Both men, of course, remain innocent until proven guilty. But one can only imagine that these digital breadcrumbs — meaningless as personal debris, but more damning when they suddenly draw public attention — became a source of some anxiety for them, particularly as their computer equipment was seized and the ability to delete accounts, remove images and otherwise erase online legacies was cut off.

It's something to keep in mind not just for those who plan on doing a little hacking here and there, but for an entire booty-shaking, blog-bleating, MySpace generation that might one day have reason to worry or wonder, years from now, whether some faraway cache or archive holds backups of their cyber-indiscretions.

"Our tracks through the digital sand are eternal."