The irony in this story is so thick I may need a spatula to complete it.

Here's a lesson in how not to do business on the Internet:

a) Start a company that guarantees your customers never have to worry about having their identity stolen;

b) Publish your own Social Security Number on your company's Web site, to show just how foolproof your service is;

c) Allow a mentally retarded person to steal your identity, using the SSN you've just broadcast to the world;

d) Send thugs to his home to wring a confession from him, making the crime impossible to prosecute.

The party in question: Todd Davis, CEO of LifeLock (SSN# 457-55-5462, for all you identity thieves out there). For $10 a month, his company offered to maintain a fraud alert on your accounts with the three major credit bureaus by calling them every 90 days to renew the alert. That's it. That's what you got for your $120 a year. But even that wasn't enough to keep Davis from being touched for $500 by a Texas grifter with a double-digit IQ.

As told by Wired News reporter Kim Zetter, the story gets even stranger. Turns out Davis's former partner in LifeLock, Robert Maynard Jr., resigned last month after stories surfaced that alleged he was himself an identity thief. (And no, he was not the mentally disabled guy who stole Davis's ID, though that would certainly add a nice TV Movie of the Week twist to our saga.)

After authorities identified the man who misappropriated Davis's identity, the idiot sent employees to the guy's house with a typed confession and a video camera. Yes, they got the confession they sought. And then the local DA dropped the case, because that confession would never stand up in court.

"Here at LifeLock, We Guarantee Your Good Name.

No one else does because no one else can."

Maybe they should have called it BrainLock instead.

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