In Light Of Recent Events: Can We Reach A Consensus On Banning Abusive Users From Steem?
Erin Morgenstern said once:
Life takes us to unexptected places sometimes. The future is never set in stone, remember that.
Well honestly I like the idea of a shapeable world.
The idea of decentralized environments is still pretty young. That implies that certain concepts about decentralization which were made by the very first pioneers of the area, don't necessarily need to turn out to be the real deal forever.
Don't we especially love the vision of that new world because it ensures giving power back to the people? Well powerful people of Steem, then let me ask you something:
What is more important to you? Ensuring a 100% decentralized world where everybody - both the good and the evil - can do whatever they want. Or creating a place where people can feel safe, where they are provided with the relevant tools to protect their freedom and their property?
Those of you who've been reading my yesterday's blog will know that I have a bone to pick with the user @sami100.
He didn't only steal my money but also the money of several other members of this community. I'm definitely not going to accept this situation.
Why should we vehemently allow these people to be part of our seminal community? Just because this is how decentralization has to be?
Aren't WE the ones who shape the concept of decentralization in the way we want it to be? Like we've done it over and over again through several hardforks?
Wouldn't we be even more decentralized if we agreed - trough consensus - that we don't want to be such users being part of this place?
Wouldn't this be the actually advanced and cool form of decentralization everybody would wanna participate in?
I mean if can prove 100% that users as @sami100 are only here to abuse others - and we can definitely prove it thanks to all the data stored in the blockchain - then why wouldn't we do anything in order to protect our community from such gangsters?
There is a way to exclude criminals from the blockchain: through a hardfork. Check my video on @dlive in order to know more. And then: let's talk about it!
The comment section is yours :-)
Much love,
Marly -
Just in case you couldn't display the video on DLive, here's a low res YouTube version for you:
Quote found on scoopnest.com
My video is at DLive
Hey Marly
I wrote about this punk today and put forward the idea I mentioned to you yesterday evening. I've not had a 'teckie' reply yet but i'm hopeful still!
Ideally, it would be great to have these punks removed, how the community would reach such a consensus (that could not be gamed), I'm not sure.
Hope you are feeling better about it all today!
Hey Ash!
YES I'm feeling much better, thank you :-)
Oh this is awesome I hadn't seen it yet. Will read and resteem now :-)
How can we reach consensus? Through a democratic voting I guess - or is this too old world? ;-)
Glad to hear!
Voting would be nice, but how do we know people aren't voting twice?
Do we need the account-based SMT approach for this? :D
Ha, there you go! :-) @ned said he'd be reading our posts on a daily basis, so I hope it includes this convo :-P
I think it would be fine having the witnesses as representatives of the community voting for their favorite solution. Then it'd be also great to publish the individual votes in order to have a transparent situation and be able to talk about it in the community.
Just ours you mean?
Well can I just state that I think the Steem Blockchain is the best in the world, and I cant wait for (an all expenses paid trip to) SteemFest 3!
What a grand idea :)
Actually, aren't surveys/polls coming with the Communities roll-out? I think I remember reading this.
New Poll: Do we want Sami out?!
Perhaps there's not as much management required, but I guess the final action to remove the account (which may hold 'legit' STEEM) would be down to the owners of the blockchain. And this may be the hardest part to push through?
You know, I've thought of this before as a risk in the past. Unless you're extremely paranoid and type the key in from a piece of paper all the time, we all copy&paste. And once you've copied the key, it's in the clipboard memory of your device. This has happened to me several times, but I've been lucky not to have submitted it.
It's only a matter of time before someone writes something to scan your computer's memory clipboard (when the blockchain is mainstream enough and enough hackers know about it).
The way it is, it's going to take this happening to a whale for swift action to be taken. From what's happened to the DLive and Utopian accounts in the recent past, it's not too impossible for this to happen soon.
Sorry this happened to you @surfermarly :(
I had never thought about the memory clipboard, but now as you mentioned it: that can really become an issue. Of course we all (or most of us) copy-paste the keys. Yet, it's actually not the safest way of operating on the blockchain. A 2 step verification would be huge!
Thanks for the valuable addings - and also for your compassion :-)
Today I'm actually feeling much better already!
