You are already familiar with private keys on Steem by now. But here is short analogy to remember what key stands for, what and how you should secure yourself.
Posting private key
This key is for your house, where anyone who has access to your keys can go inside your house, use your common stuff on behalf of you because you have some level of trust to them. In a case of Steem, Voting, Commenting, Posting, Reputation
Active private key
This key is for your safe/vault where you keep your money, not many people know passcode but only you. Who has access to this key can control anything that is inside that safe, plus your identity. In a case of Steem, Control your balances and funds, account details
Owner private key
This key is your key to your house and safe/vault, as well as give access or grant permission to own house entirely. In a case of Steem, Ownership of account
Memo private key
This key is your signature where you sign document or important messages/mails. In a case of Steem, Encrypt messages, private communication.
You can share any of the above permissions with other accounts on Steem.
Just like, you can rent out room in your house or have more than one passcode to access safe/vault or joint ownership of property/house or appoint attorney.
Conclusion
Always know how your private keys are being used and who has access to them. Use them with caution!
Better be safe than sorry or to make it analogy related, Be cautious, don't blame neighbors! :)
Great post as always for people to get benefited. Thanks. Btw @good-karma i used my sunday afternoon to translate esteem content in Bengali, still some portion left to be completed. Any feeback will be really appreciated so that i can continue the work and finish it by tomorrow. It's a hell lotta work and i don't want my effort to be wasted. Please let me know about the progress. Thanks!!
Thank you @tamsguitar for your support and contribution, I have just reviewed some of the translations, no effort is ever wasted my friend. As you can see we have already added few languages with this release and if Bengali will be ready by the time we have next release, we will add that too so you can test it out on app ;)
Oh! that's cool. I will surely complete as much as I can. In India you are raised to learn 3 languages at the same time and then suddenly English becomes your priority and you tend to forget the roots. Now I realize it's so difficult to translate.My Mother tongue vocab is so poor?? I am ashamed or should I laugh at myself. Nyway thanks for everything you are indeed doing a good - karma.Cheers!!!!!!
Great post! Learn something everyday about Steemit. Just curious, if Steemit were to be hacked, would your active private key be in jeopardy of being stolen? I am starting to take an ultra paranoid approach to crypto as it is all going up in value so fast. So, I am very uncomfortable with my keys being accessible/known/stored by anyone else besides myself; thus all my BTC is on a Trezor in an undisclosed location in my house :)
Steemit doesn't have access to your private keys, they are stored locally on your browser, it is used for sign transactions locally, just like eSteem does. If Steemit hacked or inaccessible you can always use other user interfaces and apps (eSteem, Busy, ChainBB, etc.). That's the beauty of decentralized network :)
Thanks for clarifying! I can now go to sleep at ease tonight... I know eSteem will always be up and running ;) Cheers!
Thanks for this post.
What is the best way to protect keys in browser?
right awesome times!!!
I feel the same way
Follow Me At :
https://steemit.com/@naserodeh
"all my BTC is on a Trezor in an undisclosed location in my house"
Bitcoin could be making highs of 5k or 10k in future. Maybe you should be a just a bit more paranoid!
@good-karma thanks for this post. Im really new to steemit and only a year or so into crypto so this information really did rock my crypto world because I needed it. I followed you upvoted resteem and did a back flip!
Thank you very much for explaining this, very helpful!
Thank you for explanation. Usually account on the other sites has only one password but in situation with Steemit it is easy to get confused. Not only that, there are already 4 of password, each of them can be shown as a public key or as a private key.
Yes, as you can see all those passwords have purpose and used for different reasons. As for public keys, they are visible to everyone and used for communication and verification purposes, nothing to worry about. Private keys are not visible to anyone and only accessed by you. Although you have 5th, the main password which can be used to change all other 4 private keys...
hey there @good-karma great post... the key for me is knowing that long password.. I was gone for months and am back now... not sure how I found you..still learning the ropes in here.
