RE: In Light Of Recent Events: Can We Reach A Consensus On Banning Abusive Users From Steem?
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!
Sorry but youll never get a consensus for banning accounts with a hardfork, no witness will ever agree to that no one would vote for them very much a political issue I went oevr already in previous reply
And like I said, its nit about the account but new posts these scammers make, and we can have our steem witnesses choose not to take data from them, so yeah it would be possible to stopp them but you can't ban it from the blockchain that's like bitcoin banning a bitcoin wallet it makes no sense
you have all these transatcions that are in a huge blockchaina nd you can't just get rid iof thjem its all tangled up and you have to just avccept that the account may remain but we can stop them from posting new posts or comments and then remove their posts and comments from the steemit,.com front end, or like I said witnesees can stop them from posting on the back end on the steem blockchain but thatd be so difficult to pushg through.... Highly doubt you will see ahradfork just to look after a few peoipel who made some human errors and clicked phioshing links or shared their keys accidentally etc
wha5t we need is better user education and better front end that prevenst the phishing links from even showing up at all! That is ver possible on steemit.com AND I am PRETTY SURE we could just have consensus to not allow Phishing links on the blockchain in a post perhaps, that would prevent the phishing
we have to reqalize that the scammers for the most part have to get users to mess up and give them their keys, due to the users not paying attention...
We shouldn't be talking about banning uysers etc instead we should talk about making it impossible to even POST a Key in the memo field on the steemit front end, there should be an automatic pop up or something that senses that it looks like akey in this text field and will just prevent someone from being able to even post it unless they click a button that says they underatand and are puprosefully trying to post the key for one reason or another, but anyway we could make it really hard to even make the error of posting a key on a post or wallet memos. Also we should prevent the phishing links the same way by not even allowing them from being posted eitehre on front end or maybe the witnesses can reject data having the url to phishing sites but m,ight be too complicated to do.....
We have to look at this more like a tecdhnical problem and not just like a light switch the king can just flick on or off
there is no one who can make this decision ned can't do this, its up to witnesses and that is all up to the blockchain and honestly there iusnt going to be a big change like this just to help a small minority of users who messed up and got hacked, its not in the interest of the witnesses to risk being called authoritariuans and to get rid of the whole censorship resistanc3e aspect JUST to serve the needs of aq small minority of users who arent paying attention THAt is the sad reality and I'm sorry to have to say this but its true... The only solution to the scammers etc is toi get better front end rules and to have better security as a user!
I hated watching steemgh get alll his Steempower stolenm after 30 days went buy and no help from steemit inc came to him even after he correctly went through stolen account recovery procedure! Months of work helping him get where he was all gone because of a Phishing link, but after the ordeal I learned that we can't just act like there is a central authority that can ban users, its really lazy thinking when we are supposed to be steemians who solve problems ourselves. And honestly I believe th4e scammers can be changed recruited to work for steem and do good instea dof evil
what motivated that person to scam? To wait for keys like that and NOT give them back and help make steem better ansd ssafer?
Well it was a sort of shrot term greed when long term ggreed would have made that user realize they could have been a BEACON of HOPE for steem they could have White hated an dheld the keys so no oen ELSE could steal them
This scamer COULD have been a white hat but ,maybe the world failed him or so he feels? Maybe he feels the world didn't give him chances to do legit work? Maybe hes in a country whre he really Cannot find any legit opportunities or doenst know about them. I feel like if this person would just white hat anmmd waited for keys to only give them back , this person could have gottn RICH off this action of doing the right thing by Poisting about it andgetting big upvop6tes from whales apreciating that there is a user who COULD have stolen funds but did not
I swear to God I know why these users feel its OK to stela the money: They feel that if someone makes the mistake to send their keys out that they don't deserve the money and in some ways I do agree with them, becauise this is not a game its real life and social darwinism is controversial but biology doesn't lie, survival of the fittest is what we ALL end up relying on when we see any sort of injustice in the world, but when it happens online people dontw ant to admit that its no different than someoen who dropsp their wallet with lots of cash, afte rgetting drunk or for whatever reason but if yuou have genetics that make you predisposed to losing yoru walet youre neer going to end up rich and if you are a person who doenst take key security seriously and who makes simple mistakes due to a lack of caring then in a way I agree wiuth the person who IS ppaying attention watching waiting like a spider, because what if they are in Africa or India or in some developing third world poor couintry where people die around him of hunger and what fi tyhis person is simply doing what they knowhoiw to do to make money in a peaceful way? They arent hurting anyone, iurts all just nuymbers on a screen, no violence was used, he simly wait3ed for keys to appear on his screen and took the money which was technicaly and legally up for grabs!
The reason you cannot ban someone like that is in court he would win lkegally the money was not stolen and that is the cold hard truth until new laws or a governnace system is put in place!
I don't agree with that mindset that I just described because its too anarchocapitalist and throws outr the window the ideas of privateproperty
Because just because you Can steal a wallet on a table and get awa with it doenst mean you SHOULD
and yes I want for users to NOT have theior property stolen and we can all agree pretty much that even if a user makes a huyman error and posts their keys in a post or wallet memo, that doenst mean they had intent to give up their keys, and I weould expect EOS will actually have safegaurds against things like this and that governnace and constitution is what will set steem and eos apart so if you do want a greater respect for your private property id suggest you start accumulating EOS. Everyone who has been since it started at 50 cents has basically become Rich in the last 6 months since its gone to $15-$22 and yes some people are haters and act like that doenst mean anyuthing but steem has some big shortcomings and private property respect is one of them
I agree with you and don't agree with what I was saying asn an example, about how someone justifies their theft online by thinking they desreve it more for being on top of the game moire, and when they're in a poor country and have nothing you can have some human synmpathy for why some people go oout and stela money onloiine, its the only way they know how to make large sums of money and hopefully we can TEACH that if you actually help people instead of robing them and be a WHITE hat hacker you can get a GREAT reputationa nd maybe even a JOPB in the community and not have to live in fear and poaranpoia! Its a MUCH better lifestyle!
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.