Recap: Spanko Brunch 2.0 for July 17

This week we discussed what steps we take to protect our computers against accidental discovery of our spanking preferences.

Simon: I live on my own so there isn't much chance of someone seeing anything they shouldn't. I have occasionally been looking something up whilst there are visitors watching and I'm grateful that they can't see what comes up as I type in the word especially if it begins with sp. The real problem arises, as you mentioned, if my laptop breaks down. I can't take it to be repaired as I don't know what the repairer will access. Over the years this has probably led to me replacing a number of laptops that could be fixed quite easily.

Six of the best: Hermione, I love your food selections that you start your blogs with. I could EAT them off your page. The question that you ask this week, is a problem for all of us 'spanko's, as of now it has not happened to me. But I probably would be greatly embarrassed, if it did.

Six, finding appealing food images is part of the fun I have with brunches. I'm glad you enjoy them.

Baxter: My wife has seen my stuff as I used to have a laptop that did stuff that her googlebook didn't. but she is the only one and she spanks me so no big deal.

I was missing you during the week as there was no 'write a caption' or Friday fail. Was hoping all was well with you.

Baxter, thank you for your concern. If I had really been in trouble, Ronnie would have posted about it for me. I'm so glad I'm back.

Sir Wendel: I use a separate laptop. I removed the camera and microphone because I don’t plan on ever Skyping a spanking. The hard drive is encrypted and uses a SD card as a secure login key. The misses has a laptop as well. I give her a spanking every time she jacks it up. Sometimes I think she breaks it just to get the spanking. Maybe that’s some good advice for anybody looking for reasons to get spanked.

Lilli: I generally only use my laptop to access spanky blogs/interests and no one else uses it, so I haven't worried about it too much honestly. ;)

Dragon's Rose: My lifestyle choices are not your business nor is what I do on my own computers. I have been an adult for a long time now. But if you have any questions I may answer them.

Anon 1: Glad to hear problem resolved and you're back up and running.

Interesting potential dilemma you've posed, Hermione. Humor, to me, has always been the best way of dealing with, shall we say, getting caught with your pants down. Unless, of course, it's a situation where one finds themselves -- on the carpet facing the music. If I had to take a computer in I wouldn't say anything at the time, and come back, with a sheepish grin, to pick it up and leave as quickly as possible with my tail between my legs knowing that I'm going to be the butt (pun intended) of some good-hearted ribbing.

As for denial -- puleze -- just fess up, we tops and bottoms know better than anyone you're just lying, and there has to be a price to pay. Be it a sound and severe thrashing, or in your case, H, how about a month with no spanking for lying.

Now let's hear some responses where the respondents (male or female) don't have their panties in a knot over privacy.

Amy: Hey there! When researching or looking up topics, we use Duckduckgo instead of Google. It doesn't track you. If our kids found any of this stuff, that'd be the tougher conversation. If it were friends or siblings, we'd probably honestly discuss what it has done for our relationship and may even mention how it could help theirs! LOL Each to their own, that's what we think.

Jake: It has happened to me. My dad was visiting and while I was out "borrowed" my computer. When I came in, my laptop was open and on my desk. On the screen was a photo of me bare bottomed taking a belting. I confess I was bruised.

My dad was sputtering and finally said "Would you care to explain this ?" At the time I was 25 and on my own. I smiled and closed the computer and merely asked if he would like the phone number of the girl who was spanking me. He was in shock and the subject was never brought up again during his visit. A few weeks later I got a note from him apologizing for intruding in my privacy.

Anon 2: External hard drive. We don't keep anything naughty stored on our computers. Faves/bookmarks,pics everything is stored elsewhere, and browser history deleted daily. Computer needs work, no problem. Nosy parents, friends, relatives no problem.

Liza: We have several computers. No one uses mine or my husband's and you have to know the password. We have a third one that can be used by guests. My friends and I know what we are all into so it wouldn't matter what they saw.
Hermione, what has happened to Bonnie's blogs?

