on 14 July Steemit, a social network on blokcheyne, hacker attack was made. However, immediately after this course cryptocurrency it has grown significantly and has reached one of the highest marks. CoinFox trying to find the cause.
While Publishing Platform is gaining popularity outside kriptosoobschestva used it cryptocurrency steem in terms of market capitalization has reached third place after BTC and ETH. July 20, nearly a week after the attack, she went up to a maximum of $ 4.32, ahead of the previous record, which occurred on the eve of the attack on 13 July. Moreover, according to steemle.com, July 13 in a single day was created by a record number of accounts - 2790 people registered on the platform. The attack led to a sharp decrease in the number of new registrations, but even in this case on 19 July 1353 were Steemit new user.
Thus, despite the fact that two weeks ago, there were 260 compromised accounts and stolen Steem-dollars and tokens steem worth almost $ 85,000, now things are bad business platform. In this article we will try to understand the situation around the most prominent of the July attacks.
Back to Steemit 101
In a research article published in the beginning of July, CoinFox referred to the e-book «Steemit 101: How to make money and have fun in a social network that pays you for what you are and vote for the post content" written by the four most active users of the platform for the publications. Then we noticed a strong sense of community and utopian pathos:
"Imagine a social network that rewards people and not greedy shareholders. ... Steemit controlled only by members of the community. There is no policy. No big corporation or government are certainly not make decisions. ... We still believe in a free and open marketplace of ideas. We believe that when different opinions make it possible to compete more and more people learn about these issues and points of view. Everyone has a chance to discuss and argue about ideas. Let the best idea wins and let all treat each other with respect and understanding. "
Indeed, Steemit still running in beta, but the community of its pioneers is not only growing but also becoming more and more committed to make a successful and stable platform. However, when on July 14 began hacking and community Steemit first time faced with serious difficulties, no one knows how this will end. Will people in a panic to sell their assets, thus simplifying the development of events in the direction of dumping? Can they leave the platform and just give up? Or stay and will continue to fight?
Before she herself broke, leading the user Steemit and co-author of the book @stellabelle in the post criticized the fact that "hate speech, blaming the victim and psychopathy in the comments," there are more and more often. Here's what she wrote:
"Then came the attacker and began to extort money from making our dreams become a reality in the short-lived community" vortex of death. " However, many of us have announced that gladly buy any to sell tokens Steem in panic, because we are committed to the dream Steemit. For example, I would have bought more than Steem, if the price began to fall. Steem The dream is now a reality, I never want to lose. "
After it was skomprometirovani account, @stellabelle shared her experience of loss of control over the profile and means:
"I responsibly declare, I am horrified by the fact that my account was hacked. I will not lie. I understand that my funds will be returned, but still feel vulnerable. "
Some users had to wait several days to restore your access and someone just decided to create a new profile. User @pinkisland, whose initial profile was hacked @qamarpinkpanda, expressed their feelings in connection with the attack:
"After the hacker attack, I could no longer log into your account. Yes, I was a little sad and scared, but I knew that Steemit team will be able to get our bill in the form in which they were. Thank you for the great work being done by the team. I have since the day I watch all the posts and communication. When I'm going to vote again, I remind myself that now I actually can not contribute. I felt a little straight lonely, because I was happy to be here every day. "
Discard the senses, focus on safety
A few days later there was an explanation that DDoS-attack on Steemit not aimed at any blokcheyn Steem, either on its servers:
"As mentioned, some of our users, blokcheyn Steem was not hacked. And our servers have not been hacked. Instead, the attacker used a browser vulnerability, and this danger can threaten any company from the list of Fortune 500. We have corrected the problem and are now working on a new solution to the multi-factor authentication, which will protect against such attacks in the future. "
Thus, even those users who are not able to log into their accounts can see all transactions in blokcheyne Steem through monitoring steemd.com tool. This has prompted some users, for example, @redexi, offer to "make the whole resource Steemit.com available on the GitHub, to allow the community to carry out a backup hosting" - this idea in neighboring comments supported the main developer platform Dan Larimer.
As a result, developers hacking Steemit revised blokcheyna security and come up with a new way to protect user accounts. In two successive positions Dan Larimer, the original account @dantheman which also came under attack, talked about the problems kriptobezopasnosti and confirm identification. In this regard, he stressed that the private keys used to authenticate transactions on blokcheyne - is not proof of identity. "It's just evidence. Disputes can still occur if two people have access to the same private key. " Larimer also noted the important role of the community in case of a security violation, as previously with The DAO and now with Steemit:
"For example," hard fork "The DAO, Bitcoin Steem and we saw that in the case of a bug, exploit or steal community can and will take action to restore justice."
"In the social network has a new way of confirmation - social proof. We know who is who, and basically know when someone hacked. Unlike money, positions and voting by a hacker, often do not tally the character of the owner. And it makes it clear to all social network users that the violation occurred. "
Larimer also concluded that "social media - is the key to safety blokcheyna":
"Social Platform - is the best and simplest way to gather all your friends and family members online, so they can protect your account. It's like friends with Facebook, only properly inflated. Friends whom you trust the most, and your family members become the source of your identification information and their collective word (active key) protects your identity and account information. "
July 17 Larimer proposed solution to restore the account, which introduces the concept of "fiduciary" or "someone who can identify you, regardless of the key." In fact, the new recovery system recreates the digital age-old institution of guarantors, once the most important element of social life.
Cohesion
It seems that the key to success and Steemit steem, even in the face of the hacker attacks - this is their philosophy and their community. According @senseiteekay user said, "We have cracked, used, disoriented for a while, but no one really does not survive. Why? Because this site is too good to die! "
Alex Fortin, author of a podcast Business To Freedom, on his YouTube-channel expressed the same opinion. Reporting on the attack, Fortin pointed out that he expected that the cost will fall steem of attack, but "there was quite the opposite, the price began to rise ... I believe that the people were just so confident in their abilities. I think this is the protection of this vote of confidence in the platform developer community ... It makes me believe even more in the future potential and growth of the platform. "
Members Steemit strongly supports the project, but the sounds and criticism. On the first day of the attack on July 14, another founder of the social network based on blokcheyne and Bitcoins, and also provides compensation for the publication, Yours, Charles Ryan, published an article in which he argued that «Steem not be able to survive."
"The burden of creating not only a community and technical platform, but also innovative cryptosystem and the related economy is very large. The problems of security and scalability of their blokcheyna involved a small group of experts insentivirovannyh, so solutions will be slower. Businesses and services such as wallets and exchanges will be fewer and fewer elements c. And when they are faced with questions of legal regulation, they will have fewer allies. "
Interestingly, in the annex to the article, Charles mentions his previous post in which he explained why Yours does not use ether, and Bitcoin. Referring to the subsequent breaking of The DAO, he noted that "my article was an actual accident, but it confirms our position. Like any good scientific theory, theory of Bitcoin is not yet proven and can never be proved, but it can withstand all attacks of this day. "
One thing is certain: his criticism of Steemit and its cryptocurrency published exactly on the day of the attack on Steemit, too, was very relevant. However, whatever the criticism Charles, Steemit really creates a new phenomenon in the field of platforms, are rewarded for publications, namely the emphasis on the creation of community and involvement of the participants. While this community may seem naive and overly enthusiastic. Nevertheless, we look forward to when it matured and will continue to surprise us.
Diana Bogdan
http://www.coinfox.ru/