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The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

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Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#161

Post by mtgx »

dsacco wrote: post #4
tptacek wrote: post #2

The response to this this on Twitter would be beyond fucked- up if it weren't so completely predictable. People are posting direct links to the dump, screenshots of lists of emails, and statistics for classes of domains. The general reaction to the availability of the dump is reasonably characterized as "glee". But no matter what you think about Ashley Madison --- and I think A.M. is so comically scummy that I had tr…

This is a great comment, Thomas. I had an argument with my girlfriend about this. No matter what reasoning I used, no matter what I said, she could not agree that it was wrong that Ashley Madison (A.M.) was hacked. Her position was that marital infidelity is such a pubishable offense that the participants on A.M. deserve to be publicly outed. In her view, it was not even up for debate. She felt so powerfully about in…

It's awful, but I also can't help but be happy that this and other hacks like the Fappening will once again make people realize that privacy does matter, and everyone has "something to hide".

Law enforcement is having it too easy with the "terrorists can't have safe spaces to communicate" and "think of the children" messages - but what about "think of the adults"? At least this way, people will think twice about supporting mass dragnets or having their data stored unencrypted.

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#162

Post by TeMPOraL »

mtgx wrote: post #156
TeMPOraL wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, though one could argue that what AM is doing is an explicit attempt to damage the basic building block of society, i.e. family. So this becomes somewhat a matter of public interest then.

> Agree, though one could argue that what AM is doing is an explicit attempt to damage the basic building block of society, i.e. family Eh. So you think the people exposing husbands and wives cheating on each other are the ones breaking families, not the ones actually cheating? Don't shoot the messenger, comes to mind (okay, maybe imprison the messenger if he obtained the data in an illegal way, but I don't think he…

I'm not saying that people exposing cheating spouses are breaking families. I'm saying that AM was by explicitly encouraging that. It's not just a random dating website, it's the website targeting married people and running campaigns saying cheating is OK.

I am definitely not arguing for shooting the messenger (I apologize if my comment was not clear enough about that) - what I want to say is that I may agree the boundary between "ok hack" and "not ok hack" may lie on the public concerns/private concerns line, but IMO one could argue that Ashley Madison lies on the "public interest" side.

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#163

Post by ibejoeb »

regularfry wrote: post #87

Heh. If I were Ashley Madison, and I wanted to create plausible deniability for people in the real dataset, you know what I'd do? I'd create and "leak" a bunch of other datasets with generated data, and data pilfered from other hacks, to muddy the waters. "Oh, my name's in there? That must be faked up data from the Playstation Network hack years ago. Of course I'd never sign up to Ashley Madison, Mr Journalist."

I haven't seen the dataset. Is there material there that confirms its legitimacy? Are we entirely sure that this isn't just opm, target, home depot, tjx, etc? (Edit: sounds like full dataset dump: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10083656)

"sources who all have reported finding their information and last four digits of their credit card numbers in the leaked database."

That's ambiguous, and the article indicates that there is considerable doubt as to the authenticity of this purported leak, along with a history of known fakes.

Even beyond that, the article mentioned that the emails were never verified, so it sounds like any could use any name and email to establish an account.

I'm sure this means trouble for some people, but there seems to be highly plausible deniability.

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#164

Post by tremon »

technomancy wrote: post #112
geofft wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I happen to agree that the business model is awful, but it's also sort of off-topic. The way in which I am displeased with someone who chooses to cheat on their spouse is very different from the way I am displeased with a company who makes money off of getting large numbers of people to cheat on their spouses, and this hack victimizes individuals more than the company. It's also very different from the way I am displ…

> this hack victimizes individuals more than the company Hm; do you really think there's a chance the company will survive this? It seems unlikely.

Do you think the impact on the individuals (not just the site users, but their partners and children too) carries less weight than the impact on a few sleazy execs, who will most likely have no trouble setting up another revenue stream?

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#165

Post by cafard »

varjag wrote: post #158
lentil_soup wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the line is on whether it's a personal/private matter and when it's not. The NSA is a government agency, so what it does is in the public interest. A guy planning to bomb something is also by definition affecting the public so exposing that is also in the public interest. This hack, the fappening and similar are completely personal and private so they are of no concern to anyone but the people involved in it.

Infidelity is not a private matter however: the person being cheated on has the right to know. For a million cheaters, there's a million their SOs, often living miserable lives but denied an informed choice about their future and kept at non-negligible health risk. It stops being a private matter when it trespasses into other people's life.

