I just got interested in Steem - because i read about David Larimers new project EOS. So i thought well that is the Facebook for Anti-Facebook-people (the crowd i would put myself into).
I mean what else is the blockchain about, super secure, anonymous, unbreakable. The length of you password is longer than your - you know what. Since its Blockchain-based it will be a bit slower and i will have to pay for it.
That were some of my expectations when i was entering it. So i wasn't expecting the "super smooth" ride but in the end there was a big dissapointment.
But step after step. First i go to steemit.com to sign up. the site is very stylish i love the blue tone of the site.
I can chose "sing up for free" but it will take 1-2 weeks and i have to give my Phone number, because they want to make sure i am human. Well i am pretty sure i am human but not on earth i would give something that woul indentify me in the real world. ARE YOU CRAZY? I want to be anonymous, that's whole point of Crypto.
I have a fake Facebook-Account, that is like a cranky grandmother always bitching about something. The cranky old grandmother always wants my phonenumber, but i will not give in. Not in this life. And for a crypto-project: NO FUCKING WAY. Its all about the anonymity and you are asking me for my phone number? That is like the question "Do you do anal? and what about cumshots?" for admission into the church choire.
But there is the second option: Pay to sign up. I think. All right usually i never would pay for something like facebook, but to stay anonymous and have the security (and censorship resistance) of the blockchain i would pay the 2 bucks, so take my money you greedy bastards.
So i click on the pay to sign up. Very quickly the pop-up comes and i can chose from a list of how they call this "third party pay options". i start thinking: Hm why third party, why can i not just send some eth, bch to and adress and we get it going? But ok i click on the first of the list: blocktrades
when i see the site loading i think, hm "great" us domain, and right of the gate the notorious:
In response to upcoming regulatory changes, we now require users to create an account before they are allowed to trade with us.
Such a suprise with an us-site i tell myself in an ironic voice. I don't want to register to a new site i have never heard off.
I have enough fully fledgec exchange accounts and bancor and binance and... i could buy some steem from. There must be a better option, there were many options to pay with, so no problem. So i click back in my browser and chose the second option: The Steemwallet app. Yeah that sounds so crypto, this is it.
To make it short: it didn't work - at least on my phone. After the app let me find out myself that "continue" is grayed out till you type everthing for your username in small letters (good that i found that out, i thought this is they way the app tells you that your name is not available), typing the passowrds it gave me into my password manager, typing the loooong password for confirmation in the app again (i don't like to type long passwords on my cell phone but its blockchain so OK) it finally tells me: No not tatarata and welcome but that my phone is not ready for in-app purchases - something around the lines. I find this very odd since i have money on my android account and in the settings i don't even have "Authentification for purchases" switched on. Sony is not the quickest to update, i know this but android 8 is not so old is it??
At this point first signs of furstration are creeping up in my chest. But i am not ready to give up, so back to square 1 and i choose the third option how to pay: AnonSteem. I come to the site that tells me 4$ for an account which is almost double the price it would otherwise cost. Aaaaand they charge 2 $ extra if you pay in btc - ok get it btc is expensive. but besides that they just offer ltc to pay and steem itself. Well it is 2019 and who the hell uses stil ltc to pay?? No ETH which i would have handy in my metamask wallet.. Ok twice the price and i would first log on to another account to first by steem to then hand it over to this 3rd party processor... that is to much...
So back to chosing my payment processor. After nothing working out i am ready to take blocktrades.us and register. I mean i need an account but i will stay anonymous right?, the sign on the site says that till 1750$ trading limit a month without identification needed. So ok. After already spending waay to much time with this i want to get it done.
The registration of the account is rough and clunky. i do get the email, but for some reason when i log into the site, my email-adress loses its last letter so from "IamShavedAndSexy@gmc.de" (i guess it won't surprise you that this is not my real address) the site doesn't like the last "e" and eats it. it takes a while till i realize that that is the reason i can't login - at least i thought so. I correct the error - and: i still can't login. So for the site my password is incorrect. That is something that never happens to me for a simple reason: before i set a password i type it in my passord management tool and the tool sets then the password on the site. This way errors like this are preventet.
So what do i do now? I click on restore password since i have no other option left. Interestingly the site didn't like my e-mail address for log-in but surely sends my password to the right email. so to cut the story here short with login: after resetting i can log-in. UFFFFF finally i am in there. So now i can buy my steemit account and everything will be fine. Well will it?
The short answer is: no. The next 10 seconds ruined steem for me. At least i don't trust it more than facebook. In the first 5 seconds i type in my name it is free, so far so good but then my eyes wander down and i see big schocker:
the 3rd party site that sells me my steemit account shows me the MASTER-KEY to my steemit account on the page!!
The .us domain payment provider informs me that i should take notes of my password in "safe place". At this point i am baffled but still think: "That can not be the private key for steemit - right?? I later find out that the password on page was the seed key that generates all the other keys.
At this point i think David Larimer works for the NSA. Who else would have the idea, that a site that you use for payment, would have access to the Master-key of your account??? And this site is even US based!! It is the total parody of security. I mean it is quite cute how the page asks me with the innocence of a virgin if i want the site to save my keys (i think this called a pseudo button in tech - as if that would now matter, my data is stored no doubt about it) I finish the process just because i feel i am rich enough to spend 3$. But my amount of trust is maybe higher than on facebook, but that is like am 1 %more alive than a totally dead person.
The process from here finishes without a problem, but it leaves me baffled.
Who the heck would build something on top of a blockchain to make it secure and censorship resistent, to then have a us payment provider have the masterkey to your private account on that plattform?? A us payment provider is the closest thing to be in bed with the NSA as you can get. Closer is only if you would actually marry an agent - and that would actually be more secure for you.
My final verdict is: David Larimer you work for the NSA and EOS can not be trusted a shred. Totally learned that this afternoon. Disappointing but worth it.
What are your thoughts about this?