Just about every time, the homeowners would become enraged that they had peeked inside of their very private affairs. Doors would be slammed in their faces.

Why would they do that? My friends were pointing out that all of their potential customers were freakin’ IDIOTS for not changing their passwords, or even dumber than an idiot by not bothering with data security at all. I have little doubt that the people who became so upset by being shown that anyone could empty their bank accounts at will did nothing to change this situation. They probably figured that it wasn’t their fault for ignoring the most basic data security protocols, it was the fault of these jerks at their door for looking at their private information!

As you might imagine, my two amigos did not manage to start a data security business and get rich. Instead they eventually decided to give up out of frustration. Too bad, as I was going to ask them for a job if they had managed to succeed.

People haven’t gotten any smarter since then. Every so often I come across news of a website that offers live webcam streams from inside private homes. This should not be surprise to anyone, as I can routinely find private webcam streams when browsing for official traffic and weather cameras to see what the weather is like when I’m traveling. You don’t need to be a hacker if a Google search hands you a view from inside someone’s house.

I’m going on and on about all of this due to this news article. It seems that Amazon and company named Ring are subject to a class action lawsuit from a disgruntled customer. The lawsuit claims that Amazon and Ring did not do their due diligence in securing doorbell webcams from hackers. Kids are being harassed, possibly stalked, and someone has to pay!

What does the company that sells the devices has to say? “… Ring couldn’t help it if people reused passwords with sites and services it can’t control. “

In other words change the password from the default when you first hook a device up to the internet, and use different passwords for each device.

What do I think about all of this? I can’t say with any authority who dropped the ball on keeping hackers at bay in this instance, but past experience indicates to me that it probably wasn’t the company.