RE: "I Got Downvoted!?! It's Not Fair! Can You Help Me???"
Sure. Use a VPN (preferably outside of one of the 5 eyes) and ToR, then make sure you never post or access the site outside of those security parameters. But one slip up is all it takes to compromise your ID. Very few people are disciplined enough to do this without ever making a mistake. If you post, and write enough, language analytics could also narrow down the possibilities. Ross Ulbricht still got nabbed despite using encryption, etc. His biggest mistake was not shutting down between sessions. But I don't want to have to be mute and hide my ID, just my wallet balance from criminals. It's not normal to broadcast your bank balances (though Equifax is helping that to happen on the dark web), why should we tolerate authority or anyone else that attempts to do this? We don't want to mimic centralized IT which is reckless and irresponsible.
Unless you got in as a miner, getting large amounts of fiat into crypto anonymously could be a problem due to KYC. If you want Steem to succeed, a step in the right direction would be increased privacy. The reality is that these hacks are happening and it will get worse the more valuable crypto becomes. Why not be proactive about this instead of making fun of this very real danger saying "less drama and FUD"?
I’ve had this conversation many times before. Use https://anon.steem.network/ Use decentralized exchanges. Transfer out to an exchange and into an account you create anonymously. If you want a privacy coin, use a privacy coin. This is a social network, not the dark web. I’ve had this conversation numerous times over the last two years.
I already use DEX's. You can't post anonymously and get too personal. It doesn't work. Something will sooner or later give you away. I don't mind being known. I just don't want my bank balance broadcast which means that my best work would have to remain on low SP accounts and that's not ideal either.
We're better off dealing with this now, using zero knowledge proofs or something similar, when Steem price is low and not attracting attention. If we wait until Steemit has the same draw as Reddit, and wallet balances are still public, we could see stories like this become much more common.
Don't post on the accounts where you store your funds. This isn't that complicated.
Have your public account. Transfer funds to DEX. Transfer funds to a private random account which never posts anything.
I'm trying to tell you that I don't want to do that. Privacy should be on by default. Asking the public to take on that responsibility is just asking for the digital panopticon to swallow us up whole. This is't just about what I do personally... look at the bigger picture.
The picture I see is you want Steem to be a privacy coin. It is not. It's a social media powering blockchain for tokenizing the web. Adding a privacy layer would be great, but that's not the focus of this blockchain. There are many other blockchains which focus on privacy.
All should implement privacy, not just the privacy coins. A hundred years ago pieces of paper, gold, silver didn't have KYC and we managed just fine without it. A couple of generations before that in the USA, taxes didn't exist and we had "pay for use". This modern version of money is a perversion set up by brown nosing authority control freaks. They are creating terrorism which is a byproduct of their own authority. To the extent that we continue to allow this breach, we play right into their hands.
There is a way to do this right. I've been a software developer professionally since about 1995, but wrote my first code in the mid 1970's. How much is a post worth? Do we believe in a work ethic? I realize that modifying the reward pool to match upper and lower bounds of the value of posts might not appeal to those currently being advantaged by the way things are set up, but we are walking into a trap. One can use zero knowledge proofs (hashes of the values rather than the values themselves) to prevent double spends and make sure that the values are reasonable relative to the reward pool.
Don't be fooled by the fact that this isn't a big deal right now. You have to imagine the scenario where crypto has become massively successful (and it will). The result will be collapse of national fiat everywhere. When that happens, do you think all those cops with guns are just going to quietly walk away? Do you think every other desperate person won't begin acting like hackers if they can? Andreas Antonopoulos warned us about this...
I understand that privacy as an optional feature will be privacy that isn't used. I do appreciate your concerns as it relates here as well. In some ways, you're preaching to the choir. I shared the cypher punk manifesto at a conference I spoke at recently. I do get it. I also understand the realities of what this particular blockchain is about and appreciate there can be some benefit to radical transparency as well (more on that here and here).
I'll add this to my watch later, though I may have already seen it.
Thanks for the discussion and for being passionate about your perspective.
Edit: Oh, I forgot to add:
How do we do that? Who determines reasonable? That's what I thought Proof of Brain was trying to accomplish with stake weighted votes.
This isn't how it sounds. The idea is that it has to fall within the bounds of what is possible. One cannot get payout larger than the reward pool, and the sum of the rewards has to at least be approximately equal to the pool (but at least a bit less than that to account for fees).
Voting can go on as before, but the amounts are determined individually instead of collectively and hashes of the values instead of values for accuracy check. When amounts are public, and someone is saying I don't think that post should be worth $1000, there is a bit of coercion is there not? One is trying to use their stake to force their own view. One is exercising their own voting power over the whole. This is what the state does, not what voluntarists do. But someone deciding how much of their own voting power should go to a post is voluntary.
I understand there is a difference here since we all got to opt into Steem, but I think that the more we are able to reflect non-coercion in the game theory and code, the better off we will be.