The invasiveness of such Internet data miners is balanced by the power of the technology to help track criminals, as Richard Smith showed last week by helping to identify the New Jersey man who was arrested and charged with spreading the Melissa virus. In March, Smith, who is president of Phar Lap Software in Cambridge, Mass., publicized the existence of the serial number in Microsoft's Office documents. He raised ethical questions about the company's intention in automatically recording such numbers in its data base. Last week the company issued a software utility program enabling computer users to delete the numbers from their documents. Smith, a computer hacker in the constructive sense of the word and an amateur sleuth, was able to compare the document's number with those in other documents posted on the Web.
Electronic identity is both useful and increasingly necessary in cyberspace, say technologists.
People want anonymity, but at the same time they want to track everyone else. The technology tradeoffs won't necessarily become simpler as technology becomes more sophisticated. For example, the Federal Communications Commission has mandated that the nation's cellular phones be able to provide location information to within 400 feet by 2001. Because most 911 calls are now made from mobile phones, such information is vital for emergency response teams. Privacy activists, however, are concerned that such information will be misused by law enforcement.