Sometimes significant impairment can arise from less than lethal events. =p
Still, I agree with your sentiment, particularly as it regards hardening Steemit against attacks. It may be that ongoing work to harden Steemit is the cause of our present difficulties. Absent timely information from Stinc, it's impossible to say.
There is one attack against which Steemit is defenseless presently, which I hope remains too expensive to undertake for the minor threat Steemit represents. I know that my concerns have been heard at Stinc, and what comes of that is out of my hands.
I lamented the loss of free speech serially on fora and various sites and boards over the last few decades, and will lament losing it here, should that come to pass.
I am confident that there are yet more battles to be won. Until we are lost, or prevail, there always will be.
What are the censorship and "loss of free speech" in Steemit/Stinc you referred to in your replies to lexiconical and citizenzero respectively?
I saw lexiconical replied to you with some reservation about the idea of censorship personally against himself, if I got to what he meant.
If DDoS and such attacks on the platform are intended to disrupt posting, this is censorship of all the posters, and not just @lexiconical, but everyone on the platform.
This is closer to how I see it.
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I suppose if these problems are caused internally by attempts to bolster Steemit itself, they aren't going to warn us users for the same reasons that a release of nuclear fallout is never mentioned in the media: People would change their behavior to compensate for the danger and that cannot be tolerated. Though technology continues to advance, some things never change.
Update: got this response from @apsu on Steemit chat:
Just another opinion?
It's certainly a plausible explanation for such problems, however, in the wake of the DDoS, and given the extent of the problem, there may be other factors involved.
It may be instructive to have a look at any recent problems witnesses have encountered, or whether there have been disruptions in the complement of witnesses of late. I doubt the community has responded to the DDoS by doing nothing, and it is probable coders are busy breaking things and putting them back together - too busy to do any hand-holding.
I hope you're right. I'm really out of my league when it comes to hacking, but the conspiracy theorist (and writer) in me keeps having visions of that DDoS attack as a diversionary tactic allowing an "insider" to slip in some malware that causes just enough problems and doubt in the bloggers to drive them away and thus quash Steemit's advance. Who needs Jamie Damon? He's now shut his mouth.
But you've said it's been happening since you started so I'm probably full of...uh, Steem. (I wish)
It's easy to imagine the worst. One of the issues, the cause of @lexiconical's post, is lack of specific knowledge. The coders are in action, and no one's (apparently) assigned to tell us what's actually going on.
Maybe the community liaison, @andrarchy, has more information. I'm certain he has better understanding than I!
Thanks for the info. I'm still learning how to contact people in the blogosphere. This is my first time actually doing social media. The learning curve is steep. Hope the climb is worth it and that there's a bobsled on the other side. :)
LOL
A bobsled with a completed path to the finish line, rather than a sudden drop off a cliff!
Yeah, I thought of the cliff. There are already lots ahead of me and I'm no lemming. Bobsled rather than hand basket. Gotta have some fun somewhere.