I can see the person cheated on having a right to know. Everybody and his dog? If I know that my neighbor Joe is running around on his wife Jane, I might be justified in telling Jane; stapling fliers announcing to the telephone poles up and down the street seems a different matter.

There is also, as the top-level parent comment suggests, the point that adultery is more or less celebrated in much of popular culture. The mixture of hypocrisy and schadenfreude is obnoxious.

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#166

Post by Ygg2 »

tremon wrote: post #152
A_COMPUTER wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty close to the same as Donald Sterling's opinion on black people, and outed gay Republicans who voted against gay equality. Even if the outing was unethical, you can't un-pull the trigger on this being public knowledge, and people become responsible for their own shitty behavior that previously was concealed. Sucks to be them. And marital infidelity is unethical even if it isn't illegal. It's pretty FUCK…

> And marital infidelity is unethical even if it isn't illegal So, even ignoring that high horse you're on: in your not so humble opinion, are all registrants on ALM guilty of marital infidelity? That's assuming guilt by association, and flies directly in the face of your own constitution.

I think they exclusively cater to that audience. People that are married and are seeking a relationship.

The point still somewhat stands that if you and your partner had open-marriage or something, your friends and family might find out.

In which case, just pretend you were cheating on her and carry on (if price of outing you as a non-monogamous couple is too high).

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#167

Post by ddingus »

dsacco wrote: post #4
tptacek wrote: post #2

The response to this this on Twitter would be beyond fucked- up if it weren't so completely predictable. People are posting direct links to the dump, screenshots of lists of emails, and statistics for classes of domains. The general reaction to the availability of the dump is reasonably characterized as "glee". But no matter what you think about Ashley Madison --- and I think A.M. is so comically scummy that I had tr…

This is a great comment, Thomas. I had an argument with my girlfriend about this. No matter what reasoning I used, no matter what I said, she could not agree that it was wrong that Ashley Madison (A.M.) was hacked. Her position was that marital infidelity is such a pubishable offense that the participants on A.M. deserve to be publicly outed. In her view, it was not even up for debate. She felt so powerfully about in…

I'm glad you did. Both your comment and the parent you were responding to were lucid and well worth the read.

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#168

Post by lentil_soup »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #154
dagw wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one could argue that what AM is doing is an explicit attempt to damage the basic building block of society Sure, but one could also argue the same about per-marital sex, divorce and homosexuals.

Marriages are not just moral issues, they're also contracts between people themselves and between the couples and the government. They come with privileges and tax breaks and social status, and all of it is built upon assumption that marriages are mostly permanent. AM is explicitly attempting to attack that.

I think this is not such a big issue, if it was divorce would be illegal.

If anything I would argue the problem lies then on how the estate sees marriage, not the other way around. The agreement I have with my wife is between us, no one needs to judge what we do with our private lives.

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#169

Post by simoncion »

varjag wrote: post #125
dsacco wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great comment, Thomas. I had an argument with my girlfriend about this. No matter what reasoning I used, no matter what I said, she could not agree that it was wrong that Ashley Madison (A.M.) was hacked. Her position was that marital infidelity is such a pubishable offense that the participants on A.M. deserve to be publicly outed. In her view, it was not even up for debate. She felt so powerfully about in…

Speaking of NSA, do you think Snowden's revelations were unethical or misguided?

No.

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#170

Post by acqq »

david-given wrote: post #144
dang wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a word for things that only other people can be? The one that always comes to mind is "tourist".

It's 'outgroup'. There's a really amazing post here about outgroups and the distorted way we reason --- or fail to reason --- about them. It's a bit long, but totally worth the read. http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything...

Thanks! That helped:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingroups_and_outgroups

"In sociology and social psychology, an ingroup is a social group to which a person psychologically identifies as being a member. By contrast, an outgroup is a social group with which an individual does not identify."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_identity_theory

"A social identity is the portion of an individual's self-concept derived from perceived membership in a relevant social group.[1] As originally formulated by Henri Tajfel and John Turner in the 1970s and the 1980s,[2] social identity theory introduced the concept of a social identity as a way in which to explain intergroup behaviour.[3][4][5]"

Still, individuals do change their ingroup membership and can remain as intolerant to then fully new outgroup. It would be good to have a name for this phenomenon: being intolerant to whatever person's current outgroup is. And there is one, which happens to have more uses than only this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prejudice

"The word is often used to refer to preconceived, usually unfavorable, judgments toward people or a person because of gender, political opinion, social class, age, disability, religion, sexuality, race/ethnicity, language, nationality, or other personal characteristics. In this case, it refers to a positive or negative evaluation of another person based on their perceived group membership.[1]"

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