We tend to go about our lives pretty nonchalantly for the most part. I mean some of us are a little more extreme than others, but there's a majority of us who sometimes doesn't want wear our seat belts while driving. Or some of use who still text while driving, even knowing the risk can be catastrophic. This little safety measure is still something not all of us practice 100% of the time.

So you have to think to yourself, this casualness about things has to bleed into your online presence as well. It's one of those things where you've never been in a car wreck so you believe you're a good driver. So online you've never been breached or hacked so you think what you're doing is safe. It's the other drivers you have to worry about and the other people who use the internet for "criminal actives."

Just like everything, you tend to learn after something has happened to you. I hope this is something that wakes you up a little, so you start being more secure about the the things you do online.

Recently I had a witness installed and setup for steemit. During the process I had no idea how loose I was with certain things online that can be used against me.

I learned the importance of private keys & public keys for the blockchain and how crucial they are to keep your currency safe. I learned how not to share these keys to anyone no matter what the circumstances. I didn't know the implications at the time, I was just told it was something I should avoid AT ALL COST.

This is a log of all the false login attempts on my server, this was just from the 23rd. I'm told this is a brute force attack/attempt:

After listening to this podcast I definitely realized how leisure I was about my own protection. The days of thinking it can't and won't happen to me are over. I'm protecting myself to the maximum extend to not make it any easier for someone else to take what is mine.

I think you should take it into consideration to learn any security measures for yourself. You're going to be your best protection when it comes down to it. In a mugging you won't have body guards around you, so what are you going TO DO?

Sometimes you'll hear the stories of how some of these new currencies come into existence. When you hear the stories of one such as Bitcoin you can't help but wonder how unreal that all sounds.

So some guy just wrote this long drawn out document of how a new digital currency can work with attached proof of work. Then some other developers come in and take it from there?

Dive into the ceremony of Zcash and what it took to keep it the most secure birth they could provide.

The process is called "The Ceremony" itself, a systematic process that executed by the creators to make sure the first key for the currency was completely guarded. They made sure there wasn't anything detailing their plan of attack. No hotel reservations, using all new computers and doing things things on the fly as a security measure.

One person does not hold the key or generates it in it's entirety. It takes a team from all over the world in different orders to create part of the key. The lengths they go to trying to protect this key seemed a little extreme. Like they were trying to defend themselves from the highest form of attack. At first you think it's overkill and then something happens... a breach? possibly. Listen to the podcast here:

Original podcast on Radiolab

I hope you enjoy this podcast as much as I did. I also hope the take away from this is to protect yourself and then after that's done, go a little future. There could be sleepers already waiting inside your electronics right now, if you have something for someone to take they'll take it.

If you're not concerned about your digital footprint then you probably don't have to safe guard it. But for some there's a lot of currency on the line and a lot of privacy also. Just be careful when you venture into that vast unknown waters of the internet, for the pirates are disguised as friendlies.