NEWBIE INITIATIVE TASK 3: There's hope for you after losing your keys

Hi everybody, it is time for me to answer the questions for the third task of the newbies initiative. Its been a blessing and I've got to learn a few things like the rules on hive, how to set our smart goals and now, how to be security conscious on hive.

It is important for every hiver to be security conscious because even if we are free with other users, we chat, we engage and we have fun, we also make money here too. Imagine being locked out of your account. You would just see your money but you won't have access to it.

I have lost money before because I didn't have access to my account. The site required me to use an OTP(one-time password) sent to me for logging in. I didn't have the sim card anymore and I didn't verify my email.

Today, I'm here to answer;

In your opinion, what are the best ways of keeping your keys safe ?

BACKING IT UP TO THE CLOUD

Immediately I learnt how important my keys were, I knew losing them wasn't an option. The most effective ways of saving your keys is backing them up to the cloud. This can be done so many ways. One way is to save them to your mail, that way you can always get them back when you need them. Another way is saving them to your google drive. This gives you access to your keys anytime you need and and since only you has the password to it, only you has access.

WRITING IT DOWN ON A PIECE OF PAPER

I usually don't recommend this because there are so many ways this could go wrong, the paper might get lost or get eaten by rats or even fall into the wrong hands. This isn't the safest method but it can save you the stress of getting your keys lost.

TRUSTING SOMEONE VERY CLOSE WITH YOUR KEYS

It could be a family member or someone you trust. Sometimes it helps to save it with someone who has no idea what it is for, that way they never know where to use it. You could also back up your keys with a family member so you have access to it anytime you need it. This particular method is very sensitive because humans can be very funny atimes. Ensure you save it with someone you trust.

How do you check your recovery account and what process is needed to recover your account?

If your keys get lost, you aren't entirely locked out from your account. There's something called a recovery account. This is in simple terms, a person or community set to as a Trustee to help you get your account back incase it was lost or hacked. A trustee is an account that is attached to your account and for the benefit of learning, I would be showing everybody steps to setting up a trustee.

1. Go to your hive frontend and clicked the three dot (...) just beside the setting option. It should look a little something like this

2.Clicking the three dots would bring out a menu, select from the menu, "Keys and Permissions

3.Clicking that would lead you to another page where you have to click "Recovery Account"

4.From the next menu, you can choose who to be your trustee. Mine is currently set to @leo.voter. You can change this easily by click the first blue button.

5.The next step is very simple, just fill in the name of the community or account you wish to use as your trustee and put in your private own key and you're good to good.

That's how easy it is to enable a trustee.

The processes to recovering an account is quite simple too. It didn't know we could recover our account before, talk less of how simple the process is.

1. First, find the recovery page by clicking this link;

https://realzuliqbal.com/HiveAccountRecovery/

It's should take you to a page that looks something like this.

2.Click Recover Account, the writing below it gives you instructions on recovering your account

3.Fill in the necessary information like the account you're trying to recover. Generate a new password and get a new Owner key. It is very important to save this somewhere for safe keeping.

4.Input the account to recover, the new password and recent password. Click on "Recover Account" when you're done and leave the rest to your trustee.

Whom did I choose as my trustee and why?

I chose @leo.voter because the @leofinance community is a very trusted and respected community. I signed up using @leofinance and there's always someone to attend to you when you need them.

What are the various types of keys and their uses

Different keys serve different purposes and I think we have just 5, these are;

MEMO KEY

This key is used to send private messages and is the least used. It can also be used for transactions some times.

POSTING KEY

Commenting, reblogging, making posts and voting requires your posting key. It is limited for transactions so nobody can use it to make a transaction with your account.

ACTIVE KEY

This is used for all monetary transactions, be it converting HBD or powering down, powering up or exchanging tokens.

OWNER KEY

This key can be used to reset all other keys. Your owner key should always and I repeat, always be kept very safe.

And lastly we have;

MASTER KEY

The master keys can be used to recover your passwords if you lose them.

I do hope you can learn a thing or two from this post.

Appreciation goes to @newbies-hive and @hive-learners community for this initiative with
the help of @starstrings01, @samostically. I wouldn't be done if I didn't mention my mentor @hopestylst for their help and time given to me and my other members of the intiative. I also want to say a big thank you to the curators @theycallmedan and @aliento team.