Cyber expert details Internet-safety dangers

Other teenage sites showed that even young people who are careful about giving out information can be undone by their friends' indiscretions, including one girl whose friends in their posted comments mentioned her name, the location of her 16th birthday party, a cell phone number and the fact that various parents would be out of their houses at certain times.

Criminals also check out bridal and baby registries, where identity theft can occur even before a child is born, and obituary sites, especially those that include genealogical information.

Another source of concern is surveys and games.

Criddle once, as part of her work, plugged fake information into a health survey on longevity that kept asking highly personal medical questions, which was followed by a health insurance survey that wanted financial data. She noted that her information was being fed in real time to a giant retail pharmaceutical firm that wanted to sell her products and it also was going to other, unnamed sites.

"I wasn't finished with my first survey before I got my first spam (e-mail)," she said.

Schools and government agencies also can unwittingly provide far too much personal information that could be risky, including one community she discovered that keeps mortgage information — including Social Security numbers and financial data — posted with property records.

Criddle's message clearly resonated with her audience.

"I deal with this stuff all the time," one member of the Utah attorney general's staff said during a break, "and she scares me."

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E-mail: lindat@desnews.com