We are immensely thrilled that you\’ve stumbled on to our webpage about id theft….

I registered for the service and the first thing I noticed is that they don’t take privacy seriously, anyone with basic information (email and zip) about a member can go to the ’secure” portal page and update the members profile. Once updated they can call an LifeLock agent as that person.

I called LifeLock about the issue and they said the profile page is only used once (lie). I had a friend update my account at a different location, hundreds of people know my email address and zip code and thousand more could find out in seconds. Very, very un-secure.

While this may not happen to 99% of members, it speaks to how LifeLock views security and privacy. If I could do the above, is my information…

… stored in protected areas?
… stored on secure servers?
… sitting in a box in the lobby?
… shredded after any printouts?
… available to reps over the internet?

Cheers

I agree with the last post. Give him a call. Ask him how he could do something like that. I think I will call my Dad and thank him for not turning me in when I did some of the things I did.

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com.....-scammers/

As for the slide-rule dorks on this site who wanna give LifeLock $10 a month or whatever, they kinda explain why the Revenge of the Nerds was just a movie. In reality, you guys are total losers.

John Doe, sorry for calling you a wuss. It’s “Smalley” and “Joe Johnson” who need to come clean. I didn’t mean to offend everyone who puts an anonymous message on a comment board. That’s what it’s for. But I don’t like faceless accusers so I’ll insist that “Smalley” and “Johnson” pull back the curtain before I respond to them again.

That makes him more legitimate in my eyes than you.

Are you afraid to actually talk to Ray?

Like I said. Legitimate people talk to legitimate journalists.

Ray -

You complain that no one is willing to talk to you. Legitimate people talk to legitimate journalists. I saw that LifeLock, Davis and Maynard all talked to the LA Times.

Legitimate journalists do not say “instead of blowing them all the time?” as you did on Howard Lindzon’s blog, nor do they speak disrespectfully to people when in public fora.

On his blog, Howard said in his very first post that he is an investor in LifeLock. In your eagerness to discredit him, you apparently missed that when you asked (actually, more like accused) him if he were.

You have been asked very direct questions here on Techcrunch and you have refused to answer them. I will repeat them here in case you failed to read them as well:

What was the motivation of your original source? No one is asking you to reveal him or her.

Did you check to see if a license had ever been fraudulently issued in Maynard’s name?

Did you speak to American Express regarding your accusations?

Did you read the settlements with the other defendants in the FTC issue to see if he had been treated more or less harshly?

Did you contact the Better Business Bureau or any third party to see what LifeLock’s record is with consumers?

Did you fact check any of your accusations with multiple sources?

For each of these questions: If yes, what was the result and why did you not report it? If not, why not?

I have been in business a long time and I have never seen a more personal, one-sided attack on a person or company.

Michael Arrington has a point when it comes to the motivations behind the people who started this. You cannot help but be questioned. The same logic that you use saying that someone is hiding something if they refuse to comment applies to you as well.

Scott

http://www.marketwire.com/2.0/release.do?id=744696

Think about this…

A customer calls Lifelock to give them sensitive personal information and the person they are giving it to has absolutely no controls placed over them as to security.

This company is headquartered in the state of Arizona, which has the absolute highest rate of identity theft in the country.

These reps will most likely be local.

Connect the dots folks.

I don’t take the no comment route like Maynard Jr., who refused to be interviewed by me.

The fact is, if Maynard Jr. had explained his side of things, I would have gladly included his responses in my article. I gave Maynard Jr. MULTIPLE opportunities to speak with me before the story ran.

If you’re still curious “what happened in Vegas,” I refer all of your questions on that matter to the Clark County district attorney’s office, namely Bernie Zadrowski. He’ll explain to you what really happened in Maynard’s case, if you don’t want to believe what I wrote about it.

Many of your questions seem rhetorical in nature, ie “what kind of journalist calls a corporate officer “bald and beefy?’” I honestly didn’t think you really wanted answers for questions like that. Also, on the American Express deal, you are speculating a lot with statements like, “by admitting on a public record that he owed the money when he had stolen an identity to get the account, he would have been admitting to a felony in a public record. That would seem to be a pretty stupid mistake.” It seems like you’re saying here it would be impossible for Maynard Jr. to make a stupid mistake!

I hope that clears stuff up for you. If you have any more specific questions, feel free to ask them. But you could consider sending me an e-mail, since Arrington’s readers are probably bored stiff with this conversation by now.

ray

How about answering some of the direct questions that were posed in this forum? You’ve had plenty to say about this until someone asks you a question. Why is that? Are you taking the “no comment” route? Seems pretty hypocritical. Could it be because you have no legitimate answers? That’s sure what it looks like.

ray

PLEASE tell me that the “news”, including an “investigative piece” isn’t being reported as fact, based on the assumption that what people say, (INCLUDING OUR PARENTS), is truthful and without personal agenda’s or motivation! I can only hope that a man’s reputation hasn’t been destroyed based on this belief.

