Keybase
Keybase | |
Keybase home page as seen on June 3, 2020 | |
URL | https://keybase.io/ |
Status | Endangered |
Archiving status | Not saved yet |
Archiving type | Unknown |
IRC channel | #archiveteam-bs (on hackint) |
Keybase is a public key directory that allows bi-directionally linking public keys to social media accounts. This is done with proofs to verify the account actually belongs to a given user. Further features include chat, a file system with public and private contents, and private Git repository hosting. While the client is open-source, the server is not[1]. Keybase was launched 2014-02-14 and had 407,163 users as of 2019-08-22[2].
Archiving
There's a signed merkle tree that serves as a public audit log to prevent tampering. This tree could potentially be traversed to replicate the database. Relevant API endpoints are:
https://keybase.io/_/api/1.0/merkle/root.json https://keybase.io/_/api/1.0/merkle/block.json?hash=77f89c806fe0f896
Documentation is located here:
https://keybase.io/docs/api/1.0/call/merkle/root https://keybase.io/docs/api/1.0/call/merkle/block
A retrieval of the current merkle tree as of March 2023 along with all users referenced therein can be found at keybase.io_user_discovery_202303. The item also contains a recursive crawl of followers and following users starting from chris[IA•Wcite•.today•MemWeb]. Extracted user lists are available at https://transfer.archivete.am/pAz0P/keybase-users-from-merkle-tree.zst[IA•Wcite•.today•MemWeb] and https://transfer.archivete.am/Xq9cY/keybase-users-from-chris-followers-recursion.zst[IA•Wcite•.today•MemWeb], respectively.
Keybase Sites
Until 2023, Keybase allowed for hosting static websites under keybase.pub
subdomains or custom domains through the Keybase Sites feature. This service was a simple proxy for accessing the /public/USERNAME
directory on the Keybase File System with a Markdown renderer (specifically, the Node.js marked
package in gfm
mode[3]). It was shut down on 2023-03-01.
Vital Signs
- On 2020-05-07 Keybase announced they've been acquired by Zoom[1]. Commit activity on the client has significantly dried down since[4], signalling that the project has gone into maintenance mode.
References
Instant messengers | |
'80s | |
'90s |
ICQ •
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'00s | |
'10s |
Kik •
Viber •
Snapchat •
LINE •
Telegram •
Slack •
Gitter
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