
Experimental Slack-to-Keybase team importer - eugeneching
https://keybase.io/slack-importer
======
jwr
I am getting so confused by keybase.

Initially, it was a way to maintain your identity online. Which I really
liked. Finally a way to get to people's keys without GPG keyservers.

Then the Mac app placed itself in the menu bar, loaded a "helper", installed a
ton of crap, asked for my private keys, and I was no longer sure what it's
really doing.

Then Keybase started morphing into… well, I'm not really clear what it's
becoming these days.

~~~
xfitm3
Keybase is where you gossip, because you can't trust Slack.

------
Arathorn
There are also Slack-to-Matrix importers over at
[https://github.com/lampholder/concorde](https://github.com/lampholder/concorde)
and [https://github.com/Cadair/skill-
matrixslack](https://github.com/Cadair/skill-matrixslack) if anyone's
interested :) We're also working on a next-generation 'official' one for
[https://modular.im/tools/account-migration](https://modular.im/tools/account-
migration).

------
paulgerhardt
We’ve moved over to Keybase from Slack last year.

1) Works surprisingly well

2) Search was previously an issue but now fixed

3) Having a shared drive is great

4) Not having a spell check or giphy integration is awful. I get why because
the non-local ones leak data. But it’s still terrible.

Will stick with Keybase.

~~~
malgorithms
There is giphy integration, and how it works is described here.
[https://keybase.io/docs/chat/linkpreviews](https://keybase.io/docs/chat/linkpreviews)
. Similarly we'll be launching a location-sharing (including realtime) feature
soon, working on a similar model.

Ah spell-check in the desktop app. We explored one library and weren't happy.
We're visiting option soon, but yeah, privacy is critical.

~~~
paulgerhardt
Wonderful. Giphy integration works now. Thanks for the tip on link previews!
The TCP tunnel to Keybase.com for giphy requests specifically is so
delightful.

NB for others: may leak metadata so use with that in mind. One can also just
whitelist the giphy domain only.

------
short_sells_poo
This looks interesting but how are they going to make money if it is free? I
looked for an option to pay but couldn't find it.

Perhaps I'm jaded but I intensely distrust any service that is free (as in
free beer), because it's raison d'être is unclear and unpredictable.

E.g. I liked WhatsApp while you could use it for free and see ads, or you
could pay a fee and avoid the ads. It's clear. You could opt to pay for a
product or be the product and get a service in return.

Here it's not immediately clear.

~~~
orpep90nxkfo
So you don’t use open source

~~~
short_sells_poo
I do, and I'm happy to pay for consulting services or new features. I'm
talking about incentives not the validity of business models. This idea is
very interesting, but without a business model I'm hesitant to add them as a
dependency, that's all.

~~~
orpep90nxkfo
You’ve boxed this off in some artificial way, IMO.

Open source coders provide software development and support services for free.
They’re not providing a physical product.

I feel like you’re stuck on some ephemeral concept around what a service is.

Human beings provide a services for a variety of prices. A business provides a
profit generating pipeline.

And we all see how those can vanish over night. Or just decide to kill things
_coughgooglecough_

Seems like a contrived line in the sand, IMO

------
Gaelan
Bug: this link opens in the Keybase app if I click it on my iPhone, but the
app just shows its main screen.

------
rrggrr
Tried migration to Keybaese. Lack of integrations killed it. A Zapier
integration would have solved it for me.

------
stevenicr
Is keybase still banning people that are into porn / adult industry stuff, or
is this thing separate from the keybase thing where that was / is an issue?

~~~
zwarag
I googled but could not find anything related to keybase banning accounts.
Where do you have that information from?

~~~
stevenicr
from here(ish) -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19668967](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19668967)

~~~
MadcapJake
This is such FUD, nowhere in your link does it say users were banned, it had
to do with them not supporting Mastodon instances that are sex-
work/pornography oriented as a source of trust in Keybase.

~~~
stevenicr
I am sorry if you find it FUD - I do not mean to create any of that. I am
asking for clarification from those in the know. I myself do not know. As I
mentioned in the original comment / question - it may have something to do
with a part of keybase that is not a part of what the original article is
about, I don't really understand it.

