Subject to many users experiences in my network.)

Other cool thing is, you can be anonymous, literally. You don’t need to add any identity while signing up. Just a device, with keybase installed is enough. No other questions asked!

We can add various identities like: GitHub, Reddit, Mastodon, PGP etc.

By the way, bots can't read our messages. Keybase is designed in such a way that, bot messages use other pair of encrytion keys.
So, no bot can read your personal messages.

One can set a time before sending messages. After that expired, the message sent is automatically deleted.

We have crypto featured within. Which are great tools to sign or encrypt files or text cryptographically.

A new joinee can access older messages. Good for communities.

There are various roles for a member on a team or channel. Viz. Writer, reader, admin, owner.

UI/UX is a bit messy, hope it can be improved.

And the other con is, IT IS OWNED BY ZOOM. (Hopefully, no data breaches please.)

As mentioned earlier, concept of IPFS is both a pro and con.

There is also some blank screen bugs on the desktop application though. Anyways, this is something about the next generation communication cum collaborative cum storage cum code repository cum crypto wallet application, aka KEYBASE.

Finally, I wantedly spelled it wrong. HODL* 😉

Crypto enthusiasts know what it is. If you don’t reach me out on keybase.

Or wait for my next article, where I explain some terms of crypto world! Excited?! Let me know by clapping the hands below.

ps. I accept tip: XLM or PJ: GBRPWT3OO7WMXHKO5R4TI7VKEELMHIYWJI7JRRMHAZULYFITUKSYRE7C