Introduction - You Don't Know What You've Got Til It's Gone

Hello fellow Steemians.

My name is Steven, and this account was recently stolen due to carelessness.

How? I withdrew Steem from Poloniex and included my private key in the memo field.. Duh. To add insult to injury, this was just a couple of days after I had read We Just Hacked 11 Accounts, so I knew about this vulnerability.

However, bad things happen when you're in a rush and I remember that day clearly. I had an early meeting, but right before I left for work, I had the urge to buy some Steem. I don't like keeping my tokens on exchanges so I immediately withdrew from Poloniex. I've done it many times before without fail, but perhaps because of the rush, and perhaps due to my stupidty for keeping my memo key and master password key so close together, I accidentally entered in my private key.

Good

Good

Bad. Very BAD!

Within moments, I see a notification within Steemit that told me my 100 Steem had just been withdrawn to Poloniex. I knew I had screwed up. I rushed to change my account key but it was too late and the awful "Your Account Password has been changed" notification popped up. I was floored.

I joined Steemit in early May, but it wasn't until I started using the platform to publish that I understood just how amazing Steemit is. The community is very welcoming and the quality of articles, even this early in development, is very impressive. Above losing my Steem, I was more dejected about losing my account. I hadn't realized until I lost my account that Steemit had pretty much replaced Reddit, Twitter and Medium for me. The other platforms are great, but Steemit felt more personal. Perhaps it's because of the smaller community, but the buzz around here really does feel like it's the beginning of something megalithic and it just felt fulfilling to be able to play a small part in it.

Thankfully, Steemit has a "Stolen Account Recovery" service. I applied and waited. And waited. Weeks went by without a single notification that Steemit had even received my application. I watched my beloved Steem get powered down and withdrawn, all the while being powerless to interact with the community.

It's been almost a month since the incident happened and I had basically given up on ever getting my account back. However, today when I opened my gmail, this popped up.

Steemit had come through! Against all odds, I recovered my account with a bit less than half of my Steem still intact!

An amazing day, a big lesson, and a renewed urge for further commitment to the Steemit community. I love you all and I'm very excited to be back on the inside.