Keybase having to deal with spam

#Spam is a fact of life on the internet. The old systems of email and newsgroups have suffered from it for many years. Now we have many other ways to communicate and people will find ways to abuse those. Even Steem suffers, but downvotes allow us to deal with a lot of it. As with email you cannot stop people using the system. Maybe the front ends will eventually incorporate some sort of spam filter.

Keybase is about making encryption available to all. Their app incorporates messaging to individuals and groups that is encrypted end to end. Lately I have been getting a few messages from people I do not know, but it is not too bad yet. Not sure what this one wanted, but they have not responded. You can block people if they get annoying.

They are going to add facilities to report spam soon. It is not a decentralised system so they will be able to deal with abusive accounts. Freedom is always a compromise.

I have seen a steep rise in the number of people following my Keybase account. Following is encouraged as the idea is that you only do this when you have some trust in that person's identity. They do this by posting digitally signed data to other accounts they control (Facebook, Twitter, Github, reddit etc). I notice a lot of these new accounts have not done this so I can have no idea if they are bots or not. So I will not be following them.

The reason we are likely to see people joining Keybase is that they are giving away a large amount of Stellar Lumens over several months. I have already received a nice amount from this. Some has been used to buy Steem, but I have also given out a few gifts. It seems all you need is a telephone number in a qualifying country. I think originally you needed to prove control of certain social accounts that already existed. They say they are dealing with people mass-creating accounts. It is likely the amount I get will reduce as more join up, but free money is always welcome.

I am expecting to get some messages with people begging or trying to con me out of my crypto, so I will be very wary. We see this elsewhere. I have seen Fake Steemit Inc accounts on Facebook running scams. @Steemit Inc ought to verify themselves there using Keybase. They could tie their account to the Steemit site so it would be practically impossible to fake.

If you are already on Keybase and I do not follow you then please let me know. There is a Steem chatroom on there with nearly 70 people. It is another option for off-chain chat with the benefits of encryption and identity verification.

We could do with a proper way to verify a Steem account. There are ways to implement that. It just needs someone with the right skills to set it up.

Steem on!

The geeky guitarist and facilitator of the 10K Minnows Project.

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