Keybase raises $10.8M
Keybase is the wrong way to do a PKI directory.First, people should have multiple keys/identities by default; multiple identities should be the normal thing everyone does. Single identities will be used by governments to control people. They'll also work against normal communication patterns where people speak differently to different groups (think parents, friends, coworkers.)Second, matching a name with social media is the wrong way to lookup others. It only works if people put enough personally identifiable information (PII) on their social media accounts, otherwise we won't be sure we found the right person. This matching system encourages PII, works against multiple identities, and associates multiple accounts on disparate systems. Everything you told Facebook, you've now told Reddit and Github, etc.. because the companies can also lookup your (single) Keybase identity and connect the accounts, as can advertisers and governments.Third, leaving people to manage their own private keys is worse for security than having them managed by others. Software changes, glitches and upgrades should be overseen server-side and managed; there should be a help-desk to contact and backups should actually be done, etc... Multiple identities would make it easy to let an employer manage an 'employee' identity, and Facebook manage -or consume- a public 'personal' identity, and Twitter manage a private 'political' identity. (A PKI version of OAuth and 'Sign in with Facebook'; strong crypto can't fix the UX problem.)I think the winning solution will be: a distributed, server-side PKI system that individuals and companies can host themselves; a DNS-like distributed registration and searching system; a host-provided web UX for managing accounts. Moving private keys to the client will work better if the local key is signed by a hosted key, rather than leaving all the private keys in the hands of end-users.