Note to curator: I'm writing this for the benefit of the community member, it's not a technology post, but more of a social and personal security like what happened to trail vote services took advantage on participants voting power
Source from Pixabay
First of all, let me get in to what is this all about. You may be here for a very long time. You may be signing up your account from Dapps. You know you have kept a copy or more than a copy of your private keys secure, but what you do not know is, the amount of Dapps you have participated, has been authorized to use your voting/posting authority. I was actually reading a comment replied by my new found friend @juanmolina and suddenly realized I was involved in so many initiative previously in STEEM, and now many of those apps has migrated to "another place".
Naturally, I hope on to STEEMD, if you do not know you can check your #steem #blockchain status from https://steemd.com/@username just change the username to your own handle and you'll be able to see all the details of your account. And God, I just did a house keeping in March 20, and there's again so many Dapp I've again authorized without even knowing it. Partly because, we got so comfortable in giving authorization to APP to post on our behalf. I will not go any further detail to that, but that's how these DAPP does, you'll have to authorize them, you put down your words on their app, and the APP act on your behalf to broadcast your data to the blockchain. Therefore, they're in control of atleast 4 things on your behalf, VOTE, POST(or comment), SHARE(reblog/resteem), and collect reward. Well, you may think none of these are essential, but it's not true. It's just as scary as you would imagine if someone has the password of your email. Some of these Dapps is no longer in STEEM, even if some of the apps can still be used here, but I suggest you upkeep your authority. In order to remove authority from certain apps, all you need to do is, use the below link.
http://steemlogin.com/revoke/appnamehere
By changing the app name a the end of the link, you'll be able to withdraw authority from that particular app. Please do this, especially if the name of that app, you have absolutely no idea what it does to you. And if you know they're no longer here in #steem, tell me why do you think it's ok to leave the authority active? On a side note, I'm using @steemlogin this time because I know the usual STEEMCONNECT will be turning off from June onwards. I hope by then, our people still able to execute revoke of authority.
Note that I don't usually gamble, but I saw some EPC token in my wallet, so I login and see what's in it. After I browse through the site, decided I will not participate in the activities, here's what interesting happen. I straight away forget to remove the authority. I believe this happened to the most of you, if not all of us. So, back to revoke authority. Once you got the link correct, you'll be asked do you want to continue, do double check the name and the logo. But not to worry too much, as long you check the web address is steemlogin.com on your browser, should be safe.
Note that the requirement said it's STEEM POSTING KEY, but revoking authority requires WIF or we call it Private Key or Active Key.
Finally, hit the REVOKE button to confirm the action and remove the authority from the app from acting on your behalf in the future. Not to be too worry if you have wrongly revoke authority, because if you needed the services, all you need to do is authorize it again. It will not do any harm if you wrongly removed an app you needed. It will be best to remove all of the authorities and start fresh. It may be a hassle, but doing house keeping is our responsibility.
Once again, after revokng unwanted apps authority, the list shorten by half now. These are the apps that I'm still using to date. Other than that, since we have our active/WIF on hand, might as well login to the witness portal and do some housekeeping.
https://steemitwallet.com/~witnesses
Well, there you have it. Some of these witnesses are no longer active, and I had them removed from the list. Previously, I did thought of if there will be a fair chance to make things balance, apparently choosing to move away is their intention. I have a good friend, he authored a very good post in Chinese. I hope he will be able to translate an English version to share here, which the piece totally open my eyes to see this hard fork ordeal in a different perception. I leave you with a very well written piece from our friend @liuzg 民主于独裁.