In mid-April, this blog was “defaced” by someone who replaced my home page with some nonsensical statement that seemingly referred to terrorists in Algeria.

When I first saw that my blog was defaced, my initial reaction was: “Wow.  My blog must really be important because it was selected by a political group that must have feared the power of what I wrote.”  After a brief Google search, I discovered that the culprit had actually defaced about 486 other blogs in what appeared to be more of a prank than a political statement.  I’ve kept a Google alert on the culprit, and he continues to do the same thing, still in an apparently random way.

It took a few days until we figured out how to retrieve control of my blog.  The actual damage net net was really zero.  I did lose momentum in writing here, but I will get that back.  But I learned a major lesson.

I was hit with a total surprise.  I did not know that such a thing as a web site “defacing” even existed.  So I did not know how to respond when I saw it.  I did know one thing immediately:  I felt violated.  I’ve done some Google searches and discovered that is exactly the same feeling shared by all others who have commented about having their sites defaced: violated.  It’s a terrible feeling.  While I will not remember the message of the violator, I will remember my reaction.

The feeling of violation assumes as a premise that the feeling is very intense and personal.  It was my blog that was attacked, not me, but my reaction was still very personal.  That means that my blog is a part of me and all others who also shared the feeling of violation.  Our blogs are often a virtual part of us.  Millions of people are writing blogs and living at least to some degree in an online life.  Millions more are posting comments online in the form of restaurant reviews or comments about what flowers grow well in the shade or the significance of a news story, and they are asserting an identity, to a greater or lesser degree, as they do.  People are expanding their personalities in totally unprecedented ways.  I always knew that intellectually, but I did not fully appreciate it on a gut level until my blog was defaced.

I think the consequences will be very significant, but I do not know what they will be and when and how they may be realized.  But I do have some thoughts on how this will impact communications and communities, and I expect to be writing about that some more in the future.