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There's all kinds of PII and PHI in that stolen information.

I'm sure these folks don't care, because, like Assange, they're trolls. When they're helping your side, they're described with superlatives. When they're harming your side, they're described with expletives. They don't care. They just do what they do for their own personal reasons.

I doubt the guy intentionally let his SSN go public

Maybe he idolizes the founder of LifeLock.

No kidding, I thought the same thing. Hope that guy has Lifelock.

I guess the claim is that his identity was stolen by a texas man who used his social security number to get a $500 cash advance at a check cashing/payday loan store because a clerk never verified his identity, the account it was drawing off of or anything.

Anyways, because of the fraud alert on his credit reports and the lack of the bank account, he used his service to contest it and he claims it is proof of the services working because it didn't cost him a dime or any of his time.

Take that with a grain of salt I guess.

I guess the real issue here is the definitions of victom and Identity theft and the combination of the two.

If you visit their website, it explains what they do quite plainly. Now, if we are splitting hairs and asking what the meaning of "is" is, you might have to ask is a victim of identity theft, someone who has had their identity used by someone else, or someone who has gotten stuck paying for that other's person's usage of their identity. If their program works like they claim, then it could be that a victim is someone who has to deal with paying or disputing claims against their name. It will be interesting to see how the courts figure that part out.

Something even more interesting is the CEO's admission on the same site detailing his Identity theft in Texas and claims it as proof life lock works because he was never out a dime or waisted any of his time clearing things up, Life lick did it for him. He also admits that identity theft isn't completely stoppable, and the services of his company helps get things settled when something gets by.

I don't know how long this stuff was there or even if it was put in place because of the lawsuits. But it would seem that most of the concerns are addressed in a way that could go either direction in a court. If they give that information to customers when becoming members or signing up for the services, it doesn't seem to me that there is much of a case. What do you think?

Further, for $120/year, there are cheaper ways to protect your ID. Lock/unlocks are $30 (in my state at $10 per).

I was looking at their"guarantee."; I'm not sure what, exactly, they actually are promising. It might not be very much.

In part: "We will pay up to $1,000,000 to cure the failure or defect in our service.... We will not reimburse special, incidental, indirect or consequential damages, such as lost wages or profits, loss of business, or lost opportunities.... If you are our member when someone accesses your personal identifying information and subsequently uses it without your authorization to commit a fraud, due to a failure or defect in our Service, and you have complied with this Agreement, subject to the terms herein, we will pay professionals to assist in restoring any such loss or recover such expenses, as required."

Any lawyers out there? What happens if the professionals' assistance, however well-meaning, fails to result in your recovering the loss? At that point would they have to pay for your loss themselves in order to "cure the defect" in the service?

And what's a "professional?" Naturally, one thinks of lawyers or licensed private detectives, but maybe it just means having their own paid staff call your credit-card companies to report the fraud... inform companies that the change of address they have for you was fraudulent and ask them to stop payment on the checks they mailed... trivial stuff like that...

Except the lifelock guarantee says nothing of the sort. Just like the auto companies advertise only that their cars have safety features, not that they will protect me under all circumstances. Their guarantee even foresees that customer's identities will be stolen.

http://lifelock.com/lifelock-for-people/how-we-do-it/how-does-the-guarantee-work:

"Our Total Service Guarantee is simple. In the unfortunate event your identity is misused while you are a LifeLock member, we will reimburse direct expenses you incur and pay professionals to resolve the problem for you - up to $1 million"

So, unless they are refusing service to paid up customers who actually had their identity stolen, I still call "ambulance chasing".

1) Goto: https://secure.lifelock.com/enrollmentform.aspx 2) Enter ' or 1=1 or ' quotes included as the promo code. 3) ??? 4) Profit

Fraud alerts must be renewed every 90-180 days. Only TransUnion offers 1 year alerts according to this website. Although they are not a guarantee by themselves, they do offer a measure of protection that shouldn't be ignored. There are some subscription services that will automatically renew your fraud alerts for you. Lifelock and Debix are two commercial subscription services that will perform this service for around $50-100/year. I'm sure there are others that I am unaware of.

I use Debix and recently signed up for phone service at a new apartment. About half-way through the sign up procedure, the sales rep put me on hold and transfered me to a lady over in the fraud dept. This was a little shocking at first, until I remembered that I had fraud alerts which needed to be cleared. After I told the lady about the fraud alerts, all she had to do was call the number on my file, and give her name and reason for calling to the automated service. I received the call immediately, and gave my approval. She received notification about my acceptance immediately, and we were able to continue the sign up. The whole ordeal added about 10 minutes to the sign up process.

For $5/month it is a very useful service.

You have to pay, but the service covers most of the basics.

You dont need government to stop IDENITY THEFT!

http://lifelock.com/ and the cost it low when you compare it to government programs.

* Invasion? How will your little card protect you from an invasion? An armed and well regulated militia does this best, or the national guard.

I completely agree- but since the interstate commerce clause now prevents us from protecting the borders in this fashion, second best is having a national identity card and verification website- to prevent illegals from getting jobs, buying food, etc.

