In a presentation at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas on Thursday, Patton explained how a piece of free software he'd created can automatically comb social networking sites, collecting and aggregating data based on keywords or other information like contact information, friends, and personal history.

FORBES: Mining MySpace

"We'd never seen anything quite like it, " says partner Warren Packard, who helps comb through 5, 000 plans a year.

FORBES: The wild bunch