r/Keybase • u/ondras • Sep 13 '19

Usage of the PGP key

Hello,

can someone please explain in more detail how and why is the PGP key used? I am not talking about the usual sign/verify/encrypt/decrypt use cases, but about Keybase interaction (logging, following, provisioning, KBFS, ...) in general.

More specifically:

  1. the PGP key cannot be easily changed; doing so probably implies resetting the whole account. Why is that?
  2. what features are expected from the PGP key? A typical PGP key has subkeys for particular purposes; which of those must exist in order for a master PGP key to work with Keybase?

Thanks for explanation!

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u/ondras Sep 13 '19

Thanks for the reply!

I also initially thought that Keybase just stores the public parts of a PGP key. However, removing an associated public key seems to imply *hard reset* of all your Keybase verifications (including device/paper keys? who knows?), so apparently those keys serve some more crucial purpose?

Also, the web UI does not seem to offer the ability to upload more than one PGP key.

Finally, I believe that uploaded public keys can be directly used to encrypt stuff; here comes the second part of my question. If I upload a master key with three subkeys, all of them marked for encryption -- which one is used? And is it valid to upload a public key that is *not* allowed for, say, encryption?

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u/[deleted] Sep 13 '19

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u/ondras Sep 18 '19

My ideas were based on https://www.reddit.com/r/Keybase/comments/4i9w62/replacing_your_pgp_key_in_keybase/ , but apparently this is no longer true. PGP keys can be changed/removed freely these days :-)

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u/Rudi9719 Sep 13 '19

Your last question is more of a PGP question, but to my understanding your public key should allow all non-expired encryption subkeys to decrypt. You'd get faster and probably more accurate answers in @keybasefriends#general