So your not talking about an invasion.. your talking about immigration. I charge that the US does not have an immigration problem. The US has a welfare problem. If we lived in a socialist society and there were a limited number of jobs then we would have a problem.. but in a land of freedom.. you don't need someone to employ you.. you can employ yourself and create your own jobs that need to be filled. If we give immigrants freedom yet with no social handouts they wont steal anything from us.. indeed they will make our industry and economy strong.

* Fraud? You want the government who is not liable for anything they do wrong to protect you from fraud? There is a private company LifeLock http://lifelock.com/ that already does this, better and cheaper than the feds could, if they screw up you can sue them, AND they can't throw you in jail if you loose your lifelock card.

Now that's interesting- I had not known about them. But there are two sides to fraud- how does lifelock insure that you know who you are dealing with? Will they turn over the address of a con artist who uses a lifelock card?

They insure it with a 1 million dollar guarantee.. They loose your ID, you get 1 mil. If the government looses your ID because of incompetence.. oh well, nothing you can do.. but if a private industry does .. they can be held liable.

Private solutions to problems are always better.. if there is someone willing to do it.

Security? ID is NOT security.. they are not the same thing. The 9/11 hijackers had ID, Timothy Mcvay ID, Cho Seung-Hui had ID. The Washington snipers had ID. What can we assume from this? ID makes us NO safer.

ID alone doesn't. ID Plus data mining does. An ID is only a primary key.

Yes but... Cho Seung-Hui gave off every warning sign in the book and nothing was done. This is because.. so far in America.. you need to actually *commit* a crime to be guilty of it. We put people in jail for what they do.. not for what they *might* do. I don't think this should change, because if we do we will be able to arrest people for only thinking about committing a crime.

* Theft? How does they government tracking you physically and digitally help against theft? I can SILL steal your lawn mower if you don't lock it up and your little card does nothing. Maybe you mean ID theft.. see lifelock above.

If you had to show an ID to come into my neighborhood or on to my property, and you steal my lawn mower, you can expect vigilante justice to show up VERY soon.

Already possible.. have you heard of gated neighborhoods? .. aside from that.. the governments not going to provide a ID scanner for your yard or neighborhood.. and if they did it would be a total police state. Government is not a "good" thing. We can look to history to see how well governments have served man. The very worst examples of tyranny, oppression, war and murder, slavery, rape and theft were committed by government hands. even if our elected officials are somehow holy saints today.. they may not always be so and a system like this will never go away if they become some day.. less saintly.

* wallet? Right now you don't have to carry any card in your wallet if you so choose.. You can still get on air planes without ID. This is freedom. It's how it should be.

Freedom is overrated if it's just the freedom to be a criminal.

There is a study out there that shows that 41% of America has at one point in there life smoked marijuana. So.. do you think 41

* Invasion? How will your little card protect you from an invasion? An armed and well regulated militia does this best, or the national guard.

I completely agree- but since the interstate commerce clause now prevents us from protecting the borders in this fashion, second best is having a national identity card and verification website- to prevent illegals from getting jobs, buying food, etc.

* Fraud? You want the government who is not liable for anything they do wrong to protect you from fraud? There is a private company LifeLock http://lifelock.com/ that already does this, better and cheaper than the feds could, if they screw up you can sue them, AND they can't throw you in jail if you loose your lifelock card.

Now that's interesting- I had not known about them. But there are two sides to fraud- how does lifelock insure that you know who you are dealing with? Will they turn over the address of a con artist who uses a lifelock card?

Security? ID is NOT security.. they are not the same thing. The 9/11 hijackers had ID, Timothy Mcvay ID, Cho Seung-Hui had ID. The Washington snipers had ID. What can we assume from this? ID makes us NO safer.

ID alone doesn't. ID Plus data mining does. An ID is only a primary key.

* Theft? How does they government tracking you physically and digitally help against theft? I can SILL steal your lawn mower if you don't lock it up and your little card does nothing. Maybe you mean ID theft.. see lifelock above.

If you had to show an ID to come into my neighborhood or on to my property, and you steal my lawn mower, you can expect vigilante justice to show up VERY soon.

*wallet? Right now you don't have to carry any card in your wallet if you so choose.. You can still get on air planes without ID. This is freedom. It's how it should be.

Freedom is overrated if it's just the freedom to be a criminal.

We can't secure our schools, we cant secure our shopping malls, hell... we cant even secure our prisons and that's about as secure as I can imagine. I'll have you know that I am a honest small business owner and I will not accept this card. I flat out refuse to do so even if they have to throw me in Jail.. is that fair? for me to go to jail because you want to *feel* secure in your Police state? This is my breaking point. I will not be traced and tracked and have every action purchase and message I send analyzed by the state.

Then you just lied. You're not an "honest small business owner" if you're afraid to be tracked- you're a dishonest crook who is probably taking money away from your workers at one end and your customers at the other- and you're afraid they'll find out and your past sins will come to haunt you.

Will you be willing to destroy my life because I don't want to be tracked? How many more like me are there? 100? 1,000? How about them? At what point does using force on others in your aims become ok?

Anonymity is only usefull to crooks. Why should I be your customer if you're afraid to tell me who you are?

http://lifelock.com/ LifeLock is a fix for the problem of data theft and its a non-government fix making it more attractive, voluntary, and overall less expencive.