The Ashley Madison hack

Wow, lots of people are going to have some 'splainin to do to their partner.

Though I have to say I never heard of Ashley Madison until today and when I saw a crawl on the bottom of CNBC, the first I saw of the hack, I thought it must be just another retailer.

But I love the image being shown all over of the home page saying "38,920,000 anonymous users". That is a classic invocation to the god of jynx.

I hope Dave is writing a script now to check all MOL email addresses against the AM list. HUGE revenue opportunity.

Did the list get released? I know the hackers were threatening to do so.

I wonder how many accounts are double or triple or however many for one person.

RobB said:
I hope Dave is writing a script now to check all MOL email addresses against the AM list. HUGE revenue opportunity.

I use a fake name on both sites.

Allegedly.

The gentleman who wrote this column was interviewed tonight on MSNBC. I have heard of Ashley Madison, in passing, and just assumed it was a women's clothing line . . . until yesterday. People are going to get hurt: sued, divorced, fired, and so forth. The point was made that Ashley Madison was supposed to keep their subscribers information secure. They didn't.

theawl.com: Early Notes on the Ashley Madison Hack

http://www.theawl.com/2015/08/notes-on-the-ashley-madison-hack

"2. It is not easily accessible to most internet users—it’s still in fairly raw form, in massive downloadable archives.

3. However, 4chan users, and undoubtedly others, are already combing through data and posting their discoveries. They started by searching for people with government email addresses, university email addresses, and addresses associated with major corporations. This is unfolding very quickly, already revealing the email addresses of students, teachers, public servants and municipal employees."

30,000 gub'mint addresses were listed. Some from Dept. of Justice. Some from N.S.A. That leads to the question, if N.S.A. people are as good at keeping national security secrets as they are keeping their own information.

It continues to amaze me that anybody actually believes the Internet is secure or private.

Oh goody. More righteous public shaming coming our way.

What kind of mental case would use a work email address to cheat on their spouse

RobB said:
What kind of mental case would use a work email address to cheat on their spouse

We have gone from a world where only deeply skilled people could access and use computers to a world where pretty much anybody has access to computers. One might assume then, that the average intelligence of computer users is trending towards a very low level.

dave23 said:
Oh goody. More righteous public shaming coming our way.

Yes, because we all have led such exemplary lives...

Well, one thing I've been thinking about is how many of those 39 million accounts actually resulted in an affair?

I wonder how many people at some low point in their marriage set up an account but never pursued any connections because they had a "what the hell am I doing?" moment.

Someone could have made a bad choice years ago that never actually came to anything real. And maybe that person and their spouse worked through whatever problems they had, and now that mistake will surface and open old wounds. I guarantee you right now there are people on the websites running every email they know and they will have no hesitation about sharing that information when they find it. To what purpose?

Like daveXXIII points out above, more self-righteous public shaming coming.

marylago said:

dave23 said:
Oh goody. More righteous public shaming coming our way.

Yes, because we all have led such exemplary lives...

I have no opinion about anyone that uses this site, except in this example - Josh Duggar, someone who devoted his career to telling an entire community of people that their lives are immoral and that for them to marry would destroy family values.

alternet.org: Why the Ashley Madison Leak Puts Thousands of of Women and LGBT Lives at Risk

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/why-ashely-madison-leak-puts-thousands-women-lgbt-lives-risk

Note: the Alternet map of countries where homosexuality is illegal includes most countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. In Russia, however, homosexuals have been targeted routinely with intimidation and violence as authorities look the other way.

Related: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-25927595

The devil is always in the details. Although many people created fake accounts on Ashley Madison, some used an app that reported their real GPS coordinates.

Around the time the site was established, I was bombarded with emails (on my work email only) and I thought to myself, this must be fake/a scam. I mean, who needs this, even if you are inclined to cheat? What do they do for you exactly? Do they check the hygiene habits of a possible target for fooling around? Do they insure you against getting killed by a psycho a la Fatal Attraction? I don't get it. What's the value added.