How do these accounts get manually approved? I always thought the manual approval process was eyeballing a long list of accounts and picking obvious scammed ones out. But how would a list of zhiyinXXX, routingXXX, and prefixXXX pages long get past it?
Furthermore, if Steemit Inc doesn't diligently remove delegation from these accounts, and other groups of spam accounts it encourages the abusers to abuse more.
There are groups of accounts like this that are solely being used to spam the blockchain for penny votes that can add up to tens or hundreds of dollars. But they shit all over the blockchain and the nodes that make up the network to do it. Spammers like this are partially responsible for the inflated network utilization, compared to how it would be if it was just legitimate users.
This spam leads to prohibitive resource use, which has a significant negative impact on existing services and adds barriers to entry for new ones. For example, Poloniex's wallet is still down and I struggle to think why besides the resource requirements for a Steem node.
Growth is imperative but the drag from this kind of thing can keep Steem from flying higher. It is an issue which I have personally raised on multiple occasions and I still don't think it's taken seriously enough. The approval of obvious groups of accounts like this is a prime example.
Ultimately Steem's health is up to all of its users, not just Steemit Inc. @Patrice and the @Spaminator team have been doing an amazing job for the Steem ecosystem in counteracting this type of costly spam.
However, if Steemit Inc creates spam botnets it is important they take the job of undelegation seriously, to mitigate the damage to the network. It's also more important to do things to prevent the creation of new accounts for botnets.
You said this much nicer than I would have. But...
STINC is obviously the problem, they have claimed that they have solutions for onboarding (a claim that they made almost a year ago), and here we are with the same issues and the continued incompetence a year later.
Just like they created a worse blogging/interaction/reward allocation environment with their completely misguided/ignorant hard forks last spring, they have yielded terrible results regarding account creation and delegation for exploiters and spam networks. And just as they’ve done with their hard forks, they’re completely ignoring the consequences of their actions and the calls from those who see the train wreck in progress.
Also, as you pointed out - the fact that they allegedly have a “manual” approval process makes this even worse, as these are obviously exploits/spammers. This just reinforces the fact that they are incompetent and/or indifferent about both their decisions and the consequences, which does nothing but discourage investment and decrease confidence in their so-called “leadership role” on the blockchain.
It really is a shame that these clowns control such a large stake in all of this. It’s a great disservice to both the blockchain and anyone invested in it. But expecting things to change would be insane at this point. I’m just hoping that STINC is able to fully divest before the damage is irreparable. Though I’m not confident that we haven’t already reached the tipping point.
I expect the underlying problem is not just STINC. I expected the problem to arise in the game theory of a consortium blockchain combined with a flawed rewards model.
I warned the Steem community of this inevitable game theory outcome more than once since 2016:
Blog rewards CAN’T be widely distributed
Who pays for the blogging and curation rewards? (Part 2):
“Consortium blockchains” (e.g. DPoS & Tendermint) can’t Internet scale
There’s a solution to the game theory problem, but not with the current model. And the vested interests here will never change the existing model.
Actually this problem at the generative essence abstract level is just another power vacuum paradigm. Those who are the most ruthless always win the battle for the void in the power vacuum.
Then your expectations are completely off-base. These accounts are being created at no cost to the exploiters by STINC. The approval of these large bot-nets and the delegated SP given to them comes directly from STINC. These exploiters are exploiting one of the (apparently) automated sign-up systems being run by STINC. They aren't exploiting the blockchain account creation protocols that would otherwise require them to fund the creation of their own bot-nets.
It isn't a blockchain problem. It's an incompetence-inside-the-halls-of-STINC problem...as usual.
Thanks for replying. I appreciate corrections and discussion.
My thesis is at a game theory meta level above the level you are referring to. You are looking at symptoms. I am referring to the root genesis of the problem.
What I am saying is that some vested interests are allowing that to happen and making sure it is allowed to continue to happen. Because of course they are profiting on it anonymously whilst employing their power within the consortium to prevent any fix from occurring.
This is always how the the-powers-that-be operate behind the curtain. This was explained years ago to the DPoS crowd but of course they refuse to listen:
http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/#example-2-delegated-proof-of-stake-dpos
Blaming it on incompetence is also sort of an incompetence. Some folks are feigning incompetence to fool the incompetent who do not look at the game theory of how political vacuums behave in the real world.
If you can somehow pressure them to fix STINC, they’ll come up with another scheme to extract the value out of the system. Because “they” control it. It’s pointless for me to investigate who “they” are, because they will not give up their control. Are they committing a crime?
Remove STINC and the void in the power vacuum will be won by the most ruthless. This is the way politics and democracy always work.
It’s naive or disingenuous to say that a consortium blockchain design has nothing to do with this. It was explained 3 years ago (and even before that) that voting (for witness, rewards, etc) requires rule by oligarchy otherwise it diverges into chaotic disagreement (and Daniel Larimer is frankly incorrect and does not comprehend Byzantine Fault Tolerance):
http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/#money-and-politics
I am appreciative of you raising the issue. I even resteemed this blog (first I ever resteemed) to my 1800+ followers. I am also sensitive to the need to have a system which is objective. But for me the outcome is “sigh, don’t people ever learn that politics of voting for a collective is a power vacuum”.
Obviously they are not only gaining SP from the signup bonus but also presumably by using these sockpuppets to upvote groupwise to game the NON-LINEAR rewards system, which is what my aforementioned blog from 2016 predicted would happen. That blog of mine had explained that a linear vote weighting would not be viable. And a non-linear one of course can be gamed by collusion.
P.S. I believe STINC knows the end of Steem isn’t that far from now and they must extract maximum value while they still can.
When you say vacuum, do you mean economic bubble that may pop or are bubbles and vacuums complete opposites and cannot be compared at all, allegorically?
Follow all the links you find in order to understand power vacuums.
THANK YOU!
FORK! FORK! FORK! FORK!
!dramatoken
Such drama, you've earned a DRAMA!
To view or trade
DRAMAgo to steem-engine.com.let me guess, they will answer with silence. Any bets?
Wish you did bet, would have won a fortune @reko. it's 2 months and no reply as to how this went under the radar. My friend has been stuck on 'awaiting approval' for over a month now. I check the email everyday, still nothing. and this is what i see. it's crazy.
Amen.
Wow amazing very excited?