Steemit inc needs to simply install software that prevents someone from even pasting a private key in the memo, just like when you type in tehw ord bittrex they won't let you send money unless you type in a bittrex memo .... There are also chrome extensions that you can install that prevent all phishing links from even showing up without a BIG red warning page! So we could have a chrome extension that prevents noobs from even posting a private key in wallet memo or in a post or comment
steemit inc front end should just prevent a user from posting anything that the website detects to look similar to a private key like anything thjat bvegins with a P5 or 5H or whatever, shopuld be easy for a program to recognize that this seems like a private key, and to prevent posting!
And yeah @adetorrent is right the fuckjing Copypaste clipboard is a godamn honeypot for crypto people, so dangerous, we should always be deleting our clipbaord memory!
Decentralization is the only key to Steem's success in my personal opinion. If we remove that then this platform will lose every bit of value it actually has in comparison to any centralized providers. While I'm not sure what happened with @sami100 but eliminating their value via hardfork wouldn't actually solve the problem. They would only then be able to create @sami100.1 and do it all again but now the platform itself has lost its key fundamental difference to any competing social service. This would cause any value that you forked away from a bad actor to also cost the value of all of the Steem that has been acquired over time by the good actors. This would then be forcing the penalty of censorship on all users instead of just the one who actually acted poorly. The better way is to bring to light bad actors so we can identify them and ensure that anyone that interacts with a bad actor knows their character and fork their individual influence from hurting others.
Hey @patrickulrich (that sounds quite German does it? :-)
For a start nobody said removing it...:-)
I agree that one of the unique selling proposition of Steem in the social media market is its decentralized character. Yet, if we - the community - agreed through consensus that we don't tolerate abusive users who only join the platform in order to rip off others, then this would be still a 100% decentralized decision.
Consider my example: identifying the bad actor doesn't solve the problem at all. He will keep stealing money from other people's accounts no matter what. Whether we know him or not, doesn't make a difference then.
You're completely right that banning one account might lead to having two new absusive accounts the next day. The open doors policy is like that. I'm still convinced that makeing an example on purely abusive accounts, would be the right signal.
And if we don't want to ban them, then which tools are we given to fight back?
You are correct! I'm American myself but my heritage definitely comes from Germany!
Thank you for clearing up that I was completely wrong in my first statement. :) I characterized that decentralization is the only key while that is certainly not true. I would also argue that immutability is also key as it stabilizes anyone's belief in their holdings. In fact I believe that's where I meant to go but just got started on the wrong foot and ran with it. I believe I meant to describe immutability the entire time but that doesn't discount decentralization at all either.
If the coins we hold are not immutable then what is to stop the majority from deciding our holdings on the chain. While I agree this seems tolerable in cases of known theft or fraud but how can we decide? If it's merely the majority then I just need enough economic power to say that my target is a bad actor and I can eliminate their value to the system by creating enough ill will that someone takes away from them.
Even worse is if you are the opposite of the majority. What if 51% of the chain is held by Americans while 49% is held by the rest of globe. We could simply say that we don't want to share our economic value and cut off anyone that we don't seem to fit our standard of the majority.
I think the solution is as you said to @anasuleidy to not allow them in your house or community. While we certainly can't force them out of the world (Steem) we can ensure we don't allow ourselves, or our like minded community, to interact with them.
Real life is like this ... Among people there is garbage (that steals, that harms, that harms) and there are incredible people who help us, who are altruistic and inspiring ... I do not know if the unraveling is achieved just that here In the virtual world we are not as safe as we thought.
Well I totally agree with you to a certain point. Life is like that: good, bad and evil.
Yet, why would we need to let the evil ones come into our house? :-) May they play on other blockchains but not this one...
I hope so, because it is enough to have to protect ourselves in the street as well as having to take care of ourselves here.
Great analysis and nice explanation about decentralization of steem.. I appreciate your thought... I am watching your dtube video.. Hope after watching your dtube video every steemian become conscious...about their investment @surfermarly
Espero que esta persona tenga una condena fuerte y grave, no se puede aceptar que halla inseguridad en esta red social, y yo prefiero mil veces crear un lugar donde las personas puedan sentirse seguras, donde se les proporcionen las herramientas pertinentes para proteger su libertad y su propiedad que tener un mundo 100% descentralizado donde todos, tanto los buenos como los malvados, puedan hacer lo que quieran es algo ilógico.
Just read your post from yesterday, so sorry to hear that happened and absolutely crazy that it happened so fast! Thanks for the heads up on being cautious and careful with our keys.
I wasn’t able to watch the video from my phone to hear your proposed solution but will check it out on my computer. My 1st thought it vigilante justice lol! Although I know that’s not necessarily feasible. In the meantime again very sorry to hear this happened and thank you for bringing this issue and this crook to light.