ISO Security? Guess ISO did not have a chance to review this gem (sent in every account confirmation email): https://secure.lifelock.com/login.aspx (*)

Yes, that’s right, you *can* log in if you know a your friend’s email address and zip code (if they’re a LifeLock customer). Good thing, ‘cuz I was never any good with passwords.

Happened to forget their zip code or they use multiple email addresses? Don’t worry, you can try and try again, there is no limit to free failed logins.

A little lazy but a nerd? Feel free to write yourself a little robot script, “we don’t need no steenkin’ CAPTCHAs”

Oh, you’re already in you say? Great! Hmmm there’s an empty form here, very little info, but… now at least you know the full names of your friend, the spouse and any little critters. Who knew that her middle initial J. name stood for “Jennifrod”?

Luckily you cannot see a lot, except for the full names of the clients linked to the account, but here is where it gets really really bad… because you can actually append/change data in their account (*)!

Do you like the color green better? Go ahead, change it. Think they should call you instead when he asks for new credit, update the phone number! Wish they were in school with you growing up, sure thing, just change that field too. Don’t worry, there is no wait, everything is updated in real time!

Watch out… you have changed three out of four ’security fields’. The last four digits of their social security number is all that separates them from all kinds of mayhem.

LifeLock, ISO new company officer as well as security…

N.N.

(*) The aforementioned issues are real and verified by more than one person to work exactly this way just last week, I do *not* suggest or recommend that *anyone* compromises another person’s lifelock account. Instead, sign up for one yourself and enjoy the spectacle.

Ray, You still haven’t told us the motivations of your original source. Do you know what they are?

And to everyone, you should do what I didn’t, which was to read the Cowan link above. In it, Cowan talks about Maynard’s Bipolar disease. Ray’s story in New Times has to be 5,000 words at least, and he didn’t mention that the subject of the story is bipolar! Would you do a 5,000-word story about Lou Gherig without metioning the disease he had? How about Carrie Fisher, who is also bipolar?

Ray, did you know about it?

Again, I’m not saying Maynard is a saint, but his condition certainly is part of the story.

What “isn’t worth a damn” is that you call yourself a journalist. Journalists are supposed to be unbiased and objective. With your own words, you prove yourself to be nothing but a hack without the slightest grasp of simple logic.

In your allegations against Maynard, you say that he stole his father’s identity. Yet you also say that he listed the debt on his bankruptcy filing. The exact same amount as American Express said was owed. Now, by admitting on a public record that he owed the money when he had stolen an identity to get the account, he would have been admitting to a felony in a public record. That would seem to be a pretty stupid mistake. More likely, you have no grasp of obvious logic.

You also point out as part of you proof that he lied about his story in Nevada because he didn’t file a police report. Yet, you make no mention of his father filing a police report, yet you assert that he was a victim of his son’s identity theft. Once again, a flaw in logic.

In addition, if he had actually stolen his father’s identity, he would not have even technically owed the money, so why list it? Once again, you demonstrate your handicapped grasp of basic logic. What was conveniently missing after your “weeks” of investigation was any comment by American Express or even any “no comment,” yet of all your allegations, that one was the most personally vicious and damaging.

And you didn’t even have the courage to come out and say he did it. You hid behind the words “if this is true…”

And what kind of journalist calls a corporate officer “bald and beefy?”

As far as the Las Vegas allegations, has he been convicted of anything? I’ve never heard a prosecutor say “maybe I’m wrong.” In the LA Times, Maynard says that he paid off the balance because his ex-wife tried to use the fact that he had been jailed as an opportunity to take sole custody of his children and that he couldn’t go to court if he were in jail. Anyone who has been through a nasty custody battle can relate to that. Did you check it?

He says in the same article that he can prove that at least one license had been fraudulently issued in his name. Did you check whether anything like that had ever happened?

Did you note in your article that he wasn’t fined, or even asked to pay costs in his settlement with the FTC? Did you research what the other defendants received? How about the guy who paid $27 million. Does it sound like they found Maynard to be a bad actor? Did you check any of those facts?

Did you note that some of the most sophisticated investors in the world invested in his company? Did you suggest that perhaps they were smart enough to due thorough due diligence?

According to the BBB, LifeLock has only two complaints in more than two years (I checked. Did you?). Did you note that the company apparently has a very clean record with consumers?

Other real journalists have found these questions germaine enough to ask and write about them.

So, I went out and looked at your publication’s website. This is my opinion of it:

New Times is apparently a free rag that advertises massage parlors with happy endings and escort services. The other big story you ran that issue was:

USEFUL IDIOTS
The pissed-off puffin paddles fellow journalists, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and an FBI monkey-spanker at U of A

Two weeks before, the feature story was:

Belle of the Ball Gag
Straight out of Tent City, Mistress Seven wants to hurt — and be hurt

About a dominatrix that had been serving time in jail for DUI and the “scandal” that the Sherrif was letting her out on work release.

Let’s Compare:

Michael Arrington is a highly respected Internet Journalist with more than 600,000 regular readers and 450,000 people who have requested his email alerts. You are clearly a hack with an axe to grind.

And you wanted HIM to contact YOU as a source. What a joke.