Bonnie is taking a break from blogging. I hope she will be back when time permits.

Ronnie: I have a laptop and iPad that only I use and you would have to know the password. When we have family here I put both machines away so no chance of anyone finding them. The children bring their own iPads when visiting.

DefinitelyNotBonnie: My answer would depend upon the circumstances. We live alone most of the time. If our grown daughter saw something, I suspect she wouldn't comment because I might tell her more than she wants to hear. If she did ask, I'd tell her that she doesn't want to know. I'm fairly certain that she would take my word. We'd have an obligatory eye-roll and life would then progress along the previous path.

Our too-bright-for-her-own-good granddaughter is another story. If she accidentally saw something, I would probably explain it away as an ad for a dopey movie and then find a big distraction. "Would you like to go shopping with me?"

Repair dude is another matter entirely. Like Simon, I have retired a PC before its time to avoid this special flavor of embarrassment. Besides, I really wanted a laptop.

Liza - I have it on good authority that the blog you mentioned will likely return sometime in August. No promises, but it's looking better each day.

KDPierre: We live openly, so it is not an issue for us. In fact I probably spend more time trying to convince the people I know to visit and participate on my blog than I do trying to hide it.

Carl H: Rule #1 - Don't have any bookmarks in your browser. All of my bookmarks are in a series of Excel spreadsheets (all in one workbook), organized by subject. One spreadsheet is for spanking related websites and the tab simply says "stuff" (there about 12 altogether.)

Rule #2 - Use one browser for spanking related matters (say Netscape Navigator) and another one as your "default" browser for everything else (say Chrome or Explorer).

Yes, I could be "found out", but it would be pretty difficult.

Nena: I have my own laptop, one that nobody else uses and nobody else has the password to and I made it a habit to lock the desktop when leaving my laptop.
When browsing I open an incognito window so nothing is saved to the browser history.

I really don't want anybody to find out, especially not the kids and I am fairly sure the kids don't want to know about it either. I don't know how I would react if somebody found stuff on my computer, depends on who it is, I guess.

Hermione: I have taken our desktop PC to a repair shop, and just had to hope for the best. They've probably seen much worse than spanking blogs, and they were very professional, no hints that they had been exploring the hard drive. The second time I took it in, the hard drive was fried and they were unable to recover any data - whew!

At home, we have a laptop that I consider vanilla, so if anyone happened to visit and needed to use a computer, I would direct them to that. Our most frequent visitor brings his own laptop.

Ron and I share the desktop computer, but we keep our interests separate by using different browsers. He uses Chrome, Opera and Edge, while I use Firefox for spanko blogging and emails and IE for vanilla email. If someone did happen to use our desktop computer and checked my browser history, I could probably blame it on Ron (LOL!) I sure would be embarrassed. There really isn't much chance of that happening now, but when the grandchildren get older, I will probably password-protect the machine.

Katie: I have my own laptop, devices. I keep a passcode on all of them. Rob knows what it is, but no one else does. I often use my computer to do something with/for one of our kids, or occasionally a vanilla friend. In this case, since the beginning of blogging/lurking, I have a dedicated browser that I use for this kind of thing. I use the other browser for everything else.

If a guest needs to borrow a computer, I can set up a guest login.

I also keep my gmail related to my robskatie account, only accessible from signing in on the web, vs. adding it to mail apps, such as mail or outlook, etc.

The other thing that I do is when I add pics to my blog, I always do a screen clipping of them, vs. a copy and paste. If I have a photo, there is often metadata attached to that. You can make sure that there isn't with your photo program, but I go a step beyond, and do a clipping of them. It's just more safe.

I don't think that a majority of friends and family would understand how Rob and I live. Thus, it is important to keep it that way. These things help with that. Great questions!

Thank you all for joining in the discussion. Remember, I am always looking for new topics, so please feel free to suggest an idea for brunch any time.