A young Alexandria, Va., woman told police that she suspected her ex-boyfriend was tapping into her e-mail inbox from thousands of miles away, reading messages before she could and harassing the senders.

She was right to be suspicious. Her ex had hacked into her e-mail account, either guessing her password or using spyware — software that can secretly read e-mails and survey cyber-traffic, law enforcement officials said. For months, apparently, he had followed her every online move, part of a pattern of abuse that police are still investigating.

Law enforcement officials and safety groups have focused on the Internet as an arena for such types of harassment as impersonation and character assassination as more people voluntarily place their private lives on public display through Web sites such as Facebook.com and MySpace.com.

But a little-discussed and more threatening phenomenon is also happening to the unwitting online and in the high-tech world: cyber-stalking, the illegal monitoring of private information and communication of ex-lovers and spouses as a form of domestic violence.

The spurned often use global positioning systems, invasive computer programs, cell phone monitoring chips and tiny cameras to follow the whereabouts, goings-on and personal communications of unsuspecting victims.

Cases from across the country have shown that stalkers with little more than cursory computer knowledge have been able to track e-mail and Web activity of current or recently divorced spouses. In other cases, cell phones, outfitted with GPS chips, are secretly attached to cars and the signals are followed online.

A Fairfax County, Va., woman named Carol, who requested that her last name be withheld because her case is continuing, said her ex-husband accessed her e-mail and confronted her with personal information she had shared only with a close family member.

The cyber-stalking came after weeks of harassing e-mails and traditional stalking behavior, such as peeking in her window. She is convinced that he presented the computer information to prove that he could violate her sense of security whenever and wherever he wanted, even after he moved out of the region.

Just as technology has opened a new realm of abuse to those who seek to stalk someone from afar, cyber-stalking, in turn, has opened a new avenue of violation. Victims feel powerless to stop others from reading legal documents and intimate correspondence as well as tracking their every online move.

"What's so disturbing for many victims is that they can be harassed or followed from anywhere," said Susan Folwell, Domestic Violence Grant Program manager at the Women's Center, a counseling and resource center in Vienna, Va.

The scope of the activity is unclear, police officials and victims' rights advocates said. In many cases, those who are being stalked through the airwaves aren't aware that they are being monitored. And evidence is difficult to gather, so police officials often don't think they have enough to assure prosecution.

With the technology rapidly becoming cheaper and more readily available, police departments, prosecutors and advocates who work with domestic violence victims are struggling to keep up.

"It seems like these stalkers are a step ahead of us," said Amy Santiago, a detective with the Alexandria Police Department's domestic violence unit, which has investigated about a dozen cases. "… It seems like every day, things are changing."

NEW YORK Teens generally don't think twice about including their first names and photos on their personal online profiles, but most refrain from using full names or making their profiles fully public.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project reported Wednesday that two-thirds of teens with profiles on blogs or social networking sites have restricted access to their profiles in some fashion, such as by requiring passwords or making them available only to friends on an approved list.

The study comes amid growing concerns about online predators and other dangers on popular online hangouts such as MySpace.com and Facebook.com, which encourage their youth-oriented visitors to expand their circles of friends through messaging tools and personal profile pages.

Social networking sites have responded by offering users more controls over how much they make public and warning them about revealing too much.

According to Pew, fewer than a third of teens with profiles use their last names, and a similar number include their e-mail addresses. Only 2 percent list their cell phone numbers.

But 79 percent have included photos of themselves, with girls more likely to do so. Eighty-two percent use their first names, and half identify their schools.

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