YOU know something?s amiss the instant you wake up and reach over to check your mobile. A dozen people have called you while you were asleep, among them friends at work, including your boss, as well as your uncle from the US and a college batch mate now working in Singapore.

?What?s going on?? you ask yourself.

Then, you go to your computer and log into your e-mail, Facebook and Twitter accounts. That?s when it hits you. You?re in the midst of one of the worst nightmares in the Internet age.

In the last 12 hours, someone has published a blog about you, telling the world about things you?d done when you were drunk one night; things you barely remember doing and would much rather forget.

The worst part of it is that the author, who goes by a username you don?t recognize, has taken liberties in telling his ?full? story, not letting the truth get in the way of a damaging narration.

What do you do? Is there any way out of this cyber terror maze?

As in any crime scene, the first reaction should be to save the evidence, says Ivan Uy, secretary of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT).

?Do everything you can to retain that information, and save it in whatever way or form you can. Try to remember the URL, save the web page or even use the print screen function on your computer,? he explains. The Internet being the way that it is, he adds, those who publish web pages can just as easily remove them.

While the Internet has changed society for the better, giving every person the power to access information and to share his or her thoughts to millions, this freedom can and is often abused, leading to often-grave consequences. While most web service providers and blogging sites give users the option to ?report abuse? such as malicious content, merely removing the offensive site or content may sometimes not be enough to repair the damage or render justice to the aggrieved.

So if you happen to be on the aggrieved or offended end, stay calm enough to first preserve the evidence, especially if going to court is your intention, or at least an option you want to keep open.

?Thereafter, if you wish, you may have to file a complaint,? Uy continues.
But this is when things start to get tricky.

A libel case would be the best option for anyone maligned on the Internet. There has been no shortage of libel cases involving the Internet in the Philippines, reveals Uy, who used to work as the Supreme Court?s chief information officer. ?But in the end, nothing happens.?

If winning a libel case against newspapers or any publication in the print industry is difficult enough, the Internet makes things even more complicated. The first problem is identifying exactly who to sue.

If the erring blogger was kind enough to put his name on the page and admits it in person when confronted, then a case can be filed and a trial can start. However, if a blog is published anonymously, the author will be much harder or even close to impossible to find.

?For that you will need the cooperation of providers like Facebook, Yahoo! and Google,? Uy says. ?But they will not give you information about any of their users unless you present them a court order.?

But even then, he adds, even if a complainant is able to obtain a court order, law enforcers still tend to treat individual libel cases as a low priority.

?The problem is that our law enforcement agencies are severely undermanned for these kinds of cases. The police force has a very small team and they are more concerned with cases of cyber terrorism, swindling, child pornography and other more public crimes,? Uy says. ?We have teams that have the experience of dealing with people that hack into government websites. The question is whether they are willing to deal with small cases.?

He adds that the police would also rather reserve their favors from big companies like Google for more serious cases instead of investigating each and every one of the thousands of libel cases filed every year.

?If they get a thousand cases a day, you don?t ask these companies to help with each one. You have to wait for something bigger,? he explains. As a result, most libel cases involving the Internet end at the bottom of the pile of cases to handle.

Things get messier when dealing with cases where the author of the malicious blog is abroad. In 2008, Australian blogger Brian Gorrell accused his former boyfriend, DJ Montano, of swindling him out of $70,000. The blog also aimed to put to shame members of the ?Gucci Gang,? as he tagged the circle of friends of Montano.

Gorrell?s most damaging accusation against the Gucci Gang members, which he said included lifestyle columnist and socialite Celine Lopez, was of alleged cocaine abuse.

?Cases have been filed both here and in Australia, but so far, nothing has really happened,? Uy recalls of the Gucci Gang incident.

Usually, in normal criminal cases, those who felt, or were actually, alluded to as the Gucci Gang members could have sought the extradition of bloggers who maligned them overseas. Libel is still a criminal offense punishable with a jail term in the Philippines.

?But the Philippines is one of the few countries in the world where libel is still a criminal offense,? Uy continues. ?Extradition of accused defendants can only happen if the offense is criminal in nature in both countries.?

It seems that legal hurdles are aplenty when trying to go after those who use the Internet to damage other peoples? reputations. But Uy says the best protection cannot be found anywhere in the vast world of the web. ?You just have to protect your reputation in real life.?

And if this fails, ?there?s always the old principle of ?lex talionis,? or ?an eye for an eye,?? Uy says ? but only in jest. ?