understand why you’re itching to go Punk’d on the delinquent. But there are big risks to using YouTube as a 21st-century pillory, especially if the lad doesn’t even shave yet. “Tort law in most states protects the right of privacy against disclosure of even some truthful information,” says Michael C. Dorf, a professor at Cornell University Law School who blogs at Dorfonlaw.org. “And such protection is often broader for minors.” By publicly outing the kid, then, you could open yourself up to getting splattered with a lawsuit.

Even if you manage to escape legal repercussions, posting the video seems unlikely to change the boy’s behavior. Honestly, how many views do you expect to draw with that grainy footage of a kid tossing eggs? A few hundred? It’s not like you caught him lip-synching to a Moldovan pop song. And if the clip fails to stir outrage, the vandal may feel that he’s weathered your best shot and now has free rein to launch another volley.

Instead of escalating the situation by posting the video, how about going back to his parents with a gentle notice: You could sue them for their son’s vandalism. If they don’t care about their kid’s behavior, at least maybe they care about their cash. And this way, you’ll be picking on someone your own size.

My house is tens of thousands of dollars “underwater,” and I keep reading that I should just walk away. But will my bank find a way to screw me?

Smart money lenders heed the advice of country star-cum-chicken magnate Kenny Rogers: Once you walk away, they need to “know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em.” Though your bank may have the legal authority to pursue you to the ends of the earth, it will do so only if it’s convinced that such a chase makes financial sense. More often than not, it does not.

Before casting off your real-estate albatross, carefully weigh the pros and cons. If you have the means, it might make sense to suck it up and keep paying the mortgage—perhaps after renegotiating your loan terms. Home prices could still rise someday, after all, and walking away will shatter your credit for the foreseeable future.

If you do choose to bolt, you’ll have the easiest time if you live in one of the 11 states where banks can’t touch mortgage holders who ditch their abodes (find out online if yours is one). In the other 39 states plus the District of Columbia, banks are generally given two foreclosure options: judicial and nonjudicial. The latter is the cheaper and speedier of the two, but it requires a bank to forfeit its right to hound the former owner.

If the bank goes the judicial route, you can still use dramatic measures to wriggle free of the debt. “The borrower can always just file for bankruptcy,” says Edward Morrison, a professor at Columbia Law School who has studied the aftermath of the housing bubble. Unless the bank is convinced that you’re sitting on a mountain of cash, it’ll probably just settle for your house.

That’s not a sure thing, of course, so split at your own risk. But if you do, consider throwing a kegger the night before you leave. Such debauchery will be a lot harder to pull off once you rejoin the ranks of renters—or move back in with Mom.

I’ve been putting tape over my laptop’s built-in webcam out of fear that a hacker may be spying on me. Am I just being paranoid?

Yes. But your paranoia isn’t totally unjustified. There are indeed cases of hackers bending webcams to their will—most involve perverts keen to glimpse nubile young ladies in various states of undress. And then there was that case earlier this year in which a school district in suburban Philadelphia admitted to spying on students who took home loaner laptops.

That said, if you’re practicing the basics of computer security, you really shouldn’t have to resort to adhesives. To hijack your webcam, a hacker needs to sneak some malware onto your system—something you can prevent by installing a firewall, keeping your antivirus software up-to-date, and resisting the urge to click on shady email attachments. (That ZIP file from the First Bank of Belarus? Avoid.) Oh, yeah, and you know that little indicator light next to your webcam? If that’s glowing when it shouldn’t be, it’s time to shut down and have your system examined. Either that or it’s your cue to look the lens in the eye and start waggling what God gave you.

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Authors: Brendan I. Koerner

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