Why is phishing so easily successful in Web3?
it's not that users are too foolish, nor that hackers are so powerful.
But this system has, from the very beginning, handed the 'cost of understanding security' over to the user.
A couple of days ago, an old brother in the group had an incident.
Clicked on a new protocol authorization, it looked quite normal, and the UI was also done quite well.
As a result, in less than ten seconds, the wallet assets were completely emptied.
Such things are very common in Web3; besides being careful, we have no other way.
But to be honest, those proxy contracts, permission forwarding, and obfuscated calls right now,
Don't say retail investors, even ordinary developers need to stare for a long time.
The problem is actually very simple:
Why does a system require users to understand the code to ensure security?
The current logic of Web3 is as follows:
You sign = Authorization
Authorization content = Fully Public
Understanding Cost = User Bear
It seems very 'decentralized', but it also means that the risks are decentralized.
I recently found that while looking at @MidnightNetwork white paper, it is actually trying to change this underlying logic.
Its core technology is not just ZK (Zero-Knowledge Proof),
But rather a combination of three things:
Selective Disclosure + Programmable Data Protection + Dual Resource Model.
1. Selective Disclosure.
On traditional chains, all data is public by default. But Midnight's logic is the opposite:
Private by default; only the parts you actively declare will be made public.
Behind this is the use of Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZK). Simply put: you can prove 'you are right', but you don't need to tell others 'what exactly you did'.
For example, identity verification: on a conventional chain, you have to submit complete information; on $NIGHT , you only need to prove 'I meet the criteria'. This is not just privacy, but also a security boundary.
2. It is Programmable Data Protection.
This point is very important as it addresses the issue of 'opaque permissions'.
The current contract issue is:
You sign, but you don't know how your permissions will be used.
And the design of Midnight is:
Developers must explicitly state:
Which data will be used and which will be made public. In other words, permissions are no longer 'implicit', but must be 'explicitly declared'.
The change it brings is:
Attackers find it difficult to 'hide permission paths' through complex logic because the system itself does not allow such ambiguous spaces to exist.
3. Its economic model: NIGHT + DUST.
On traditional chains, you have to pay Gas for every transaction, and Gas is public. This means: your behavioral path, time, and amount can all be traced.
Midnight has broken this down:
NIGHT: Public Tokens (Governance, Rewards
DUST: Privacy Resources (for Transactions)
DUST has several key characteristics: non-transferable, will decay, only used to execute operations.
This means that transactions no longer directly expose funding behavior. Others cannot infer your operational logic through fees and paths.
Technically, these three points actually form a closed loop:
Data is hidden by default (ZK)
Permissions must be declared (Programmable Protection)
Behavioral trajectory is weakened (DUST mechanism)
If one day in the future, the situation of 'one click and the wallet is emptied' becomes less frequent, it is likely not because users have become smarter, but because the system has finally started to take on some responsibility for the users.