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I see lots of comments from people who don't know what "LifeLock" is. To save you the trip to Wikipedia: "LifeLock Inc. is an American identity theft protectio

I see lots of comments from people who don't know what "LifeLock" is. To save you the trip to Wikipedia: "LifeLock Inc. is an American identity theft protection company based in Tempe, Arizona. LifeLock was founded by Robert Maynard Jr. and Todd Davis in 2005. LifeLock’s identity theft protection system detects fraudulent applications for credit and illegal use of personal information. It also monitors the use of personal information and credit score changes. As of 9 February 2017, it is a subsidiary of Symantec." It is mostly famous for being somewhere between being really terrible at actually protecting your identity, and being an outright scam. The "controversies" section is worth reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LifeLock#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LifeLock#Controversies

tinus_hn 7y ago
This appears to be a common thread in the history of antivirus companies.
whoopdedo 7y ago
Are any of the credit monitoring services actually useful? After the Experian debacle my credit card company began offering complementary credit security reports. Recently I opened a new card and throughout the process kept an eye out for security alerts. Nothing. Not a blip about anyone pulling my credit history or a notification that a new account had been created using my SSN. Maybe because this is the free tier it isn't as thorough in checking as it could be. But doesn't that make it a worse option than not having credit monitoring?
- thrower123 7y ago
  There's a service called IDNotify that I have through TurboTax somehow - I believe they gave it away with the tier I needed to file my business expenses and income. It does send me alerts every time my email shows up in a dump from some hacked service, which is a nice bonus, over and above what the likes of CreditKarma do.
  - Frost1x 7y ago
    I have the same service for free (don't recall why). One pet peeve I've had is that my email address for a third party account was "leaked" (hotel chain I believe) and IDNotify doesn't list enough detail (e.g., listed password) when they get a hit to let me know if somehow my actual account was compromised, so I have to scramble to the provider and verify all account accesses were legitimate. I presume these listings get recycled multiple times and resold to inflate the value of something not so valuable wherever IDNotify is finding these listings, so since people operating in those circles want to make their information look more valuable, IDNotify falls for it. Then, I'm left guessing if my account was actually compromised and basically just cycling my password regularly, making that aspect of their service virtually useless.
ohazi 7y ago
Are there any credit monitoring or "identity theft prevention" services that aren't outright scams? Most of them spend huge amounts of money on scare-tactic ads, use shady free-trial-with-automatic-billing-that's-impossible-to-cancel sign-up models, and are cagey about what exactly they're monitoring and how their flagging works. It's too easy to run these sorts of businesses as "do absolutely nothing, collect checks every month, suffer no consequences if things go wrong because the event is rare, profit is purely a function of sales team size" operations. Kind of like the anti-virus market, actually... I guess this is a good match!
- scarface74 7y ago
  CreditKarma is legit and free. Of course just like any other free service, you are the product. They recommend products to you based on your credit and finances. They also give you full weekly access to your Transunion and Equifax credit reports.
vijayr02 7y ago
Also mentioned in a recent HN story: A Cybersecurity Firm’s Sharp Rise and Stunning Collapse - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21376203 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21376203 Warning: long read!
microtherion 7y ago
> being somewhere between being really terrible […] and being an outright scam In other words, really on-brand for The Company Formerly Known as Symantec.
rasz 7y ago
Lifelock, where did I hear about those scammers before? Maybe while reading about the founder being a potential identity theft himself (something about "Maynard stole his father's identity")? Then there is Tiversa https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/11/04/a-cybersecurity-firms-sharp-rise-and-stunning-collapse https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/11/04/a-cybersecurit... Symantec seems like a match made in heaven.

tinus_hn 7y ago

This appears to be a common thread in the history of antivirus companies.

whoopdedo 7y ago

Are any of the credit monitoring services actually useful? After the Experian debacle my credit card company began offering complementary credit security reports. Recently I opened a new card and throughout the process kept an eye out for security alerts. Nothing. Not a blip about anyone pulling my credit history or a notification that a new account had been created using my SSN. Maybe because this is the free tier it isn't as thorough in checking as it could be. But doesn't that make it a worse option than not having credit monitoring?

thrower123 7y ago
There's a service called IDNotify that I have through TurboTax somehow - I believe they gave it away with the tier I needed to file my business expenses and income. It does send me alerts every time my email shows up in a dump from some hacked service, which is a nice bonus, over and above what the likes of CreditKarma do.
- Frost1x 7y ago
  I have the same service for free (don't recall why). One pet peeve I've had is that my email address for a third party account was "leaked" (hotel chain I believe) and IDNotify doesn't list enough detail (e.g., listed password) when they get a hit to let me know if somehow my actual account was compromised, so I have to scramble to the provider and verify all account accesses were legitimate. I presume these listings get recycled multiple times and resold to inflate the value of something not so valuable wherever IDNotify is finding these listings, so since people operating in those circles want to make their information look more valuable, IDNotify falls for it. Then, I'm left guessing if my account was actually compromised and basically just cycling my password regularly, making that aspect of their service virtually useless.

ohazi 7y ago

Are there any credit monitoring or "identity theft prevention" services that aren't outright scams? Most of them spend huge amounts of money on scare-tactic ads, use shady free-trial-with-automatic-billing-that's-impossible-to-cancel sign-up models, and are cagey about what exactly they're monitoring and how their flagging works. It's too easy to run these sorts of businesses as "do absolutely nothing, collect checks every month, suffer no consequences if things go wrong because the event is rare, profit is purely a function of sales team size" operations. Kind of like the anti-virus market, actually... I guess this is a good match!

scarface74 7y ago
CreditKarma is legit and free. Of course just like any other free service, you are the product. They recommend products to you based on your credit and finances. They also give you full weekly access to your Transunion and Equifax credit reports.

vijayr02 7y ago

Also mentioned in a recent HN story: A Cybersecurity Firm’s Sharp Rise and Stunning Collapse - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21376203 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21376203 Warning: long read!

microtherion 7y ago

> being somewhere between being really terrible […] and being an outright scam In other words, really on-brand for The Company Formerly Known as Symantec.

rasz 7y ago

Lifelock, where did I hear about those scammers before? Maybe while reading about the founder being a potential identity theft himself (something about "Maynard stole his father's identity")? Then there is Tiversa https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/11/04/a-cybersecurity-firms-sharp-rise-and-stunning-collapse https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/11/04/a-cybersecurit... Symantec seems like a match made in heaven.