Two years ago, Todd Davis (the CEO of life lock) decided to put his Social Security number in the television commercials and print advertisements for LifeLock, the company he helped found. For a fee of about $10 a month, LifeLock offers what it calls a “proven solution” that prevents its customers from becoming victims of identity theft and fraud.

Since then, LifeLock became the industry leader in identity theft protection by taking proactive steps to keep identity thieves from being able to use their members’ identities, even if their members’ personal information falls in the wrong hands. What LifeLock doesn’t stop, they fix at their expense (for up to $1,000,000).

By putting those nine digits on public display, Mr. Davis was trying to show the world how confident he was in LifeLock’s service. And it worked. Today, he has just over one million customers. In January, Goldman Sachs led a $25 million round of financing for the company. Last week, Google’s chief financial officer joined its board.

Still, as a friendly advice, you should not try Todd’s stunt or something like it. LifeLock might work as advertised but any security system is as hard as the weakest link, so if someone doesn’t bother to check someone’s identity, any protection system will not work. On the other hand, being backed up by one million dollars does give you quite a bit of assurance, doesn’t it?