How Do You Fight Scammers In A Decentralized Platform?
Decentralization is a wonderful thing. There is no single point of failure, no middle man, only freedom.
But with great freedom comes great responsibility - and never before was this saying more accurate than these days. During last 2 weeks alone, Steemit was subject not to one, but to two phishing scams and a DDoS attack (which may or may be not related to the aforementioned scams).
In a centralized system you, as an end user, don't usually see all this stuff, because the centralized authority interferes and most of the time conceals this information. But in a decentralized system everything is out in the open. The beauty of uncensored creativity as well as the ugliness of greed and theft.
So, how do you fight scams in an open, transparent system?
The answers is found in the saying above: by assuming your part of responsibility. By taking extra steps to ensure that all your actions here are secure. Because if you rely on a central authority to "take care of you", to "protect you from the scammers", well, you may be in for a very disappointing outcome.
Don't get me wrong, there are quite a lot of "white hat" security savvy people in Steemit and many of them are working voluntarily for the benefit of the community. But most of the time they can come in only after a scam attempt has been consumed.
So, it's really up to you.
Step One: Inform And Stay Informed
The good news is that a transparent system can propagate any type of information - including information related to scams - way faster than a centralized one. Just like your body cells are fighting viruses by passing around information about the new virus signature, building defense structures and transferring the "plans" for this defenses to the next cell, that's how we, in a decentralized system, can fight scams and phishing attempts.
If you see a scam, tell people about it. If you've been subject to a scam, and didn't get caught, tell people about it. If you hear about a scam from a reliable source, tell people about it.
For instance, last week I've received a wallet message from @accounttransfers about my funds being blocked. First thing I did when I realized this is a scam: I published all the information about it:
WARNING: Phishing Scam By "@accounttransfers" On Steemit Via Direct Messages - Don't Fall For This!
Another example occurred this morning, when I got another wallet message, this time from a witness, @arcange, announcing another scam:
SCAM ALERT and WHITE HAT COUNTER-STRIKE.
So, do tell people about. Do it fast.
Step Two: Stay Aware
Don't assume that everything here is all roses and dancing, because it's not. Stay aware and take care of your own. Look for messages you got from people you don't know, or from people who's account name looks like familiar names. Do your due diligence.
If an account seems strange, just look it up on a block explorer (steemd.com, steemdb.com).
Remember, everything is transparent here and all you need to do to reveal all the information about an account is to just look it up. It only takes a few minutes and it's free. Being scammed comes at a very high cost and it's usually non-reversible, so you do the math.
Here are just a couple of examples of phishing accounts:
- @blocktradess - it has an extra "s" at the end, watch your fat fingers
- @jerrybanfeild - it has "ei" at the end, instead of "ie"
And the list may go on and on.
So, stay safe and rest assured that the benefits of a decentralized system are, in the long run, outnumbering the problems.
Steem on!
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
https://steemit.com/~witnesses
If you're new to Steemit, you may find these articles relevant (that's also part of my witness activity to support new members of the platform):
Also one account with a rep of 70 got hacked and the name has been changed, here some details:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@samstonehilltube/samstonehill-has-been-hacked-and-cannot-be-re-accessed-how-did-this-happen-and-what-are-the-solutions
This post has received a 1.32 % upvote from @boomerang thanks to: @alexvan
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fantastic information my friend, no doubt the scammers are increasing every day and they comes up with a new ideas each time so we also have to stay alert and work with open eyes, today i read exyle post he points out a account hack in his post and here is the post of victim who lose his account by putting his master password in the given link by scammer. so we all have to work with extreme caution especially when it comes to dealing with passwords. thanks for sharing
Steemit is a great teacher of responsibility in that regard. There isn't a safety net if you mess up big time.
While I agree there does need to be some sort of accountability we need a better system. I keep crying 2fa to which I sometimes get the reply no one wants that because it's centralized. Well I'll tell you what no one wants to loose all there hard work over night either and the more this happens the more people are going to be turned away from steemit for other options.
If 2fa isn't at least the short term solution then someone needs to come up with the long term solution and fast. We're all human and mistakes will keep being made.
As long as you NEVER enter your key in another site, you're 100% safe. There are no passwords to be "stolen" stored on the servers or, anything like that. You're the only holder of your keys. Your account IS your keys, so keep them safe.
I agree, but like I said we're all human and everyone makes mistakes.
We need to make it "idiotproof" or as close to that as we can.
Well thought write up. WE all are responsible for it.
My witness vote for you, you are doing a great job.
Thank you, appreciate it :)
Thanks for the info! Part of the intricacies (and development) of the system I guess. As you say, we just need to keep our eyes open and share the knowledge, and we can keep ahead of the game! :)
Great . Lets get the B****ds. I read @samstonehill go hacked and his account is now offline. All his wallet cleared out and he has been working on charity posts for bali. If we send a strong message of community they may back off. Steemit is so new that the idea of community is still unheard . May be I am naïve but it cannot hurt. Thanks
i'll be hyper aware of not visiting or using caution on off steemit sites, i really don't like to go into many chats and such sites, there is plenty to focus on for me here alone / peace
Excellent post! One that must be resteemed rigorously till every active user sees it. Decentralized platforms may seem to be lacking a system to prevent scams but, as appropriately mentioned in this post, people are the best asset of such a platform.
When I saw a scam in my feed, I immediately alerted the whole community about the phishing scam and even tried to paste the alert and post link after the comments that I wrote on influential Steemians' post. It wasn't spamming because it was a community related information so even the people who always flag comments with links cared to resteem the post.
I was glad to do my part and the support that the community gave was amazing. Some witnesses got in and flagged that scammer heavily as well. This platform is self-sustainable (if people keep caring).
Excellent post, again!
Now the amount of people messaging in memos with fake scams are also increasing and its important that we stay vigilant!