Newbies Hive Initiative Task 3: Hive Keys and Security

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drceeyou23.623 years agoPeakD5 min read

Hello everyone! Once again, it's @drceeyou here and I am going to be talking about an important part of hive, so important that avoiding it or misunderstanding it could have very serious consequences. But before I commence my small talk, I would like to say a few things about hive.

Hive is hard. Seriously. I mean, it's like trying to navigate a maze while processing about 1 terabyte of data at the same time. I am not even sure that my analogy makes any sense or even comes close to describing what I have in mind. But unfortunately, it would have to do for now. I know what I am saying seems more or less like lazy man talk: and maybe it's because it is.

I've been a lazy lapdog these days: and I am sorely tempted to give excuses because I have a truckload of them. So, please pardon my speaking in this manner. When I am in my usual gay attitude that's when the truth about how I see hive usually consumes my consciousness. But I am not going to engage you in the details, that would be in another post. For this one, I am going to talk about hive keys and security.

@bruno-kema made an exceptional tutorial post on the subject and my task is three-fold.

Summarize what I have learnt from the tutorial post
State, in my opinion, the best ways to keep my hive keys safe

3.State how to check who my account trustee is and enumerate the steps involved in recovering my account in case I lost it.

Without much ado, I will begin

What did you learn?

[powered by tenor]

I read through the task instructions like 3 times before I decided to watch the video tutorial. Oh! that was after I had read @bruno-kema's post like 3 times. I was able to come up with a concise summary and I would lay it out in an interview format.

Q- What is hive security?

A- Hive security refers to the consciousness and cautiousness a hive user exercises in operating his account.

Q- How does Hive ensure that your account is secured?

A- Hive has provided 5 special encrypted keys that are necessary for the smooth running of your account.

Q- What are these keys?

A- The very first key is the

- Memo Key: This is the least powerful key. It is the key that is necessary to send and view private messages.

The second is the

- posting key: this key is important for any hive user to be able to make posts, comment, give upvotes, reblog posts and generally engage with content on the blockchain.

The third key is the

- Active key: this key is essential for powering up or down. It is also the key needed for transfer of tokens, HBD conversions and voting of witnesses.

The fourth key is the

- Owner key: the most powerful key, this key is how you can reset all the other keys, recover your account and your master key.

The Last but no the least is the

- Master key: which is used to recover all your other keys in the eventuality that you loose them all.

Q- How do I locate my keys?

A- It's quite simple. Here is a step by step guide.

- On your blog, locate your wallet, that should be quite easy to do.
- Click on these 3 dots to reveal a drop down menu

- Click on keys and permissions as seen in the picture below

- You should get to a page like this where you would require your master key to reveal all your other keys.

How do I keep my keys safe?

[powered by tenor]

Thinking about that question, I just realize that I haven't done much to keep my keys from being stolen or hacked. I have only made contingencies in case I do misplace them. I guess the best I can do to avoid hackers is to realize always that

If it seems too good to be true, it probably is

I recently saw what it was like to have your account hacked when one of my colleagues unsuspectingly clicked on a phishing link. The panic that soon flooded my mind told me that it could be me if I don't take precaution. The very first thing that scammers prey on is greed and I must not indulge them.

Account Trustee and Recovery of Lost Account.

Finally, we get to the good part. What do I do in case my account is hacked or lost? Things are a lot easier when we anticipate danger, than when we don't. Part of "anticipating danger" is putting measures in place to ensure that it is easy to recover the account when it is not lost. When you open an account with Hive, your account is linked to another account, called a trustee that you could use as a guarantor to recover your lost account.

How do you know what account that is? Simple. Go to this site https://hiveblocks.com/@username. insert your username where @username is on the address. For example, https://hiveblocks.com/@drceeyou.

you should see a page that looks like this