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keybase / keybase-issues

A single repo for managing publicly recognized issues with the keybase client, installer, and website.
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Difficulty in understanding how PGP secret keys are synced #3056

Open jokester opened 7 years ago

jokester commented 7 years ago

I am using 2 PGP keys (A and B) and 2 devices (P and Q) with keybase CLI client. After importing the keys to keybase and removed private key from keybase site (sorry cannot remember exact order of operations), I found that the export of private (secret) key are working differently in 2 devices:

After reading Local Key Security I assume P and Q now have different set of secret keys in their 'keybase local keyring', but cannot figure out a way to inspect under the hood.

Can I ask what is a supposed way to synchronize the secret key again (with keybase, CLI only if possible) ?

maxtaco commented 7 years ago

We don't have a great story for sync'ing your PGP keys across your devices. We only have our original method, which was based on the strength of your (stretched) keybase passphrase, and then "push to server." If we could wave a magic wand, we would replace that with a KBFS-based, or Per-User-Key-based system, which wouldn't be dependent upon password security (which doesn't have great entropy). However, we haven't gotten around to it yet, it's been lower priority than the other things we're working on. Thanks for your feedback!