online safety

It took computer safety expert Linda Criddle only nine minutes to snag the phone number of a teenage girl in Nebraska who had posted just a little information about herself on a social networking Web site.

Criddle is a former Microsoft employee who specialized in online safety and is the author of a consumer-safety book, "Look Both Ways: Help Protect Your Family on the Internet."

She spoke at the Economic Crime Conference sponsored by the Utah Attorney General's Office on Thursday -- with a message that would send shivers down any parent's spine.

A Missouri woman indicted on federal charges for fraudulently using an account on MySpace and posing as a teenage boy pled not guilty on Thursday. Lori Drew's alleged shenanigans led to the suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier. Megan killed herself after the "boy" who feigned romantic interest in Meier later spurned her and told her, among other things, that the world would be a better place without her.