Hi,
I want to create a referendum to slash or freeze Michiko Watanabe’s account, but I’m unsure how to proceed.
Michiko has some free balance, but most of her DOTs are reserved in staking and open gov.
I tried setting the balance of a test account to zero using force_set_balance, but it didn’t immediately reap the account because some funds were still reserved.
There’s the possibility of making a batch call with force_unreserve and force_set_balance, both executed as root. However, I’m concerned that force_unreserve might have unintended side effects.
I haven’t found an appropriate slashing or freezing method.
Can someone advise me on the best course of action?
If you could just freeze or slash someone’s balance, there would be a big “bloodbath” very soon. Polkadot is not designed in this way. As far as I know, only the referendum killer is able to slash someone else’s deposit, but it can only slash the deposit that the submitter has made when the referendum is submitted.
It is not possible to trigger a vote to have the system freeze or slash a particular wallet’s balance.
Michiko is already out of Ambassadors, she has done no harm, she has just left an excellent precedent of what happens when someone with a fake identity applies to the Ambassador program. I think we have no further business in this matter, but I respect your comment.
Yeah, I also think that this just shows more that someone managed to get voted into this position with a fake identity. They didn’t do anything harmful, just see it as a white hacker.
It raises awareness and ensures that people are paying more attention in the future.
I seem to have a different opinion here. I believe a time out, or an identifier on a fraud account can be a beneficial mechanism. On X they have a “mute”, “block” and “repot” as do most social networking sites. This is an item to brainstorm and see if different types of mechanisms could be beneficial?
Sure, if we redefine a scammer as a white-hat hacker, then all issues are solved, and no sanctions are needed. We should even be thankful that the “white-hat hacker” showed us how easy it is to trick Giotto and his team of professional expert counselors (after all, he was the only big account voting yes).
But unfortunately, whoever controls Michiko’s account is just a scammer—otherwise, they would have revealed what they intended to do after being elected.
I like @HopeClary’s suggestion to use a different mechanism to sanction accounts. In this case, however, I doubt that freezing any effect as long as the account still accrues staking rewards. Many accounts don’t do anything but staking and voting.
If you start “freezing” accounts you will start something, that will backslash really fast. People will see this and will be afraid of saying a wrong word or whatever, because someone could come up and freeze all their funds. Blocking/muting/reporting is fine on an individual level, but not on a greater scope. Also what has this person done wrongly? They applied with a fake identity, so what? The people that voted for this person should think about why they have done this.
A semi-successful attempt was made to trick OpenGov voters for financial gain. I believe this constitutes fraud, and this behavior is quite wrong, even though you may disagree.
I think the lack of consequences will only encourage severe misbehavior.
I don’t want to be rude, but assuming that some random person applied with a fake ID and got elected as HA by chance is quite naive. The far more likely scenario is that some whale created a fake persona and made his alter ego HA.
Does the program requires that you use your real identity? Can you not use whatever identity that you want? Also if the whale voted for themselves, these are the rules of the game.
I mean I get your frustration. However, we should ensure that this doesn’t happen again.
Using a completely fake ID and a fake CV to apply for a job is absolutely unacceptable. Even if the job advertisement doesn’t explicitly state that lying is prohibited, this behavior goes against fundamental rules of human interaction.
You might view it as “fair game” or consider it a form of “white-hat hacking,” operating under the notion that “code is law.” However, in my view, this is clear-cut fraud.
Unfortunately, Polkadot currently lacks a mechanism that let’s stakeholders decide if such behavior should be sanctioned.