[csallen]

I don't think that's a good analogy.

What matters is if the thing they're doing to test your security is similar to what criminals would do to breach your security.

In the case of a physical location, that bar is low. It's things like seeing if your garage door is open, or your car doors are locked, etc.

In the case of computer resources, that bar is high. Probing your database for permissions holes is absolutely something that a normal "cyber criminal" would do. It's the equivalent of a carjacker looking to see if your doors are unlocked.

So an "online neighbor" alerting you that your database is unprotected doesn't feel weird at all. It's not the equivalent of that weird laser pointer thing you talked about, it's the equivalent of looking to see if your car doors are unlocked while you're away on vacation.