keybase / keybase/keybase-issues
Visualize hex material (Key IDs, Fingerprints)
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Description
Key IDs in their conservative form, i.e.
A2D6 BA02 EBB1 C984
are not easily comprehensible by the human mind. It is hard to draw context from a bunch of hexadecimal characters, which makes it hard to
- memorize them
- compare them with high accuracy.
Secondly, I consider key IDs provided without fingerprints deprecated as filed in #1486
Given that future versions of Keybase will likely show fingerprints instead of only key IDs, the problem of comprehension grows bigger:
03FA 933F 8D72 D752 AF8A 7D8F A2D6 BA02 EBB1 C984
I therefore propose to offer alternate means of rendering those hex numbers on Keybase profile pages.
These include, but are not limited to:
- QR code (as used in OpenKeychain)
- Colored Fingerprint in text form (color can be directly derived from hex representation of fingerprint)
- Rendered, colored and structured image derived from fingerprint.
As (1.) and (2.) are trivial, I'd like to give an example for (3.) taken from mailpile/Mailpile#1093:

These colored patterns are derived from the fingerprint. As (parts of) a V4 fingerprint according to RFC 4880, section 12.2 are hashed from the public key, using a color scheme derived from a slightly different (maybe having the same key ID) key would result in a completely different image (pattern and coloring). Looking at two of those images to compare them is significantly easier for humans, therefore would be a great increase in usability for Keybase.
Of course, the generation of those "rendered fingerprints" is to be discussed and should fit with the design language of Keybase as such.
Contributor guide
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First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start with the Keybase profile pages and the fingerprint-rendering requirements described here, including RFC 4880 section 12.2 and the linked Mailpile example. The issue names no implementation files or tests; done would require an agreed rendering approach and its integration into profile pages.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Domain
- design
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Needs clarification
- Newbie friendliness
- 25/100