May
07
2020
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Zoom consultant Alex Stamos weighs in on Keybase acquisition

When Zoom started having security issues in March, they turned to former Facebook and Yahoo! Security executive Alex Stamos, who signed on as a consultant to work directly with CEO Eric Yuan.

The goal was to build a more cohesive security strategy for the fast-growing company. One of the recommendations that came out of those meetings was building end-to-end encryption into the paid tier of the product. Those discussions led to the company buying Keybase this morning.

Stamos says in the big build versus buy debate that companies tend to go through when they are evaluating options, this fell somewhere in the middle. While they bought a company with a lot of expertise, it will still require Keybase engineers working with counterparts from Zoom and consultants like Stamos to build a final encrypted product.

“The truth is that what Zoom wants to do with end-to-end encryption, nobody’s really done, so there’s no product that you could just slap onto Zoom to turn it into key encryption. That’s going to have to be thought out from the beginning for the specific needs of an enterprise,” Stamos told TechCrunch.

But what they liked about Keybase in particular is that they have already thought through similar problems with file encryption and encrypted chat, and they want to turn the Keybase engineers loose on this problem.

“The design is going to be something that’s totally new. The great thing about Keybase is that they have already been through this process of thinking through and then crafting a design that is usable by normal people and that provides functionality while being somewhat invisible,” he said.

Because it’s a work in progress, it’s not possible to say when that final integration will happen, but Stamos did say that the company intends to publish a paper on May 22nd outlining its cryptographic plan moving forward, and then will have a period of public discussion before finalizing the design and moving into the integration phase.

He says that the first goal is to come up with a more highly secure version of Zoom meetings with end-to-end encryption enabled. At least initially, this will only be available for people using the Zoom client or Zoom-enabled hardware. You won’t be able to encrypt someone calling in, for instance.

As for folks who may be worried about Keybase being owned by Zoom, Stamos says, “The whole point of the Keybase design is that you don’t have to trust who owns their servers.”

May
07
2020
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Daily Crunch: Zoom acquires security startup Keybase

Zoom acquires some encryption expertise, Uber makes a big investment in scooters and we review the new 13-inch Macbook Pro.

Here’s your Daily Crunch for May 7, 2020.

1. Zoom acquires Keybase to get end-to-end encryption expertise

Keybase, whose encryption products include secure file sharing and collaboration tools, should give Zoom some security credibility as it goes through pandemic demand growing pains. A number of Zoom security issues have come to light in the last couple of months as demand has soared and exposed security weaknesses in the platform.

Under the terms of the deal, Keybase will become a subsidiary of Zoom and co-founder and Max Krohn will lead the Zoom security engineering team, reporting directly to Yuan to help build the security product.

2. Uber leads $170 million Lime investment, offloads Jump to Lime

As part of the deal (which was reported earlier this week but is now official), Lime is also acquiring Uber’s micro-mobility subsidiary Jump. There will be more integrations between Uber and Jump in the future, but both apps will remain active for now.

3. Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch review

With this week’s news, the 13-inch becomes the third and final member of the MacBook family to get the new keyboard. It’s not “Magic” as the name implies (Apple really does love the M-word), but Brian Heater says improvements are immediate and vast.

4. Nintendo sells a lot more Switches, as people stay at home playing Animal Crossing

The company says it has sold 21 million Switch units in the past year, handily beating a 19.5 million forecast. 6.2 million of those systems were the newer, cheaper Switch Lite, which hit the market in September. All of this comes as Nintendo has run up against shortages through a combination of increased popularity and a a global supply chain knocked off balance from COVID-19.

5. How will digital media survive the ad crash?

Bustle Digital Group’s Jason Wagenheim told us that he’s anticipating a 35% decline in ad revenue for this quarter. And where he’d once hoped BDG would reach $120 or $125 million in ad revenue this year, he’s now trying to figure out “what does our company look like at $75 or $90 million?” (Extra Crunch membership required.)

6. Apple awards $10 million to rapidly scale COVID-19 sample collection kit production

Apple has awarded $10 million from its Advanced Manufacturing Fund to COPAN Diagnostics, a company focused on producing sample collection kits for testing COVID-19 to hospitals in the U.S. The money comes from the fund that Apple established to support the development and growth of U.S.-based manufacturing — to date, the fund has been used to support companies tied more directly to Apple’s own supply chain.

7. Sonos debuts new Arc soundbar, next-generation Sonos Sub, and Sonos Five speaker

Sonos has introduced a trio of new hardware today, adding three new smart speakers to its lineup, including the Sonos Arc soundbar that includes Dolby Atmos support, as well as Sonos Five, the next version of its Sonos Play:5 speaker, and a third-generation Sonos Sub.

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.

May
07
2020
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Zoom acquires Keybase to get end-to-end encryption expertise

Zoom announced this morning that it has acquired Keybase, a startup with encryption expertise. It did not reveal the purchase price.

Keybase, which has been building encryption products for several years including secure file sharing and collaboration tools, should give Zoom some security credibility as it goes through pandemic demand growing pains.

The company has faced a number of security issues in the last couple of months as demand as soared and exposed some security weaknesses in the platform. As the company has moved to address these issues, having a team of encryption experts on staff should help the company build a more secure product.

In a blog post announcing the deal, CEO Eric Yuan said they acquired Keybase to give customers a higher level of security, something that’s increasingly important to enterprise customers as more operations are relying on the platform, working from home during the pandemic.

“This acquisition marks a key step for Zoom as we attempt to accomplish the creation of a truly private video communications platform that can scale to hundreds of millions of participants, while also having the flexibility to support Zoom’s wide variety of uses,” Yuan wrote.

He added that that tools will be available for all paying customers as soon as it is incorporated into the product. “Zoom will offer an end-to-end encrypted meeting mode to all paid accounts. Logged-in users will generate public cryptographic identities that are stored in a repository on Zoom’s network and can be used to establish trust relationships between meeting attendees,” he wrote.

Under the terms of the deal, the Keybase will become a subsidiary of Zoom and co-founder and Max Krohn will lead the Zoom security engineering team, reporting directly to Yuan to help build the security product. The other almost two dozen employees will become Zoom employees. The vast majority are security engineers.

It’s not clear what will happen to Keybase’s products, but the company did say Zoom is working with Keybase to figure that out.

Keybase was founded in 2014 and has raised almost $11 million according to Crunchbase data.

Jul
15
2015
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OKCupid Founders Get $10.8M To Build A Kinder, Gentler Public Key Encryption Tool

Key on top of a circuit board. What do you for an encore after you founded and sold OKCupid? Well you tackle public-key encryption, of course. Keybase was the result, and the company announced a $10.8 million Series A investment today led by Andreessen Horowitz. While it may not seem like a logical next move, co-founders Max Krohn and Chris Coyne were considering what to do after they left OKCupid in 2013. They decided… Read More

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