Hell.

I experienced hell yesterday when I Googled my own information. First, I started with my eMails. Found nothing. Whew, I did something right. Second, I began Googling my unique usernames. Found a couple sites, no problem. Lastly, I Googled my full name in quotations. I found an enemy.

I made this enemy unknowingly. A person I chatted with made an anti-site against a fairly large organization of watchdogs. And because I was associated with this person, I became a target.

I eventually found out about this enemy from the person when a troll posted my full name in the anti-site's forum. I wasn't too worried at that point because I, stupidly, had my own dot com that, when a whois was ran, would show my full contact info. I regret getting my dot com to this day. I figured it was just someone begging for attention and barking at the end of their leash.

Then, I saw the enemy. A cached page of the watchdog group's forum. Three pages of all my info, smeared for people to mock. My photos, my full name and address, my family's full names and previous addresses. My work history. My student history. Everything you could possibly imagine, strewn for the forumites to dissect, dismantle, publically.

I read through the forum and eventually came to a post that brought up why I was being attacked. Because someone signed up a username that was similar to a nickname I have and posted on the anti-site. They assumed it was me, just because someone knew I had a certain nickname and posted.

I plan on printing all this out and go to the police today to see if there is anything I can do.

The best advice I can offer anyone: Do NOT get a dot com. No no no! Do NOT post your eMail, even if you type it youremailATserverdotcom, it's still easily Googled. Do NOT give your full name to ANYONE. I don't care how much you trust a person. I don't care how long you've talked to them. I don't care if you're on a singles site. Just don't do it.

I'm tech savvy. I'm VERY tech savvy. So this is a kick to the head finding out that it was so easy for these people to find out everything they could about me.

I'm going to try to keep an updated blog about this in hopes someone out there will be protected by my fuck-up.

It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience. ~Julius Caesar
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