By the end of this you will run four questions before signing anything, treat every signature as a decision instead of a reflex, and size the check to what is at stake.
Two people met the same wallet popup on the same night. One was tired and clicked approve to make it go away. The wallet emptied within the hour. The other felt the same pull to just get it done, and instead paused for twenty seconds to read what was in front of them. They walked away whole.
Nothing separated them but those seconds. Not skill, not luck, not better tools. In the last checkpoint you learned the predators by name. This one gives you the short routine that turns recognizing danger into reliably not being caught by it.
The catalog of scams is useful, but attackers change costumes faster than any list can keep up. A fixed list of known tricks goes stale. A way of thinking does not.
So borrow the idea pilots live by. They do not trust how they feel about a flight; they run the same short pre-flight check every time, calm or rushed, first flight or thousandth. You are about to learn the four-question pre-flight check you run before you sign anything. The threats will keep changing. The check stays the same.
Here is the whole check on one board, the list you will run before any signature for the rest of your time here. It is four plain questions, and their power is that they are boring and fixed. You do not improvise them.
WHAT am I signing. WHO am I interacting with. WORST case if this is malicious. WHY am I being rushed. The next four steps take each one in turn, then you will run all four on a live prompt yourself.
Start with what is actually in your hand. A signing prompt can be one of three very different things, and they do not feel different at the moment you tap. A transfer moves coins out right now. A message just proves you are you and moves no funds. An approval is the one to slow down for: it grants a contract permission to spend your tokens later, by itself, without asking again.
From the last checkpoint you know the approval drainer lives exactly here. So you read the prompt instead of the button. Wallets preview what a transaction will do, and simulation tools exist that show the outcome before you sign. The point of question one is simple: never sign a thing you cannot name.
Question two refuses to take the other side on faith. The impersonation predator from the last checkpoint wins entirely on looks: a familiar logo, a near-perfect domain, a sponsored ad that sits above the real one. Looks are the cheapest thing in the world to copy.
So you verify instead of trust. Tap each station on the board to see how you confirm who is really on the other end.