Does the Steemit community care about privacy?

in steemit •  8 years ago  (edited)

Privacy is deeply valued in most digital currency communities.

As a newcomer to Steemit, one of the things that surprised me is that you can see how much STEEM any user on the platform has as well as every single transaction they've made by simply knowing their username and viewing their wallet. See my wallet here and see Steemit Co-founder and CTO Dan Larimer's wallet here.

Clearly that was a design choice made by the Steemit team. What are the benefits of such radical transparency, and do they outweigh the costs? The privacy implications are important here particularly from a security perspective -- hackers can easily identify high value targets on Steemit and I'm sure they will.

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In the future we will be adding support for confidential transactions. Your Steem Dollars and STEEM balances will be kept private, but your Steem Power must still remain public to support voting / reputation.

Excellent!

Good to know, thanks Dan

Dan, please tell us what can be done about that or if this is already impossible: https://steemit.com/steemit/@steemitpolitics/what-if-people-start-selling-their-votes

I love your engagement with the community! Keep doing what you do!

like your idea

Interesting targets for hackers can still be detected then by looking at their steem power. This really stays a problem. So security has to be tight.

security in what sense? it really becomes a user level problem I believe- I'm mostly concerned about phishing and malware attacks happening to high value targets

Transparency is very important - Steem Power must still remain public, because is an incentive for voting, but crucially for reputation.

Transparency does NOT need to be sacrificed for Privacy to exist, by any means.
And most certainly not in how it corresponds to Steemit specifically.


Signed,
obfuscate-me

Agreed. Also it's very hard to add privacy when it wasn't thought of from the start

If you have time, I have some concerns as to the overall outlook of the site once mainstream media establishes a presence here. As the co-founder of the site, I am very interested in your opinion towards the role they will play https://steemit.com/money/@mrzazaful/mainstream-media-influence-in-steemit

I think this is an excellent solution. It is good to know who has influence but IF I had a lot of steem dollars or steem I would not want that to be public.

Good to know that steem dollars and balances will eventually private- think this is important for us all

agree!

I like that kind of radical transparency, @ntomaino

This is very concerning...

  ·  8 years ago (edited)

Manuel! There are a few concerning things about the platform.

In addition to privacy/security and the current hype driving the price, the fact that whales control all the STEEM means that the popular content is primarily positive STEEM posts. It's no different than R/bitcoin mods controlling what gets upvoted I guess, but not a good dynamic nonetheless.

Thank you for the content. Namaste~!

Thanks! I'm surprised more people are talking about this, frankly. There's been a good amount of upvotes but not many folks are voicing concerns in the comments.

Point of blockchain technology is to be open and transparent. Ones privacy is his own thing and he can protect it if he pleases. But most people are unaware of risks. They put everything online. It has good side and bad side. If one knows what the risks are then he decides his faith.

One potential benefit of a blockchain is to increase openness and transparency. I would not say its the point of blockchain technology as a whole.

Agreed on that sholud have picked my words more carefully.

hi

hey ben