Age 1.0
Security and privacy
file encryption
SHOW HN2021
494points
88comments
#46of 2,533 in 2021
Top 2%of 2021 by points
How HN took it
CuriousMostly questions and neutral comments
13 positive, 30 neutral or asking, 3 mixed, 8 critical, out of 54 comments about the project. Thread score +0.14.
Design: 4 for, 4 againstIdea: 3 for, 0 againstPrivacy: 1 for, 2 againstDocs: 1 for, 1 againstExecution: 1 for, 0 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Simple CLI that composes well with UNIX pipes
From 3 comments
Great work, thank you for sharing. I especially appreciate your link to your "Goals" section-- I'm listed them below because they are important and helpful IMHO. + An extremely…
jph on HNage has been an alternative plugin to gpg for transparent file encryption and decryption for the chezmoi dotfile manager for a couple of years now. age's CLI is so much nicer and…
twp on HNI like age. I use it with wormhole for quick transfer jobs. Thanks for all the work on this!
0x426577617265 on HN
Clean, readable Go code
From 1 comment
Really well-written code! I am not a Go expert, but I find it readable and comprehensible.
ChrisMarshallNY on HN
Objections
Provides confidentiality but not integrity, so tampered files are not detected before output
From 3 comments
I think this is dangerous to use for many of the use cases that it would appear useful for, especially for any form of backups. By design, it protects the confidentiality of…
voidmain on HNcalling this format "secure" is not sufficient, here is a review that asked the right questions. https://neilmadden.blog/2019/12/30/a-few-comments-on-age/ Unfortunately, the age…
fXmBeWm3TQ on HNIt's for the case where you are concerned about malicious modification and the user is expected to not deal with the ramifications of the error message. This case in particular:…
upofadown on HN
Key file handling lacks encrypted native key storage and default keychain
From 2 comments
The main thing that confuses me with age so far is it feels like there's no way to have private keys that are automatically detected and also encrypted on disk. It seems to have…
jchw on HN> age keys are application-specific keys, not universal personal identities. Not a courtesy you extended to SSH keys, choosing to instead re-use them for an unrelated purpose,…
tialaramex on HN
Threat model and security goals are not documented in the spec
From 1 comment
calling this format "secure" is not sufficient, here is a review that asked the right questions. https://neilmadden.blog/2019/12/30/a-few-comments-on-age/ Unfortunately, the age…
fXmBeWm3TQ on HN
Requests
Hardware key support
From 2 comments
Good job! I much look forward to: hardware key support, password store, mount and integration with back up software (and perhaps rclone which is for data movement). I am pretty…
aborsy on HNNot OP, but I am missing: * password store (Pass) * hardware key support * back up software using Age (as with duplicity) * integration into operating systems (cross platform) *…
aborsy on HN
Password store integration
From 2 comments
Not OP, but I am missing: * password store (Pass) * hardware key support * back up software using Age (as with duplicity) * integration into operating systems (cross platform) *…
aborsy on HNI would love to see a password manager based on age. Idealy using ssh-keys beeing combinable with git
balu_ on HN
Armored output by default
From 1 comment
I absolutely love the idea of simple and beautiful. OpenSSL/GPG are overwhelming in the knobs/dials. Couple thoughts that I'll never remember after my 5 minutes of using it but…
ghshephard on HN
A UI for age
From 1 comment
Fantastic news. Does anyone know if there is a UI for it? I know this was discussed in the Dec 2019 thread but that's a while ago now.
julian37 on HN
Questions
What encryption algorithms does it use
From 1 comment
One thing I miss and would imagine probably front and center of an encryption tool, is the algorithm(s) it's using to encrypt. There are multiple mentions of keys, but not the…
charles_f on HN
How does AEAD work with seeking
From 1 comment
How do you do AEAD with seeking? Tags (MACs) every few kilobytes?
Aachen on HN
Why use age instead of gpg
From 1 comment
I am not so clever and cryptography is hard. Why should I use age instead of regular gpg?
stilisstuk on HN
Alternatives named
GPG
From 2 comments
Has anyone managed to replace file encryption using gpg or sops with age for anything other than simple use cases? I realize age doesn't cover the breadth of scope of the other…
flurie on HNIt's for the case where you are concerned about malicious modification and the user is expected to not deal with the ramifications of the error message. This case in particular:…
upofadown on HN
sops
From 2 comments
Has anyone managed to replace file encryption using gpg or sops with age for anything other than simple use cases? I realize age doesn't cover the breadth of scope of the other…
flurie on HNThis is a great list. I also use sops because it has symmetric key support for a great many systems, allowing me to use gpg and aws kms for one set of secrets.
flurie on HN
minisign
From 1 comment
A tangential question: is there an age equivalent du jour for signatures? For release signing and verification. I'm looking especially for end-user ease of installation. minisign…
danenania on HN
gopass
From 1 comment
gopass already supports age: https://github.com/gopasspw/gopass/blob/master/docs/backends/age.md
psanford on HN