Question: Open standard for "keybasing"?

I'm not a professional programmer, and I'm certainly not any kind of specialist in cryptography. However…

The idea of posting identity verification inside existing channels of communication (e.g. gists, tweets, etc.) is clever, but I wonder if there is a better way to do it? Perhaps a parallel system, if not a replacement. What if there was an open standard that could be adopted by online services like GitHub and Twitter and Facebook that removed verification steps from a user's generated content and placed it in their profile. The service-hosted API would be very simple:

setKey(username, key) – associates a key with a given username on the host service
verify(username) – returns public key hash of requested user

Keybase (and other public key directories) could then call verify(hz) to confirm that a given user is properly representing themself on a site. Services could allow the setting of keys from key directories like Keybase using OAuth r an equivalent. In addition, services could broadcast a changed(username) message to indicate that a user has either modified or revoked a key from their profile.

Obviously this would require that external services adopt this standard, but I feel like the tech community is becoming more sensitive to the idea of protecting user data and I don't think it would be too hard for something like this to gain traction.

Start by reviewing the proposed setKey(username, key), verify(username), and changed(username) API along with the suggested OAuth integration. The issue names no repository files or tests, so the first step is to determine whether this proposal fits the project and define the standard's scope before implementation.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.