Online Voting Polls

I used to go to a Krav Maga Gym in town. It was the best gym I’d ever been in and loved the owners and friends I made there. The gym also had classes for kids and my three oldest kids went and learned self defense. They relied on word of mouth mostly. One year they decided to push for a `Best gym in "x" city` kind of competition.

A company ran a poll service every year where citizens could vote for the best of x category. Gyms, dentists, schools, plumbing, restaurants, etc. If you win, you get a stickers and whatnot for putting in your business and they advertise you on their site.

To vote you go to the website select your best of options for the categories you want, and then it seemed to check if your IP address had voted before. 1 vote per household. So you could vote on your computer, and then your phone, but that was about it. Until I thought of something.

I created a macro for my computer. Apple computers have an automation ability to record mouse movements, clicks and typing. I wrote a script that would automatically do the website `best of` selection and submit. I had my macro run the script and then change my VPN to a new address and repeat. VPNs are virtual private networks. So you connect your device thru your internet service provider (ISP) and it connects you to the website you want. BUT with a VPN you can connect thru your ISP to another computer that then connects you to the website you want, changing the IP address of your computer when submitting the form.

I could run the macro in about 10 seconds, so I would tell it to run about 20-30 times while I sat there and did nothing, it was all handled. I could have told it to run 100 times, but felt like that wasn’t the right thing to do. In the end they one 2nd place for Best Gym!