This is quite important!

Now that AI is around more "freely" and is widely accessible, it's much easier for scammers to bring new strategies to deceive you. So, you really need to confirm things with "people" you know around the chain, instead of believing first interactions (even if they look legit).

So, let's start with the important stuff!

1. Don't share ANY private keys with ANYONE, ANYWHERE!
2. Don't enter your OWNER or ACTIVE private keys ON ANY APP! POSTING private keys you can afford to use them on apps because all the hackers can do (if you enter them on the wrong app) is comment and vote for you. But they can't steal anything else, and if you eventually find you got hacked, you can change the posting key. Either way, you don't even have an excuse for using ANY private keys, as you can use @keychain and use the internal browser on your phone to access or interact with any kind of app.
3. Don't forget to set your recovery account on Hive, to an account that:
   3.1 Has all its keys safe! - you can always ask them to prove it 😎
   3.2 Is active or reachable by you in person (or via direct contact), so you can ask that person to help you with the account recovery process if you initiate it.
   3.3 Was not hacked, too... (aka its owner key was changed by someone that not the person owning the account in the first place)

The last one is quite hard for many people to make a decision on whom... so if you are unsure, at least set it to a witness on the top20 for example, which, as part of the consensus mechanism, is usually someone that has to be around.

The new Discord Scam strategy

There is a new scam going around (well, not really new, but because of Discord changes, they are making it easier). The hackers try to create either an account that looks like the person they want to impersonate...

For example, imagine someone will create a "forrykw" on Discord (note, I don't own this account anywhere).

Almost looks like me, but it has an additional "r", then they can make the profile page almost look like me, and via whatever I usually do, openly visible on channnels, try to create private chats with you inside servers I am, not seen by the owners of that channel, and where they either try to ask you for you to go into a website they prepared, or ask you dogy questions in order to make you believe and then act without thinking or confirming what they are asking you to do.

How can you validate you are speaking to the right person?

The answer is: validate...

1. Contact the same account you already know has that Discord handle on the Hive blockchain.
2. If that's too slow and you feel you need to react quickly because someone is urging you? (red flag) - and you fall into the second level of checking in Discord:
   2.1 On discord you can do @<type_account> right? do that on the same server you are being contacted with the account you don't know about, and see if there are two accounts starting by the same letter you are trying to validate. If so, go the next step...
   2.2 Paste a temporary comment in the chat tagging both accounts in the same comment. Then look at both accounts' profiles... and judge which one looks more like the one you know or have previously interacted with. If you don't know or have never interacted with them, the comment tagging both accounts will help you in the server you are in. Because the fake one will probably run away or have very little chance of proving it's the legit one.
   2.3 If you know the exact handle of the true account, then you can check this very easily... for example, here is @meno for example... that I know its meno5416 Discord ID... so if I see meno6969 I know it's not him.

Another good tip is to check the mutual friends that scammers can hardly replicate and the mutual servers. If this is like 1 or 2 servers and 1 or 2 friends... then go confirm with them. Copy past the account ID (equivalent to meno5416 here) and check with them about the interaction.

No one is 100% safe... for example, my Discord account handle is forykw too (originally forykw#4686, and accounts that existed before this change will show an # icon indicating the legacy account), but the important part about Discord is the account ID 318365382673170432. If this changes, then the account is not the same anymore, for as much as it can look the same.

Discord Alternative?

Yep, you can use the Matrix! https://matrix.to/#/#hive:xmr.se (@forkyishere is there, aka me)

What if you get hacked?

Reach out to people you know via another device... ask for help (but not to the same person). Ask for confirmations of what you did... validate, validate, validate! Use multiple people to avoid being scammed again.

If more than one person can't confirm things you are seeing/doing, then it's likely you have already been hacked.

If you did get hacked and shared your private keys... then you need to change them as soon as possible.

Confirm first with at least 2 or 3 people you already know on-chain that the place you will be using to change the keys is OK. There are several places this can be done, and I am not going to refer to any particular one, because these posts get indexed and searchable by AI, so scammers will find the quick way too.

Usually, if you don't have lots of liquid on your account, you have time to react, so don't stress out, and just communicate with people you know via several ways, apps, etc. If you have another HIVE account, then this is perfect for testing these problems.

Don't Put Too much on yourself...

Scammers are going to be everywhere, around ANYthing... the only way forward is education.