Welcome to the internet, is this your first time?

I’m sure that most of you out there and our avid readers are aware of the interworkings of the interweb but there are those whose ‘working knowledge’ doesn’t necessarily provide them with the details.

Privacy is a big deal today. Consumers refuse to provide even basic information due to cyber criminals and even Facebook has been criticized for their practices regarding user data. Of course, not everyone understands what the threat is. Yes, the public at large is aware of identity theft. They know that junk mail is decreasing and spam email is increasing but what few realize and most fail to notice is where it all comes from – Data mining.

The realm of people that I come into contact with each day, have dealings on the internet. They have a Facebook or Twitter account. They use email and instant messenger. They have a blog and, in a lot of cases, their own website- sometimes both. None of these things are bad, even letting the world know that you have them isn’t bad.  The bad part comes in when you fail to do the simplest of tasks to protect yourself.

Facebook users- don’t let your profile be public or viewable through search engines. You can still show up on your high school alumni page without enabling every single detail you’ve posted show up for all to see. Tweeters- if you are going to ‘tweet’ anything that could be traced back to you, personal; lock that account up and don’t approve strangers (ie: people you don’t know) to “follow” you.

All you IM’ers- stop adding “friends” automatically! And if you are going to send one- for goodness sake, take the time to write three little words: “hey, it’s ___” because not everyone knows you via your ‘nickname’. As for email, it is time to set up more than one account. One- use for IM, friends, and family but the other- use for everything else. Signing up for a store account? Email #2. Correspondence with your European cousin? Email #1.

As for the bloggers out there, you need to realize that your blog is actually a website. So joe.blog.com is an actual domain name <joe being the subdomain, blog being the main or root domain, and .com being the top level domain= your own URL>. And unless you signed up with privacy options, this blog is treated just like every other website out there.

Websites are actually just another word for the name of a domain. The URL and IP address may be the full enchilada but the domain name is the key ingredient.

All domains are registered through ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). This organization runs the international database (aka registry) for every domain on the internet. At the beginning of the internet, when computers were merely accessible within a particular network, users had to use a command to look up other users. That command was ‘WHOIS’ and with the birth of the ‘www’, the government (known for holding on to antiquated rituals) continued using the term for the actual database of what was on the internet. When the oversight ceased being run by Uncle Sam and started being not-for-profit, WHOIS became the official name for the registry databases.

So when the company that you bought your website through gets your contact information, unless you say otherwise- it is about to become available on the worldwide web. Why? Because it has to be. That’s right, if you don’t deem it otherwise- ICANN and InterNIC (Internet Network Information Center) govern the internet by requiring that every presence on it ‘register’. By signing up, you have become a ‘registrant’ and the company that you went through is either a ‘registrar’ (responsible organization that lists domains in the registry) or a ‘reseller’ (company that sells domains but goes through a registrar for the actual registry submissions).

Because the registry is public, anything you provide is too. There are people and organizations that “mine” the WHOIS for their nefarious purposes. Don’t believe me? Go check for yourself!

Go to who.is or whois.net and type in your domain name. Suddenly, a plethora of information will pop up before your eyes and this is where you will find your name, address, email, phone number, and any other information that you provided when you signed up for your website.

Hate the idea of being www viewable? Then do the same thing that you did for your Facebook page, make the site private. Your registrar or reseller likely offers a “proxy” service. You’re going to have to pony up the fees (because, hey, service isn’t free) but a buck a month seems like a fair trade to keep John in Nigeria from using the WHOIS information in any search engine to steal your security.

As we cultivated our friendship, I talked to the both of them. She and I had a common interest in comics (though mine is amateurish in comparison) and were able to get along in person without a single awkward silence. I made overtures to create a friendship and she reciprocated. I found out that she’d pretty much always been poly and had been the one to introduce the concept to him. At first, he’d rejected the idea but the longer they were together, the more he saw that his worries were unfounded. I found out that he’d had flirtations but I was the first official relationship outside of his primary partner.

The more time that I spent with him, the more effort I made with her. No one wants to be the person on the outside looking in and that is especially true when you are poly. So while he and I were building a relationship, she and I were building a friendship; all the time, she was his primary partner and I had one of my own. We were trying to find a way to fit everyone together.

I wish that I could say that all this simultaneous construction was productive and positive but I can’t. The conversations that I had with my new boyfriend never centered on his other relationship; I didn’t want to pry. It was obvious that they operated differently than I did with my partner but making comparisons didn’t seem right. One day though, my curiosity got the better of me.

It is hard to see someone that you care about suffer. I found that once I opened the door, it couldn’t be shut again. Unfortunately, I had a front row seat to the unraveling and painful part of my boyfriend’s other relationship. It wasn’t a problem with me; it was a problem with his primary partner.

There were incidents of miscommunication or the complete lack thereof. Confusion ensued and the expectations of what I was to do or say to make things better were unclear.  He often had to choose between his partner that he lived with and the time that was scheduled to be spent with me; he had to choose between her and me.

Finally, it dawned on me that my new boyfriend had probably had complaints and issues with his partner before I came into the picture. My presence wasn’t the cause but it was the microscope. The threat of losing him constantly hung over my head. It took that for me to see that I didn’t want anyone to lose. I tried to be supportive and positive. I encouraged first her and then him to be understanding and patient. Then suddenly, it didn’t matter.

They were over. The Tug-Of-War was over. I’d won.

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♥     In case you missed it, G4TV’s “Attack of the Show” celebrated their 1000th show yesterday. In tribute, Nerf Herder’s Parry Gripp wrote the song “Girl At The Video Game Store”, featuring Kevin Pereira on drums and superhot Olivia Munn as said Video Game Girl. [G4TV]

♥     If you don’t scream when you type, you probably don’t use the Caps Lock key for much… until now. HI, BILLY MAYS HERE! [Gizmodo]

♥     And finally, in the race to see who will become the new movie version of the Green Lantern, one of the most under-appreciated superheroes ever, it’s come down to “hot guy everybody knows”, “hot guy nobody knows”, and… J-Tim? [io9] TWO GUYS, A GIRL, AND AN UPDATE: Nevermind. It’s Ryan Reynolds. Because when I think superhero, I think Van Wilder. *sigh* [i09 again]

•     David Fitzherbert was skiing in Switzerland when the snow gave out underneath him, dropping him 70 feet. He would have fallen another 700 feet, had he not wedged himself between two rocks… and the Blackberry in his breast pocket. [Gizmodo]

•     I know it’s a “totally green, totally recycled” vibrator, but the whole “four minutes of hand-cranking for thirty minutes of vibration” makes some of us think carpal tunnel might kill the mood, knowhatimean? [Fleshbot] (NSFW)

•     Finally, we all know vampires are an allegory for sex, but why do they all got to be dudes? Can a strong, sister vampire get some love? [Jezebel]

•     This Week in Twitter Freak-Outs: a story of the man who left his iPhone at a bar by accident, but successfully used his friend’s laptop and the application, Find My iPhone, to retrieve it from the bar’s bus boy at his neighborhood bus stop. Not mentioned: how dumb you have to be to leave a $500 phone on a bar table, unattended. [LiveJournal]

•     Finally, Jay Maynard, aka “The Tron Guy”, was forced due to economic struggles to sell his plane, with totally awesome Tron paint job included. The eBay auction, ending July 1st, is currently over $40,000. In other news, you totally checked out his crotch in the linked article. [Gizmodo]