From where I sit, in my place of knowing very little, I am confused. Some of
the keybase things I have read about make it sound like it's almost a perfect
fit for so many things I want in the world, then I hear that their chat thing
is really great, but has a couple small issues that make is unusable for what
I am looking for. I find their identity thing is really awesome, but more
centralized and perhaps will at time censor people, and I can't use it. I am
confused, and perhaps the brand is tainted from my skewed understanding of the
issues, which is why I ask a question, not made some know-it-all statement
about how it whatever.

I have not used it. the things I've seen make me think there is really great
people making really powerful and great things there, unfortunately some of
the businesses I work with could get me removed from their system perhaps, so
I am not spending any time trying it out. I have been down that road with
google, with vimeo
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20302923](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20302923)
), facebook, and with so many other things.

Basically I look for things that would not, and preferable could not, ban
Larry Flint. If they will ban Larry's posts then I don't need to waste time
with it. So far that leaves very few services to actually spend time with.

Again, this is not an attempt to spread and fear or uncertainty or doubt, I
would guess that 99% of people will never get banned from keybase (I don't
know really, I don't use it, or know if they delete spammers, or alt-right-
wrong or whatever either)

Now I'm more confused as your answer mentions they are not supporting Mastadon
servers that don't censor porn, hookers, and strippers - so 'not supporting'
maybe that's what I should of been asking about, I guess that means they are
not banning users, just making it so their user's services can not connect? I
don't know, at this point it's already used up so much of my time, I am sorry
I asked, not trying to fud anyone else on top of my not understanding.

*edited to add link to vimeo ban explanation, which relates to my questioning, but not directly to keybase.

~~~
MadcapJake
> Now I'm more confused as your answer mentions they are not supporting
> Mastadon servers that don't censor porn, hookers, and strippers - so 'not
> supporting' maybe that's what I should of been asking about, I guess that
> means they are not banning users, just making it so their user's services
> can not connect?

Keybase has this concept of Identity Proofs. You put a special signature on a
page in a specific way that Keybase has vetted. For example, I can put a
signature on my HN about page (which I have), give Keybase my username and
they can prove that the HN user is me which proves to other Keybase users that
I am real (i.e., not a bot nor a fake profile created for trolling/nefarious
purposes). On it's own, my HN proof isn't very strong but coupled with other
services and I now have a complex profile of proofs that spreads the social
vetting across multiple companies/organizations.

Mastodon is a social messaging platform like twitter mixed with custom message
boards of the 90s/00s. The key bit from the latter is that each "instance" is
run by anyone on their own hardware with their own level of security
determined by whomever administrates the server. Keybase (according to the
comments linked above) decided that they would only be setting up this
Identity Proofing with the most general instances and not with more
specialized topic instances (particularly sex work or porn) because (these are
my assumptions wrt their reasoning) there is a time cost to setting this stuff
up but also to not align themselves with instances that may be taboo to some
of their userbase (read: potential paying clients).

To get to the point: Keybase does not have read access to your content (they
use E2E encryption), but they do make certain decisions about how their tools
integrate with the outside world. I don't know their politics but I would
guess that since they are working towards finding clients to setup custom
instances of their model (to start making money), they are just trying to
avoid misaligning themselves.

~~~
stevenicr
Thank you for explaining this to me. I have read so many great things about
keybase, I can tell the people behind it are smart and trying to do more for
the world than some 'give me money and data' tech place. Each product /
service I have seen mentioned around HN for years seems to be so much of what
I have been looking for - but almost / not quite - however I have seen how
they would be great for so many others that do not have the censorship issues
that I run into.

I wish I could clone the keybase and keybase chat thing and run it federated /
uncensored with opt-in group follow moderation. So far it looks like Matrix
and Mastadon maybe ipfs / peertube kind of stuff will be the closest things
for what I could use comfortably given the increasing censorship and need for
mainstream monetization of most projects.

Thanks again for explaining, I was indeed getting confused about the services
around them and now I understand a bit better how the pieces fit.

