what do you do is someone threatens that if you don't tell them the secret then they'll go on the internet, get the trick, then tell everyone how to do it...

any ideas?

Don't tell them the name of the trick, don't preform for them and if your desperate, make up a bogus explanation and if he doesn't beleave it, tell him its true and walk away. I doubt he will find it. It depends what trick it is.

Well then your probably not ready to perform. you must be doing something wrong.
Learn so control, dont take threats. Learn when to quit.
And like he said, dont ever use the name of the effect.

Say, "OOOOO you so scary! You can look stuff up on the internet! Wow, your mother must be so proud to have raised such a technologically gifted youngster such as yourself. And here I thought you were going to do something really nasty like, hit me."

first off, dont treat your tricks as a "TRICK". your mission is too make your illusions look like real life miracles. when you do a trick, you should never tell the person what you are about to do (basically dont be like, i am going to make a card dissapear, or anything like that). never say the name of the trick you are going to do either, your supposed to just go up to someone and say something like "can i show you something?" or "i want to try something with you, something amazing, just watch". stuff like that. then the person wont be able to find it.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. My mission is not to make my illusions look like real life miracles... my mission is to entertain the audience. I don't really care if they think it's a trick, know how it's done, or believe me to be the second coming of Christ, as long as I entertained them, I've fulfilled my duty.