Contract Action for Enabling Deploy/Edit

[inertia186]

As a token issuer that has the ability to deploy/edit contracts, I would like SSC to reject deploy/edit attempts unless I have also provided a custom_json that unlocks this ability, so that if my posting key is compromised, my contracts cannot be vanalized.

History

When steemd introduced unlimited comment edit, the blockchain engineers considered adding a way to enable this feature for accounts that broadcasted a special op to enable edits, signed by the active key (see: steemit/steem#1017). This idea was later dropped.

In HF18, the witness plugin had a custom operation called enable_content_editing that allowed a user to signal they want to edit their content. By consensus, content was editable indefinitely, but was soft forked to be frozen after payout. This operation required an active key and was designed to prevent vandalism if a posting key was compromised.

Today

Now, we have SSC with the ability to deploy/edit contracts using the posting key. I believe some kind of lock/unlock action would be useful to allow token issuers to secure their contracts.

The token issuer could broadcast the custom_json using the active key with a timestamp to indicate 10 minutes in the future, 3 days in the future, or whatever time makes sense for contract deploy. After that, contracts are locked until another custom_json using the active key unlocks it for later deploy/edits.

Urgency

In my opinion, the urgency is low for the moment, because Steem Engine does not support general contract deployment. As long as Steem Engine properly secures their posting key, there's no danger in contract vandalism.

But in the future, when an SSC product like Steem Engine does open up general contract deployment, I believe a solution like this should be in place.