Steem Private and Public Keys Demystified 🔐

Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by drakos from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, and someguy123. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows and creating a social network. Please find us in the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.

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jack123 (37) 7 years ago

Wow this look awesome ,thank you for sharing this with us and I hope that you will continue posting such great posts,Thank you.

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globocop (64) 7 years ago

Such an excellent guide - will keep in under LOCK 🔒

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littlenewthings (67) 7 years ago

Thanks @drakos , but I am still curious how is the public keys used. I know the memo public keys are useful to send steem from outside to our accounts, but what about public post keys? Any idea?

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drakos (70) 7 years ago

There is only one public posting key, not "public post keys". As I explained, the public keys serve the purpose of authenticating your transactions. The different keys have different "access" levels. It can be confusing if you're not familiar with the concept, but it's all clear in the post. I suggest your read it a couple more times to grasp it.

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littlenewthings (67) 7 years ago

Let me re-phrase:
I get the practical usage of the private keys and their functions @drakos , and I also understand the public memo key is for as well. But what are the posting and active public keys for? What is their practical functionality (I am pretty sure there is), how can we make use of it so that its purpose is well used?

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drakos (70) 7 years ago

Posting key - The posting key allows accounts to post, comment, edit, vote, resteem, and follow or mute other accounts. Most users should be logging into Steemit every day with the posting key. You are more likely to have your password or key compromised the more you use it so a limited posting key exists to restrict the damage that a compromised account key would cause.

Active key - The active key is meant for more sensitive tasks such as transferring funds, power up/down transactions, converting Steem Dollars, voting for witnesses, updating profile details and avatar, and placing a market order.

The public posting key is used to authenticate your comment/edit/vote/resteems, etc..., while the public active key authenticates your fund transfers, powerups, etc...

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littlenewthings (67) 7 years ago

hm. So why would our public keys be exposed (to the public) in our accounts? I understand memo public key because we can have such a use on that (to send steem to someone), so how about posting public keys? I understand that the authentication is needed, so is it possible that I (for example) send an encrypted message to you, with your public posting key, so that your private posting key can decrypt the message?

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drakos (70) 7 years ago

Public keys are meant to be public, they're not 'exposed' or at risk. If you encrypt a message with my public key (doesn't matter what type of key it is), only ME can decrypt it with my private key. On the other hand, I can SIGN a message with my PRIVATE key and send it to you, and you can use my public key to authenticate that it was ME who signed it.

The posting, active, owner, memo keys are inventions of Steem to allocate different permissions to your account. The public/private key pairs are used by the system, not me or you, to authenticate the author or the transactions.

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littlenewthings (67) 7 years ago

Maybe one day Steemit will evolve to a stage we can encrypt and decrypt it using its services and enable privacy control of our own keys. That would be nice.

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