Wired’s Threat Level reveals that Lifelock CEO Todd Davis has had his identity stolen 13 times. And his own company failed utterly to help him in any way.

This makes me happy, because Lifelock is useless garbage, and they lie. In March they were fined 12 million dollars for deceptive advertising (another Threat Level story). Just a big fat con – like Enzyte. Perhaps most comically, their own network was practically unprotected, leaving subscribers’ data open to pilfering.

What’s interesting for me is the continuing reinforcement of the fact that you don’t need to have a proven, working product to make a fortune. You just need advertising and the awareness of the laws you’re skirting. Oh – and a very low tide-line of morality. If you move fast and know when to get out, the system actually applauds your success.

Yep, that’s sad. On the other hand, caveat emptor is a very old idea too.

The biggest ocean-borne oil catastrophe in history began on April 20, when safety measures failed miserably on the Deepwater Horizon, and an undersea explosion commenced spewing 5 to 25 thousand barrels of oil per day* into the Gulf of Mexico. Containment measures have also failed to date. Whose head should roll?

BP ran the well, leasing the rig from Transocean.
Transocean drilled the well.
Cameron International built the blowout prevention equipment.
Halliburton (no, really?) poured the cement jacket.
The Mineral Management Service is the federal department responsible for enforcing regulations.

Everybody dropped the ball. So why choose? I think this should be a bloodbath on the scale of the spill. Criminal negligence like this needs to be outside the realm of possibility.

*Edit: this may actually be closer to 70,000, or an Exxon Valdez every four days.