While the rise of social networking Web sites such as MySpace and Facebook have helped make the world a little smaller, they may also expose that world to potential employers and dangerous individuals, police say.

Since the start of the fall semester, two UT students have reported harassment through the Internet. Harassment entails any obscene or threatening electronic communication, according to Texas electronic harassment law.

"Typically the person that's receiving the harassment may know the person," said Darrell Halstead of the UT Police Department. "What they'll do then is provide us the text of what was said, which becomes evidence."

Harassment as a first offense is a Class B misdemeanor with the maximum penalty of 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine. Repeat offenders receive harsher penalties depending on the nature of the harassment, he said.

"We contact the individual that sent it, find out where they're coming from, the reason it was sent and give them a kind of warning because they may not know that their messages actually constitute harassing communications," Halstead said.

If the person did know his or her messages were harassing in nature they typically are taken to jail, Halstead said.

The dangers go beyond messaging. The open nature of Facebook and MySpace allows almost any person to peek into the life of someone who could be a complete stranger. Halstead said users generally feel an urge to put a lot of information about themselves onto a profile.

"If I was a stalker or just someone random, what I can do is start piecing information about her," Halstead said while looking at a profile of this reporter's Facebook friend. "I can look up her last name and find out where her parents live just by getting out a phone book. She has allotted me a lot of information that she may not have realized. I have her first name, last name and now her date of birth."

And because UT is a public institution, one can easily obtain telephone numbers and addresses by doing a simple search of first and last names through UT's online directory.

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