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RE: Phishing reported - Scammers use account's profile
Hello @glenalbrethsen, thank you for your comment.
I've heard that accounts can't be shut down.
Unfortunately, this is not true. We are working on top of a blockchain where code is law. The is no mechanism implemented to ban or disable an account. This would require some kind of centralized authority and could lead to censorship.
There's no way we can expect all of us to be 100% vigilant, especially the newbies.
True, but doing nothing would be worse. I try to do my best to inform and educate people, I and hope it will slow down the proliferation of scam attempts.
Definitely believe the education and information should continue. And I can see how any action that shuts down an account today over criminal activity could lead to something like censorship, because the door is open and there's always going to be someone who takes advantage of the code.
So, what about prosecution of criminal acts? And barring that, what about an alert that pops up when you sign on? Some kind of alert system that goes out to every logged in account? That wouldn't seem to be that hard to implement. Or would that lead to some other kind of centralization?
Kind of frustrating when we're trying to keep things decentralized and also secure. Open and private. They don't seem to play together very well, at least not in some instances. :)
You have to look at things separately.
On one side there is the blockchain, which is decentralized and which has its own activity, controlled by the code. Since this part is really decent, it is up to the victim of malicious actions to file a complaint.
On the other side, there are different clients (steemit.com, busy.org, esteem, ...) that are used to access blockchain information and to manage the activity of their own account. These customers are centralized and it is up to them to take the necessary security measures to protect their users.
Concerning the possibility of complaints, it is unfortunately difficult to prove which client has been used to perform actions. And hacking has often been made possible due to the negligence of the user.
Finally, it is hard to clearly identify the criminals.
It is therefore likely to be a legal puzzle.