I’ve seen the future of the Internet, and it’s sitting on my desk inside a squishy leather pouch.

I’m talking about the Chumby, a clock-sized gadget that logs on to my home network and displays Web content. But what’s notable isn’t the Chumby itself; it’s what it portends. We’re entering an era where virtually every device in your home and in your pocket will live online.

You may already own a stereo receiver that plays Internet radio stations or a TV set that can display YouTube videos. One day soon your refrigerator, your washing machine, and even your commode may be connected to the Internet. I’m not kidding. Japan’s Toto Corporation has developed an “Intelligence Toilet” that can monitor your health and send the results to your doctor. (Insert your own joke here.)

One of the things that will make this possible is a shift in how the Net manages the “addresses” of the devices connected to it. Today, when you type a Web site name into your browser, it gets converted into a numeric sequence called an Internet Protocol (IP) address. Type 207.46.232.182, and you’ll end up at microsoft.com. When you surf the Web, you’re also assigned an IP address by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). It might be a static number, or it might change every time you connect, depending on your ISP.

Virtually every device in your home will live on the Internet. The bad news? Everything you do goes on your permanent record.

Dan Tynan writes this column monthly for US Airways Magazine.

Though there are 4.3 billion possible IP addresses, they’re already in short supply. So before we run out, the Brotherhood of Geeks who invent Internet Protocols came up with a new numbering scheme that expands the number of potential addresses almost to infinity. (The precise number is 340,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.)

This means everyone and everything on the planet can have a unique IP address. Among other things, it would be easier to control every appliance in your home from the Web, or for repair techs to log on to your digital devices and fix them without coming to your house. Your bank’s Web site can use your IP address along with your password to verify your identity, making it harder for fraudsters to pretend to be you. Your IP address could be used as a second Social Security number, something that identifies you (or at least, your machine) whenever you’re online.

The bad news? As my teachers used to say, everything you do goes on your permanent record. IP addresses are already used in civil and criminal prosecutions, but because addresses are often shared, identifying the actual culprit is at best an inexact science. With unique IPs it won’t be. Your ISP could capture all your laundry data and sell it to detergent companies. Your health insurer could serve a subpoena on your refrigerator.

Worse, the ability to operate even quasi-anonymously on the Net could be threatened. That may not be a big deal to you, but it’s definitely a big deal to human-rights activists and people living under repressive regimes. That’s why the European Union is debating whether to treat IP addresses as personally identifiable information, similar to Social Security numbers.

None of this is written in stone, of course. The conversion to the new protocol will take years or even decades. As ISPs and other organizations get better at tracking you online, so do tools like encryption software and Web “anonymizers” that make it possible to cover your tracks.

But the rule of thumb is don’t do anything online you wouldn’t want your mom to know about, says Jonathan Ezor, assistant professor of law and technology at Touro Law Center in Central Islip, New York.

“People should assume that when they’re on the Net, their ISP or employer can see what they’re doing,” he says. “And anything you’ve done in the past is probably archived somewhere. It’s very difficult to keep one’s online behavior truly secret.”