RE: Cookie Crumbs 3: Accountsquatting with a Bonus & Addressing a Neccessary Change in HF20
maybe there will be new loopholes
We want to add a daily quota of discounted accounts. These accounts can be paid for with a combination of STEEM, bandwidth, and mining. Yes, mining. We believe that the ability to mine an account into creation was a fantastic feature of our hybrid proof of work system that was lost when we removed proof of work. Mining will use Litecoin's scrypt algorithm as it is battle tested. This will only be used for creating accounts through the discount system and not for block production.
As @rebeccabe said:
The people running these scams must be computer nerds.
The question I have here is whether or not mining for account creation could be exploited by those looking to spam. The HF post states a 'combination of' so I'm hoping they put some thought in to that.
One of the things I've been concerned about is name squatting. I haven't seen any posts about it from Steemit Inc. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ This is a particular problem with those using names of people to commit identity deception.
This is indeed an interesting detail in their proposed change and it might allow some sort of new exploit. Taking into account that these accounts would be created without vesting stake, though, at least it still limits potential reward-pool farming without investing for a stake.
On the other hand, the required baseline minimum bandwidth probably does open up new avenues for potential spamming and will require some attention to detail.
Yes, the quest for good account names will become a struggle soon, I wonder if we'll see the day where a real celebrity comes to steemit just to find his name has been snatched by an imposter in the past!