Steem’s special powers: Ned Scott on Steemit before and after the hack

CoinFox approached the platform’s CEO and Co-Founder Ned Scott and asked him about the experience gained from the recent events and what to expect from Steemit in the near future.

CoinFox: Can you tell us what happened on 14 July when Steemit was hacked? What lessons have we learned? 

Ned Scott: One lesson  we learned is to make further use of open source.

The best thing we  could have done would have been to make the GUI open source earlier than  we did. Because the hacker was able to exploit a bug in the sanitation  method via cross scripting injection, maliciously pulling user keys, the  attacker was able to transfer a few thousand in funds. The other thing  we learned is that Steem Power, which is Steem locked up with time delay for withdrawals, is a very important security feature.

Steemit’s  recently added Account Recovery process, which allows users to have a  partner who can help them regain their account in the event of a hack,  means the rightful owner can regain their account without losing any Steem Power.

CF: To create Steem, you partnered with Daniel Larimer. How did you two meet and start working together?

NS:  Dan has been in Bitcoin since 2009, when he was  actually looking to create a digital currency solution himself with the  idea that people need their own community-operated currency to be truly  empowered.

Dan then found Bitcoin and became a persistent early  contributor, even speaking with Satoshi on several occasions via  BitcoinTalk. I came upon Bitcoin in early 2013 and woke up to the  possibilities. It wasn’t much later that I found Dan who was beginning  work on the Bitshares project, which is the idea of an  application-specific blockchain that supports a decentralized exchange.  This idea came out of the realization that exchanges may be vulnerable, which everyone was feeling after we saw Mt. Gox collapse.

Today things  may be different for exchanges and in some cases they are a particular  strength in the industry, however, it was just a week ago that we  witnessed Bitfinex suffer a very large hack. In 2015 I approached Dan to determine where else we could apply this innovative blockchain  technology. Later that year, our discussion evolved to the way  blockchains could benefit mutual aid societies and micro insurance. The  idea resonated with me and I headed to Blacksburg, Virginia to meet with  Dan and discuss how we could implement it. In January, the concept morphed and was further refined when we finally realized that this technology could dramatically improve social media.  

CF: Can you tell us more about Steem blockchain? What is special about it?

NS:  Steem is special  in that it has all the intangibles to support real-time applications and bring the benefits of blockchain, such as immutability, to the public  domain of content.The effect of such a platform is that it is completely open, allowing developers from all over the world to bring  their skills and build their own projects. Every new project that appears on Steemit is a great complement to the apps that are already  there, as the effect of competition is that the blockchain begins to  approach network effect at a faster and faster rate.

CF: How would you describe an average Steemian? How do you see your target audience? 

NS: We are seeing  Steemians from all over the world and many walks of life. That’s the  beauty of this community: it’s without censorship and welcoming to all  who are willing to work to be a part of it. As our business, steemit.com, is still in beta, we are happy to see things grow organically, however,  it is worth noting that we are seeing very consistent arrival of  libertarians, which to us makes perfect sense as it’s philosophically in  line with blockchain technology. 

CF: Steemit is a curated  platform, which means that the best-voted publications rise to the top of the newsfeed and get more visibility, votes and a larger reward. What  makes for a good content on Steemit?

NS:  It’s hard to say.The Steemit platform is young and we’ve seen the top pages evolve quite  dramatically over the last several weeks.  At a high level we’d suggest  good formatting, good insight, and images. It also is important for  users to "introduce themselves," which helps the community understand  they are dealing with a real person. It’s a great way to begin building  relationships on the site that can turn into collaborations and support  down the road.

CF: What is the next step for  Steemit after the beta release, the first payout, and becoming open source? What do you plan to further improve user experience on Steemit?

NS: In the near term  we’re looking forward to improving the user experience. If this new  technology is going to become mainstream, it’s going to need to support  users of all technical abilities and several of the staples of blockchain technology, including management of private keys, will need  to blend into the background.

We also plan to improve user education  through tutorials, FAQ and help sections, as well as to begin  incorporating many of the features that have made other sites  successful, such as notifications on Facebook and Twitter. 

Selection from: coinfox.info