After speaking to numerous high ranking people on this platform, writing 4 emails to the Steemit head office, searching for 2 days for an email address which I simply couldn't remember... crying, laughing, bashing my head against the wall & adjusting all my plans for the future to account for the reality that I had lost around 3000 STEEM through a very silly mistake.... I AM BACK!!!!

Thank you so much everyone for your amazing support during these five dark & somewhat testing days in which I was doubtful I would ever regain access to my old account which I had worked so hard for 14 months to build up to a rep of 70

And thank you STEEMIT for finding a way to resolve this despite me not having an email address through which I could prove my identity to complete the account recovery procedure.

It is such a pleasure now to see my old banner back up in its rightful place. With a few small adjustments. Note the new wording: There are no mistakes. Only learning experiences which make us stronger.

Just 12 hours ago it looked like this!

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To learn about my mistake which led to this problem check my post HERE

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THANK YOU!

The Steemit community as a whole have been unbelievable. So supportive in a way that brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. 1000+ people read the article I posted yesterday about my situation. There were 222 comments and there was SO MUCH LOVE!

The Donations

A number of you gave me donations in the form of STEEM & SBD sent to my @samstonehilltube account. I was completely blown away by this because I didn't ask for donations. Yet still they came. The people who kindly donated to me are as follows:

@tipu
@onealfa
@happyphoenix
@sammarkjames
@immarojas
@russmaier
@kaylinart
@christ2169
@binarybits
@bashadow

...and last but certainly not least @lakshmi

who completely stunned me by giving a total of 50SBD!

Thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are an example to all Steemians and your selfless generosity (despite not having much to give) is an example to all human beings!

I strongly suggest that those of you reading this follow @lakshmi immediately and upvote everything you see there! What a wonderful person this is and wholly deserving of a huge following who will all benefit from supporting the growth of this abundant positive energy.

I know that many of you had very little to give yet you still did this for me. And wow! I cannot express with words how this makes me feel 🙏🏻

I will return these donations to you within the next 24h (unless you beg me not to!) after a much needed day of rest with my family.

Special Thanks

There were a few people who went above and beyond in helping me get my account back.

@timcliff immediatly supported me when I first freaked out, realising what I had done and he gently guided me in the right direction.

More than this, he immediately took note of the situation surrounding my predicament (not having the email address through which the account was confirmed) and submitted a pull request to the FAQ

https://github.com/steemit/condenser/pull/1804

He is still helping me now, and in time I will have a trusted brother and technically minded Steemit user as the person through whom I can prove my identity and recover my account should this ever happen again.

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@firepower guided me when all hope appeared lost, giving me the motivation I needed to push on through till dawn (after 24h straight sitting at my computer) to complete a detailed email to Steemit explaining my situation.

I am actually not too sure what else he did behind the scenes, but my email (and the three more I wrote after that) were dealt with immediately, despite the automatic response which didn't fill me with much hope:

We read all of the emails we receive to this address, however, please note that Steemit is in beta and we are unable to process certain types of requests at this time including, but not limited to, emails regarding new accounts, name changes and forgotten passwords.

He also guided me once I regained access and this time around there will be NO MISTAKES!

I suggest you all have a look at his Dummies Guide to Basic Steemit Account Security + Account Recovery Guide which really helps a lot in explaining Steemit's slightly complex key system & teaches us how to stay safe.

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@arcange for responding to the hacking crisis immediately with a 'WHITE HAT COUNTER-STRIKE' in which he created a bot which warns us in our wallets when we are spammed by known hackers. This will unquestionably make Steemit stronger, deterring future scammers by ensuring that no one falls into the same trap I did. Check his post HERE for more details.

I believe his fast work to resolve this problem more than adequately proves his value as a Steemit Witness. And I strongly suggest you vote for him if you haven't done already. You can do that HERE and must enter his name in the provided box to find him.

While you are there.... I suggest you also vote for the following people: @timcliff @teamsteem @jesta @good-karma @someguy123 @pfunk @klye @ausbitbank @krnel and @blueorgy

There are many more I recommend you vote for but will leave that for you to decide. You are able to vote for 30 witnesses in total.

Without these guys our beloved Steemship would not be able to fly :)

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There are so many others I want to thank... the list is endless!

All of you who voted for my posts in the new account @samstonehilltube and resteemed me for extra exposure.

All of you who upvoted my comments in the most generous way I have ever seen.

All of you who took the time to write me words of encouragement.

What a completely awesome community we have here!!!!

What next?

I will return to my usual posting schedule in the @samstonehill account and as intended I will use the @samstonehilltube account to showcase my numerous films which will be hosted on DTube.

Those of you who unfollowed me during the hacker's attempt to use my account for nefarious means can re-follow me again :)

And those of you who have followed the @samstonehilltube account since I announced this little drama can rest assured that I will be providing the kind of films which will inspire, educate & amaze you. I have been a filmmaker all my life and my speciality is motion control HDR time-lapse.

If you haven't already seen it, here is a little trailer of my best shots, my thoughts and the way I live my life now... created a few years ago. I think you will enjoy it :)

And that's it!

My brain is pretty fried after the events of the last week. I have slept less than ever, eaten less then ever and felt fear based emotions which I have not felt for many years.

Many lessons have been learned through this experience, but the one that stands out as being the most important is GET MORE REST. Had I not been so tired I wouldn't have made the mistake of handing over my master key to hackers! But now that my mistake is in the past I am so happy to see that it has made Steemit stronger and increased the overall awareness of hackers and what we can do to protect ourselves.

So, the moment this post is done...

I am going to close this laptop and it will not be opened again until tomorrow.

Today I will swim & bask in the Bali sunshine with my family.

And I will smile in the knowledge that everything is exactly as it should be 🙏🏻