Client: It should not be possible to chat with yourself

[rex4539]

Keybase 1.0.47-20180404193753+38f952ce5b
macOS 10.13.5 (17F35e)

Reproducibility: always

Prerequisites:
You are a member of a team.

Steps:
Teams -> Select a team you are a member of -> Find yourself in the members list -> Click on the chat icon on the right

What happened:
You are able to chat with yourself.

Expected result:
The chat icon does not appear for yourself in the members list.

[5h4d0ww0lf]

why? Just upload message signed by you and encrypted for you? btw cli allow you much more than gui.
keybase chat send %yorusername% %message% -send to yourself
keybase chat delete-history %yourusername% -delete messages
keybase chat hide %yourusername% -hide chat from list

[TheZ3ro]

This is useful for an online encrypted notepad.

Anyway, much simpler:
From the "Chat" start a new conversation, search for your nickname, send a message and you have a chat with yourself

[rex4539]

This is a bug and should be fixed. There is no sane use case here :)

Let's have some UX person chip in.

[TheZ3ro]

Like I said before, some people use self-chat like an encrypted notepad/Evernote or a modern alternative the old fashonable PGP-encrypted self-mail.

The use case seems pretty sane and legit. Doesn't seem that keybase is hiding the feature too (like I said above, just search for your username and start a conversation like a normal workflow)

I think it's intended

[rex4539]

Are you a UX person by profession? No offense but I don't think so :)

You may think it's a valid use case but I argue it is not.

For example, if Keybase wants a notepad feature they could develop one. But they aren't.

This is a bug. Not much to be said here :)

[rex4539]

@maxtaco @malgorithms @cecileboucheron What are your thoughts on this?

[TheZ3ro]

So you are a UX professional but not a crypto one, I see (no offense :)

What is the "bug"? Being able to encrypt a text with a key that happen to be my own?

From the keybase crypto/chat docs [https://keybase.io/docs/crypto/chat]

When Alice sends a message to Bob, she uses the same keys that she would use to save a file in /keybase/private/alice,bob.

Here you can read about Home Directories [https://keybase.io/docs/crypto/kbfs], that use the same key as the self-chat.
Home Directories are a special case of a private group formed by 2 member that are the same user: for example /keybase/private/alice,alice (that use the same encryption key as /keybase/private/alice)

The UX here is just fine, if you open a new conversation with yourself and click the "Share" button (top-right corner) the /keybase/private/<username> folder opens, that is exactly your private folder from "Files".

---

Other examples within keybase but with PGP messages:

• login into keybase.io, click on your avatar on top right corner, now you are in your profile page and you can see the PGP Encrypt and the Keybase Chat button.
• click on the encrypt icon on the top-right corner in keybase.io website, search for your user, encrypt a message

---

IMHO: intended feature.

Have a nice day

[malgorithms]

It's an intended feature. I personally use it often. If anything, I think we make it too hard to do.

I often do things like this from the command line:

keybase chat send chris "some random note"
# or:
shasum somefile.txt | keybase chat send chris

I understand why it might feel like a bug, but I think the simple answer is that it's harmless for people who don't want it, and helpful for people who do. like emailing yourself or iMessaging yourself (both possible)

[rex4539]

If the boss says it's an intended feature, I accept it (although I strongly disagree) :)

[jaysonvirissimo]

Example sane use case: you want to get a file from your phone to your laptop, but you don't have a compatible connector and you don't trust the local wireless network (which is common in coffee shops, etc...).