Keybase: Sending, Receiving and Sharing Encrypted Messages

Given the ever-increasing concerns over data security, there's a growing interest in the options for data encryption. But encryption isn't new. Looking back at history, we can find that one of the most notable machines for encryption was Enigma, a machine used in World War II. Going back even further, we find the Caesar cipher, used by Julius Caesar to encrypt messages.

Essentially, encryption involves hiding a message inside another message that usually contains gibberish words. Today, in our digital world, you can see encryption being used in many different areas, such in our browsers, our file systems, emails etc.

Encryption can be a bit difficult in the beginning, especially to non-technical people. But encrypting information is a concern for everybody, and not just people in tech-related fields. (Consider investigative journalists, for example, for whom data protection can be critical.)

In this article, I'll review a tool that makes encryption easy, and I'll demonstrate how to send an encrypted text message.

Introducing Keybase

Keybase is an open-source platform for encryption that works as a social network. It tries to make encryption easier, breaking down the barrier of technology and adding a social aspect to it. You can start encrypting by just using a social media username.

On Keybase, you can look up people and follow them just like on Twitter. Keybase also maps your identify to your public key: you can link your other social accounts such as Reddit, GitHub, Twitter to your Keybase profile.

Keybase offers encryption via a web-based client, but also offers local, command-line clients for all major operating systems.

Getting and Setting up an Account

At the time of writing this article, Keybase is still in its alpha phase, and you need an invitation to get an account there. (I do have invitations, so ping me on Twitter if you're interested.) You can also sign up via the form, but there is a queue, so you may need to wait a while.

Quick tip: You may find a lot of people sending invites on Twitter.

Setting up Your Profile

Once you have got an account on Keybase, you should create your profile. Then head over to the downloads page. Keybase supports all three major operating systems, and there’s also source code. Follow the installation instructions for your operating system.

Once you've done that, you can run Keybase:

run_keybase

Yay, we got a squirrel. This confirms we have Keybase ready to encrypt.

Verifying your profiles

Keybase also tries to build this "web of trust" platform by linking your accounts to your Keybase profile. Since Keybase also offers a command line application, I’ll use that to verify my profile later, but you can also use the web version.

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by Ardian Haxha via SitePoint