In case you ever get hacked (or if it happens to me and I need to find this info again)

Well, I've been on vacation. I have a few posts in my head to share with you guys, like how I'm afraid I might be a hipster, or this amazing discovery Dennis and I made called "Little Free Library", but instead, I'm going to use my 15 minutes today to talk about how I've tracked down and hopefully scared away my little hacker.

Basically, I found this wonderful advice at http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/internet-content-theft that told me, step by step what to do.

The first half helped me realize that, yes, my content is automatically copyrighted when I post it, so I do have some legal rights. Of course, I'm not willing to spend too much time or money trying to make things right, but I did want to get to the bottom of things.

Next, and most importantly, go to http://www.whois.net/ and type in the domain name of the offender. I was able to get a first and last name, email address, home address, and find out who is hosting the site (which means who the offender payed to make the site show up on the internet).

Creepy. I wonder if that shows up for me?

Nope. Phew. I think it's because I'm using a free host (like BlogSpot.com or wordpress.com).

So anyways, I created a whole new email account that doesn't contain any of my personal info and emailed this "Nina" in Serbia. I let him/her know I'm onto this little game and I'm contacting both the web server and host site, requesting that they take the stolen content down.

Then, the host, hostgator.com had me write this long fax and send it to them.

Soo...now I wait. If it doesn't work, at least I can say I tried.

I feel pretty smart right now for typing that official fax document thingy. It did kind of bring back terrible memories from all that adoption paperwork, though.

Anyways, I mostly wrote this so my future self can find that link, if need be. Also, who knows, some of you may have to deal with this "Nina" one day soon, and you'll thank me for the tips.

I think this Nina is a part of the mafia. Yes. Dark eyebrows and a long black trench coat. I'm sensing an evil laugh, too.

You're going down, Nina! I sent a fax to some people! Wahahaha! (That's my evil laugh there, at the end.)