Scammers and Spammers and Extortionists, OH MY!

I have not come up with any kind of a consistent theme for posting here on steemit, which I think is OK for now. There is something on my mind which I thought I should weigh in on, since it's important.

Incredible Cosmic Power

We have a tremendous platform on our hands here. Whether in the context of the steemit community, STEEM more generally, or even the intenet as a whole, there is incredible power which rests in the hands of an enormous group of people - the citizens of the world, for the most part. We have the ability to communicate globally, for very little cost. We are building and participating in economic systems which will establish the future of human interaction for a long time to come.

This is a grand experiment, and it is a tremendous privilege to be able to take part in it. As they say, however, with great power comes great responsibility.

One of the best features of a permissionless innovation system is that it gives everyone freedom to experiment with their own version of "what works". For many people, that is an opportunity to build things that are useful. We have seen an explosion in such tools since the internet came about. The growth in adoption and usefulness of our communication platforms has been increasing exponentially, and that ever-accelerating growth is still happening today.

While I am hopeful, overall, about our future as a species there are some obvious areas for improvement. Freedom to express ourselves and to innovate with our tools and social systems does not come without costs. One of the costs which we have not yet effectively mitigated is that of spammers, scammers and griefers. While a vast majority of the users of our systems seem to have good intentions and helpful attitudes, some do not. This phenomenon is not exclusive to the environs of cyberspace, it happens in "meatspace" as well. To some extent, it seems inevitable that any system which involves humans will include some proportion of actors with dysfunctional goals. In meatspace, we have a lot of experience with people who see the whole environment as an opportunity to take rather than to give. There are those who cannot seem to grasp the idea of building things for mutual benefit. Whether con artists, or thieves, or vandals, there are some who mostly experiment with ways to either enrich themselves by doing very little helpful work, or to just destroy things because they can.

So that is where we find ourselves, whether we like it or not. Humanity has come up with a number of ways to attempt to mitigate against those who wish to harm others. I say attempt, because these countermeasures have proven to be somewhat ineffective. I'm not saying we shouldn't lock our doors, we should. It helps. That particular mechanism only goes so far, however, since you will still be vulnerable to some degree. Perfect security is an illusion, and a goal with diminishing returns as you put more and more effort into it. Ideally, this quest to protect ourselves from other humans would not be necessary. Unfortunately, it is. We simply cannot trust each other.

Now, you could look at my view of humanity and think that it's pretty negative and gloomy. I want to apologize if I've given you that impression. I only want to be realistic, as we work together to build things that benefit everyone. It's a hard problem, creating systems and communities which are resilient to attack. I think we will continue to improve. STEEM is a system which attempts to improve on these problems in important ways. There are still problems. Like all systems there are vulnerabilities and bad people can do bad things. The good news is that we have a lot of tools and a lot of people with the proper motivations and a system that is flexible enough that we can learn from our failures and keep improving.

The Actual Point

That is a bit of a long-winded introduction to what I really want to say. I'm at risk of burying the lede with this, so I'll stop now and just get to the point. Many people come to this platform with honest good intentions and a skeptical untrusting attitude. That is awesome. Many others arrive here with the intention of using the system to benefit primarily themselves, or just to wreak havoc for the lulz. That is despicable. Still others find themselves in this environment with the correct intentions and attitude, but without the necessary degress of skepticism, or sometimes also technical acumen, to protect themselves. Just so this doesn't sound too elitist, it's worth keeping in mind that we are all to one degree or another, vulenerable.

Because there are scammers and spammers and extortionists and bad actors in our world, we must come together and protect each other to whatever reasonable extent we can. There is not a lot that I take strong positions on and adamantly rage about, however, it infuriates me to see people who take without giving and harm others because they can. We should all seek to become more informed about the ways in which people can be taken advantage of. This is helpful in a couple of ways. It is enlightened self-interest. The more I know about how to protect myself, the safer I will be. Beyond that quasi-selfish motivation, it also puts me in a better place to warn others and to work for solutions to protect us all. Please do the same, as your time and experience allows. Trust me, those that would steal and plunder are skillful and spend plenty of time figuring this stuff out.

While you will not be entirely safe by doing these things, it is worth putting in the effort to protect yourself and your community. The better we are at protecting ourselves, the safer we all are. It's worth keeping in mind that something like "herd immunity" is at play here. Similar to vaccinating against viruses in meatspace, innoculating ourselves against scammers and thieves and extortionists online makes the endeavor less profitable. The more we can raise the bar and the more we can deny success, the less likely these things are to be pursued in the first place.

Stuff to look out for

Here is a very incomplete list of things which we should all think carefully about, be very skeptical when asked to share these things, and do what we can to expose those who would cause problems:
- Private Keys
- Passwords
- ID cards
- Nude photos
- SBD/STEEM/ETH/BTC, etc
- Fiat money

If you are so lucky as to have only encountered decent, honest people online, please take a moment to consider HOW people get taken advantage of by scammers and then DON'T FALL FOR IT. The best scams are friendly and sympathetic. Most scams appeal to basic human emotion (greed, sympathy, outrage, etc...).

Also, as an observation, most scammers and extortionists and beggars and such work very hard to not be exposed. Don't fall for that either. Speak up when someone is doing bad things. There are lots of people who are more than willing to help, because we know the stakes of this game. The community is your best defense. Learn to trust those who prove themselves trustworthy. As they said so many times on Hill Street Blues after they got the latest rundown of the bad things going on, "Let's be careful out there".

Note: images in this post are CC0 licensed, from pixabay.com

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