Useful information. Thanks for sharing. Never realized that there were so many keys. When I opend my account here I received a password. I stored that password somewhere safe.
But I understand now that I need to store all the others keys too. Confusing, but for good reasons.
Just two questions:
Is the password I received when I opened my account at Steemit the 'owner private key'?
And how important is it to safe all the other keys if I already safe my owner key?
No, owner key and main password are slightly different. All keys are derived from your main password including owner key. And changing main password changes all other private and public keys. So keeping main password safe should be ok, if you loose your main password you can still change your posting and active, memo private keys with owner key. Hope it helps...
A lot! Thank you so much!
All keys are secured and written on paper in the safe.... safety first****
As it should be 😉
Yes. I could learn from the best here as it should be.... 😇
Those are some nice ways of picturing this whole thing. It sure can be very confusing for new users.
I think when I did the translations, I described the owners key as the "main" or "house key", though I'm not entirely certain right now..
Yeah, owner key is 2nd top priority that needs to be backed up. Many here has
main passwordwhich should be 1st priority to back up, because it can change all other keys. 2nd is owner key, in case you lose main password you still can maintain ownership and change other keys...Yes, I may not have any main password myself... at least not that I'm aware of anymore. I use my posting key as much as possible though and have the ownerskey in safe storage.
Awesome! Thank you for sharing, it makes us easy to understand what tese keys are all about and also make us aware of how important are they by relating them to real world applications.
thanks for sharing :)
Of course, i have study much about steemit, then i know how and when to use them, thanks for sharing @good-karma, always look forward of your post
Im still confused.
I only have 1 key to login ?
Yes you do,
main passwordand there are other private keys which you can access through your Wallet page and they can used separately for specific purposes, giving user much safer usage instead of using main password...Thank you.
I didnt know that.
Thanks for the great info, I was wondering what the different keys are for. I'm glad to follow you and as long as its not off a cliff...lol
Thanks for the great post and please keep it coming. Cheers
@good-karma,,,,I do not know how to use Memo private key........??
There are no use cases afaik, but it can be used for encrypting private message.
thank you... but how does private communication on steem work? i didnt see private messages anywhere.
It is not implemented yet, but possibility is there.
Thanks, I had been wondering what the different keys were for :)
Very good info for newbies ...... thnx & upped ^^
Oh I was wondering what those were. I'm really glad I didn't go around and play them keys. I could've been in big trouble.
Thanks for the post I really appreciate it!
Ah! Never quite onderstood the system up until now. Thank you for explaining.
Resteem This Post
great post.. very informative..
resteem and upvote for your post....
Thank you for sharing this information. I'm still learning and honestly didn't know there were so many keys. Thanks a bunch :)
Following you.
Follow me @xredsoulless
The information I am waiting for thanks @good-karma
In comments @good-karma: (Steemit doesn't have access to your private keys, they are stored locally on your browser, it is used for sign transactions locally, just like eSteem does. If Steemit hacked or inaccessible you can always use other user interfaces and apps (eSteem, Busy, ChainBB, etc.). That's the beauty of decentralized network :))...This indicates that the steemit is very good and has a very high security, this is no doubt because of the safety stages in good steemit.
Great post and good advice
very good i vote you
Thanks for information :) everyday learn new feature about steemit!! Have a nice day :)
Very helpful for newbies and also for them who never know about Steem Keys.
Good suggestion for Steem security using the luck button.
Good job @good-karma
Thanks for the clarification.
Very informative about Steemit Security. Cheers @good-karma.
Congratulations @good-karma!
Your post was mentioned in my hit parade in the following categories:
Follow Me At :
https://steemit.com/@naserodeh
The exchanges that holds your money holds your keys. If they go down you are subject to the systemic risk of the exchange.
There are some good youtube videos that go over Hot and Cold Storage for your keys.
vote too my friend and support me. will do of same