The cryptocurrency known as Steem, sits atop of the Graphene blockchain. Blockchain technology, by it's very nature is decentralised (to a point).
However this has led to much confusion in the Steemit community, because whilst Steem is a decentralised cryptocurrency; Steemit.com or rather the company Steemit inc. is very much a centralised organisation.
This is because Steemit inc. is a company incorporated in the United States of America; thus on the incorporation documents it will have the name of the shareholders, and the "people of influence", and guess what?
Your name isn't on there!
What??? I thought holding SP meant I was a shareholder?
Nope, the only thing that makes you a shareholder of a company, is having your name on the incorporation documents, stating that you are. Or of course, if you buy some shares from a shareholder, or that are publicly offered on a stock exchange.
Having Steem Power makes you a stakeholder in Steemit; however so does visiting the site and reading articles without voting; or any other kind of interaction you have with the site.
The only thing that will make you a shareholder in Steemit, is for you to obtain some actual shares; got it? Good.
Steemit.com owned by Steemit inc. will never be a decentralised platform; why? Because in order for it to do so, Steemit inc would have to give up all rights to the IPs surrounded Steemit, and that's not going to happen, not necessarily because there is no willing from the Steemit owners, but rather an issue of profit, loss and taxation.
True. But my suggestion wasn't directed to Steemit Inc.
What I was tryting to say is that we may consider banning abusive accounts through a hardfork. Steemit Inc does have influence on hardforks, yet there are a couple of more parties who do as well :-)
Whether Steemit Inc is a centralized company or not, doesn't really matter in this context. What we need is a consensus about how to deal with abuse and tools to help users to better protect their assets.
Many of us watched the Net Neutrality Panel with Ned Scott at Consensus 2018, where all speakers openly admitted that 100% decentralization doesn't exist yet. At no place. We're slowly walking towards such a concept, but revolutions need their while...:-)
Thanks for your addings!
Holding SP does mean you're a shareholder in the value of the Steem network though. While this doesn't mean you have any share of Steemit, Inc it does mean you own influence to the actual Steem blockchain network and can influence it's decentralized nature by voting for witnesses that are aligned with your thought process. While this is certainly not ownership in the company Steemit it is a share of the network's operations and influence towards it.
How did this guy manage to get in to your wallet ? Were you hacked ?
I accidentally published my private active key in my wallet, his bot detected it after a few seconds, then he transfered all my liquid SBD into his own wallet. It's his hobby, he's done that a couple of times already.
Lets thank the Steem Gods it was just an Active key and not Owner key! Because like with @steemgh (formerly @steem4depoor he got phished by @recieve.steem the steemil scammer and he tried to Initiate Stolen Account Recovery and NEVER got a reply and after 30 days poof over 180 SP Gone, which sucked because eh already got like hundred sof dolars in liquid SBD and steem too, but yeah, if you get you are account stolen these days there is no garuntee of an account recovery! It really sucks,. And although I have seen records of many account recoveries, in the last few months, I have no fucking idea why my friend with over 180 Steempower was overlooked and some people treid to fuckings ay he didn't have enuf SP top fucking get looked at, as if they have to prioritize people by cost, which makes no fucking sense because 180 SP is NOT a small amount , but anyway it reallys ucks that we cannt depend on steem for account recovery it makes me mad that they go around advertising that as a feature when they won't lt us use it so they giveus false sense of securityt....and I know damn well that steemit inc will not take responsibility for the 180 SP @steemgh was robbed off in his steem4depoor account, and sure steemit inc didn't rob him but they IGNORED his request to get his ACCOUNT back and now the hacker has his fuicking SP forever and he has to watch a scriminal with all his money forever and this guy is in fucking Africa has to sit and watch a scammer just get rich off ALL pof his hard work, this guy NEVER poiwered down he NEVER fucking got to taste trhe fruit of a;ll his months of labor anmd steem promises to fucking recovery stolen accounts and yet they NEVER respond to him within 30 days and the account is now gone forever! It really makes me mad and keven tho steemgh is oinly like 100 SP away from getting back to his old SP levels, I believe syteemit inc should givehim a real explanation on why they never let him recover his account after it got stolen and explain to him why OTHERS get to recover accounts but an African in Ghana who dedicated his life to steem doesd not get to use the feature that was promised to all of us.... Id like to hear steemiut inc's answer to that