Am I An Idiot Or is Someone Stealing My Votes?!!steemCreated with Sketch.

in #steem5 years ago (edited)

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This is not really a blog per se, but a question.

Today, I noticed two 100% upvotes on my account that I'm pretty sure I did not make. Needless to say I was irritated, but I calmed down a bit and ran through my mind the possibilities.

  1. I actually made the votes, either purposefully (and forgot) or accidentally by hitting the vote button and then the vote button again.

  2. I have given an automation service (i.e. SteemAuto) posting permission to automatically upvote these posts.

  3. An automated voting service has made an error in which posts they upvote for me.

  4. I inadvertently have used my posting private key somewhere that is using it to vote for what they want.

  5. Someone (or something--bot) has gotten my posting key surreptitiously and is using it.

Now, I don't really like to jump to malice, but I am a paranoid person :-)

#1 I think is highly unlikely. Both recipients are unheard of by me before today. I rarely vote 100%, so I would have had to click the upvote button, moved the slider to 100%, and then clicked the vote confirm button. Just not likely unless I am getting early Alzheimer's (I am oldish, but not that old) :-0

#2 is possible?? I have all of my automation through Steemauto and am pretty sure that only big name groups are upvoted (SBI,Magic Dice, wherein, SteemMonsters, etc.). Also seems unlikely.

#3 Possible, but difficult for me to find out.

#4 Quite possible, as when I was new I went all kinds of places and did a lot of likely stupid things (like giving posting keys on sites).

#5 Possible, but i don't really know how this could happen without me giving out the key. Can it happen??

The one thing that bothers me is that this happened right after I made a very big (for me) Steem power-up. Seems fishy.

I really just want to know others experiences with this. Has it happened to you?

Any advice would be great for the future. I have already changed my password and will probably go without automation for now, though that is disappointing.

Oh yeah, here are the posts I "upvoted" (without the leading steemit.com):

/@adamthedude/20190206t220725299z-the-alpha-level
/@georgontech/steemvotes-io-a-quick-report

I am in no way, accusing either of these accounts of any wrongdoing, but maybe someone knows yay or nay.

Oh yeah, if I am being an idiot, please let me know :-)

Thanks,
steemstreems

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