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The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

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Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#231

Post by jkestner »

minimaxir wrote: post #44

Question: what are the legalities for downloading and performing analysis on the dataset? The Washington Post has downloaded the dataset for journalism ( https://twitter.com/pbump/status/633844944105512964 ), but I would be interested in looking at the statistics in the data for visualization purposes; however, that likely doesn't fall under journalistic shield.

Barrett Brown is a journalist and got prosecuted for downloading a database containing credit card numbers. But then, he pissed off the government.

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#232

Post by joering2 »

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…

> 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 infidelity that she didn't care.

Congrats! Your girlfriend is a human-being.

And if she's not an IT person, she won't see this case same way you do. To her this case is like a bulk caught of (mostly) vast number of men caught cheating - and heavily exposed!

I don't see nothing wrong with your gf approach. After all, millions of "law abiding" citizens are in jail because law was on their side, but disgusted jury found them guilty anyways.

And I say as long as we live in a society and we want to keep living in rather morally healthy society, it's a good thing.

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#233

Post by humanrebar »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #127
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…

It is only the same if each and every AM user has taken a vocal stand against having an affair. Otherwise it is nothing like Sterling or every gay Republican legislator or preacher who has ever been forcibly dragged out of the closet. I'm disappointed HN has a blanket ban against Gawker links, as the Geithner story there from a few weeks ago has some very important lessons for this story.

> It is only the same if each and every AM user has taken a vocal stand against having an affair.

In most marriage ceremonies, the couple stands in public (at least in front of the people who care) and makes a series of vows. If that's not a vocal stand, I don't know what is.

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#234

Post by Asbostos »

zamalek wrote: post #192
pmelendez wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just like polygamy is a choice That's not much of a choice though. In several places you can go to jail for it. Or it is choice in the same way that being a criminal is a choice.

Yeah, I should have prefaced that whole argument with "advanced societies." It's very hard to argue these points when you have e.g. the middle east getting in the way of rational and humane thought processes. In places like that you really have no choice or autonomy and arguments such as my original one simply hold no ground.

You can't objectively label different cultures as not being advanced just because they're different. There could well be good reasons for enforcing monogamy on people that your society disregards. I'm just guessing here, but maybe no monogamy may end up with a lot of people suffering the natural human emotion of jealousy and perhaps something like most women queuing up to be with the most attractive men, leaving the majority of men without sex their whole lives. Maybe ancient societies experienced problems like that and decided to enforce a more "wealth distribution" kind of system like monogamy as a solution. Modern societies often laugh that off but they also can't explain the reason for it. It's a bit like deleting ugly code when you don't realize it prevents a corner case bug.

If we really had complete sexual freedom and didn't impose legal restrictions on it to protect human emotion then rape would be nothing worse than other kinds of physical force, even for children. Maybe that's how an even more advanced would see it?

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#235

Post by humanrebar »

in3d wrote: post #93

I'm not sure if people realize how significant this hack is. We just might have seen the first public hack that will cause people to die or be physically hurt. Homosexuality is illegal in certain countries (like Saudi Arabia) and this hack might expose people to harm in these countries. Some reactions of spouses might also be violent. It looks like the reaction of most commenters is very different compared to when Ga…

> We just might have seen the first public hack that will cause people to die or be physically hurt.

Whether you like them or not, I'd be more surprised of a murder from this info than one from the Bradley and Manning leaks.

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#236

Post by outmore »

dgfv1 wrote: post #145
Absentinsomniac wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you even get relatives contact information automatically...

The database contains full addresses, names. You can easily find who is cohabiting with them fairly reliably (near 100% if they live in a house) through a variety of services which list that information. All I can say is there's going to be a hell of a lot of blackmail. I'm sure there's already a group on IRC organizing blackmail. There's a lot of targets and it's very information rich.

Well Mr. Ashcroft you're right, it really isn't that hard to figure out who people are.

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#237

Post by spacecowboy_lon »

TsiCClawOfLight wrote: post #202
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.

Which conservative Christians do.

mm so the FBI just have to look at the ex employees backgrounds up bringing - should be easy to do some profiling "not just for brown skinned people any more"

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#238

Post by dagw »

humanrebar wrote: post #223
kalms wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are you to judge how people live and should their lifes? How dull. There are so many different family structures — incl. open relationships. A family's structure and agreements is not public, nor should they be. Unless said family choose to disclose that fact by their own volition.

> Who are you to judge how people live and should their lifes? Churches have no ability to enforce promises with violence or confiscation. And they shouldn't. So it's important for governments to establish some sort of lowest common denominator and hold people legally accountable. I understand the impulse to be non-judgmental, but when both laws and the rest of society get out of the business of enforcing marriage co…

you actually take choices away from people that want a stronger marriage contract.

Isn't that what prenups are for? (modulo the fact that it is sometimes difficult to enforce prenups).

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#239

Post by tomrod »

taytus wrote: post #230
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…

Are "---" the new "(" ?

For some time now, em dashes have been used for paranthetical asides. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#240

Post by zamalek »

camillomiller wrote: post #227
zamalek wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've gone from a data breach, to swearing on a Bible in courts. It's an interesting discussion but this is not the place to have it.

Why not? Tout se tient :)

Let me finish off by agreeing with you about eliminating the Bible in court. Not only is it out of place, but a person who doesn't believe in such things could swear on it and proceed to lie simply because they don't believe that they will go to Hell. This means that not only is it completely ineffective, but if an actually Christian person comes along they would be at an unfair disadvantage: being unable to lie like everyone else can.

The "wrong place" isn't HN, rather: it's text. A lot of nuance is lost in text and this is an incredibly nuanced subject. We'd most likely end up having a fierce fight 50 comments deep, where in person we'd probably land up agreeing on most things after 2 minutes.

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