Putting a penalty on the computer trickery that can cause burdensome annoyances like e-mail spam and more serious problems like identity theft could get serious attention from lawmakers this year.

For many people, computers and the internet have become an extension of the self. Our identities, the way we see ourselves, and the way we interact with others are all tested and mediated through the ...

My laptop was a ticking time bomb. Deep within a nested hierarchy of folders in the machine’s My Documents folder, in an archive eight levels down, sat 722 Social Security numbers. For nearly 10 years ...