This post will be a little outside the norm for my blog in that I’ll be reviewing software, an Alpha release from a company called Keybase.
Let’s start out by looking at public key cryptography between two individuals. A work flow that is somewhat common and in today’s day and age, where privacy should be of the utmost concern between even the most basic of Internet users, but still somewhat difficult to achieve for anyone that’s not an advanced user.
Before we go any further, a level set. This post will not dive into the working of public key cryptography, the differences between certificate based and an approach such as GnuPG, or the pros and cons of each beyond what’s needed to illustrate various points. There are multiple posts online that cover these topics and I encourage you to become familiar with them if you are not already. I am also simplifying some aspects of how public key cryptography works in order to convey a point to the widest possible audience.