What is the very first thing that a new steemian has to do? Posting your first comment happily? Reading the top-paid posts to learn how to earn money excitedly? Uploading your photo and setting your profile eagerly? No! The very first thing is: write down your master/owner key on a piece of paper, and keep the paper in a safe. Maybe in a worn-out shoe under your bed.
If you are not sure of your hand copying, just grab your camera, take a picture of your master/owner key, and print it out. Do not forget to delete the digital picture immediately.
Image credit: pixabay.com
Days ago an ID with the reputation 67 was fished by @cheetoh, who looks like @cheetah the famous bot. The master key was lost and 4000 SP+SBD was gone. I keep my fingers crossed for her, although I know that it is difficult, or even impossible, to recover the key and have the money back.
New steemians get a long string when they have just signed up. This string is officially called 'master/owner key'. New steemians think it is a password, the same as the thing they get when signing up other websites. Normally a user is able to recover the password via an email or phone number. Therefore they log in for the first time, read some posts, close steemit, and leave steem all behind. Days later, steem comes to their mind again, and they want to log in. Well, nobody can remember the long string. OK, recover it......what? It CANNOT be recovered??!!
I guess it must be one of the reasons why so many accounts on Steem are dead.
New steemians are not sufficiently told of the importance of their passwords. A user once posted his master key publicly in a chat group of the Chinese community by mistaken copy-and-paste. Another user sent a screenshot of his wallet-permission page to me and asked what those four long strings meant. Nobody was fishing them. They just did not know what they were doing.
If you lose your ID card in reality, you go to the center of ID cards, i.e. the Police Station. If you lose your credit card, you call your credit card service center. If you lose your Steem password, sorry, there is no Steem center. Steem is a blockchain, decentralized!
A user's password on Steem is not only a password. It is a combination like:
Your Steem password = your login password + your ID card + your credit card + your smartphone + your signature
Anyone can use your password to log in, to transfer money, to comment others, and fish your friends. What would you call it? 'Master/owner key' is not enough. I would call this long string 'Steem ID's Life'. If stolen, dead.
I would warn every new Steemian: NEVER, EVER use your master/owner key!
ALWAYS login with your posting key. It is sufficient for everyday use.
If you are doing something related to your money, then use the active key.
When do you have to use your master/owner key? Only when you want to recover something. Take it as the 'restore to factory settings' option of your smartphone. You never use it, do you?
That is why you had better print it out on a piece of paper and save it in an worn-out shoe under your bed.
Image credit: steemit.com
作为 Steem 新手，必须做的最要紧的事情是什么？是兴奋地发第一帖宣告自己的降生吗？是看看收益最高的帖子来学习如何在 steem 赚钱吗？还是上传自己帅帅的头像？全不是！第一件事，至关重要的任务，是立刻抓起你的相机，对着显示器上的 steem 密码拍个照片，打印到纸上，删掉数码照片，然后把这张纸塞到一只鞋子里，藏在床底下。
几天前，有个声望达到 67 的账号被 @cheetoh 用钓鱼手段骗过了眼睛。这个盗贼看上去很像著名的机器人 @cheetah。价值数万人民币的 SP+SBD 和无法估量的其他损失，就这么进了别人钱包，让人痛心。找回密码和账号很困难，几乎是不可能的。
steem 新手注册成功后，会得到一个很长的字符串。官方称其为“万能钥匙” (master/owner key)。这很容易让新手误以为是个登录密码。别的网站不都是如此吗？忘就忘了，不都是能用邮箱或手机恢复吗？于是，他们首次登录，愉快地发布第一帖，读了一些别人的文章，然后关掉了网页，把一切都抛诸脑后。几天之后，他们突然想起了 steem，想登录看看自己是不是赚了点钱。可是那么长的密码，谁记得住呢？恢复一下吧……我靠，居然不能恢复？？！！
Steem 上很多死账号，我怀疑这就是原因之一。
我觉得，新手并未被充分告知密码的重要性。在中文微信群里，曾有个用户不小心把密码复制粘贴出来，每个人都看见了。还有个用户，把他的钱包-权限页的四个密码截了屏，一起发给我，问我这些是什么意思。没人钓鱼欺骗他们，他们只是不知道他们自己在做什么。
现实生活里，如果丢了身份证，可以去身份证中心——派出所或警察局补办。如果丢了信用卡，可以去信用卡中心——拨打服务热线挂失。Steem 的世界里，如果丢了密码，对不起，没有哪个中心可以去，因为 Steem 用的是区块链，去中心化！
实际上， steem 用户的主密码不只是个密码，而是个多合一的混合体，相当于：
Steem 主密码 = 登陆密码 + 身份证 + 银行卡 + 手机 + 签名
只要有了你的主密码，任何人都可以在 steem 上登录你的账号，转账，发帖，给别人留言，钓鱼欺骗你的朋友。这玩意儿到底应该叫什么？”万能钥匙/主密码“ (Master/owner key) 这个称呼远远不够。我觉得应该管它叫”Steem 账号的命根子“。一旦丢失，就是死路一条。
在这里，我想再次警告新手们：永远不要使用你的主密码！
钱包（Wallet）-权限（Permissions）页面有四个密码。
- 登录的时候，用发帖密码（posting key），足够平时使用。
- 只有在跟钱打交道时，才使用活跃密码（Active key）。
- 那么主密码是干什么用的？只有重置账号时才用。你可以当作是手机上的”恢复出厂设置“。这个功能你从来没用过，是不是？
所以，最好把主密码打印出来，塞到鞋子里，藏到床底下。
就像科幻小说《三体III》里所讲，如何保存资料最安全? 刻在石头上！
