[bko]

This is what I do:

When a site initiates a transaction, you can see the address you're interacting with. You should then look up the address on etherscan to see if it has public code and a lot of transactions. Then you should search that address in google and see if the main site links to it. A lot of projects have a list of addresses in their github. You can also inspect the function code. Once you're comfortable, you should add it to your saved addresses on your wallet and next time you'll see the name of the address.

Also you can create a new throw away address, transfer just a little bit of coins to it and interact with the contract. If it does what you think it should do, then you can create a new account and do it again.

It's not perfect. It could be a proxy, so you're not guaranteed the contract you're interacting with.

There's no easy way to "see what a transaction does". You just need to do risk management.

[happyopossum]

> When a site initiates a transaction, you can see the address you're interacting with. You should then look up the address on etherscan to see if it has public code and a lot of transactions. Then you should search that address in google and see if the main site links to it. A lot of projects have a list of addresses in their github. You can also inspect the function code. Once you're comfortable, you should add it to your saved addresses on your wallet and next time you'll see the name of the address

Oh, that’s it? So simple.

[tsimionescu]

> Also you can create a new throw away address, transfer just a little bit of coins to it and interact with the contract. If it does what you think it should do, then you can create a new account and do it again.

How much money would you be spending on this scheme (in transaction fees)?

[pmcjones]

Any suggestions for how this could be scaled up to the general public (the vast majority of whom aren't comfortable reading code and have no idea what github is)?

[bko]

There may be a public repo of known addresses. Of course it would be centralized and carefully curated, but I think that would be a good start.

I wish wallets made it easier to create a burner throw away account or there were some trusted contracts that would create an account, do something and then transfer back to another account. I don't know if anything like that exists or even if the workflow is generalizable enough