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Here’s what Ashley Madison members have told me

troyhunt.com

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Re: Here’s what Ashley Madison members have told me

#31

Post by bby »

nyandaber wrote: post #28
netcan wrote: post #11

What I'm curious about is future changes in user behavior in response to this kind of stuff. Private data, public data and the public-private grey areas like pseudonymous posts, access restricted (FB-like) profiles and such are getting leaked all the time. Paranoia is definitely building. Awareness of how exposed people are is building. Yet, exposure is going up not down. People are posting more stuff online. I wonde…

There's also the fact that for all those hacks, a non-negligeable portion of the people think the victims "had it coming". They feel it's wrong to take lewd pictures of yourself or join a site like Ashley Madison, so those hacks are justice being served. They don't see the real underlying issue about privacy and informatic data. The day it's something more sensible like medical or financial records being leaked, I ho…

I actually find that it is the more uneducated people that think this way - that the hacks are justice being served. The majority of posts that I see on HN and Reddit (and even with my IRL peers) seem to take on a more informatic stance.

Re: Here’s what Ashley Madison members have told me

#32

Post by creshal »

petercooper wrote: post #29
netcan wrote: post #11

What I'm curious about is future changes in user behavior in response to this kind of stuff. Private data, public data and the public-private grey areas like pseudonymous posts, access restricted (FB-like) profiles and such are getting leaked all the time. Paranoia is definitely building. Awareness of how exposed people are is building. Yet, exposure is going up not down. People are posting more stuff online. I wonde…

I hope so. Humans have shown for millenia that they are unable to give in to certain urges. Some things are well worth fighting against, but in today's society strict monogamy doesn't seem to pose a major evolutionary advantage (though I could be wrong). When Secret came out, I always assumed such a leak would occur, especially since it was linked to Facebook. So I only mostly posted fake secrets to troll people :-D…

> in today's society strict monogamy doesn't seem to pose a major evolutionary advantage (though I could be wrong).

With the availability of reliable contraceptions (for both genders) and paternity tests, it has lost one of its main advantages: Ensuring that your offspring is really yours (for males) and that it won't have to compete with another mates offspring (for females).

Re: Here’s what Ashley Madison members have told me

#33

Post by AlexandrB »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #26
netcan wrote: post #11

What I'm curious about is future changes in user behavior in response to this kind of stuff. Private data, public data and the public-private grey areas like pseudonymous posts, access restricted (FB-like) profiles and such are getting leaked all the time. Paranoia is definitely building. Awareness of how exposed people are is building. Yet, exposure is going up not down. People are posting more stuff online. I wonde…

Of course your prediction will come true, there's already a lot of evidence for it in the comments of most articles on the leak. Cheaters will be the victims and anyone who thinks cheating on one's spouse is bad will be considered insensitive.

> Cheaters will be the victims and anyone who thinks cheating on one's spouse is bad will be considered insensitive.

How do you know the spouse's opinion on the matter? That's the only opinion that matters regarding how bad it is.

Re: Here’s what Ashley Madison members have told me

#34

Post by mayaross »

One thing that struck me about this is that all the messages from people worried their data are from men. Troy even states that explicitly: "very close to 100% of the emails I got were about men having accounts on the site".

Why is that? Is it because men are more likely to cheat, or because men are more likely to need the help of online services to do so?

I suspect both are true, but can say with confidence that the latter is definitely true. Women don't need sites to help them cheat; all they have to do is go out and they will be hunted down. As a woman I find this a clear sign of the remaining, quite sinister, gender inequality.

Re: Here’s what Ashley Madison members have told me

#35

Post by Ensorceled »

camillomiller wrote: post #18
jacquesm wrote: post #15

Think about how easy it would be to ruin someones reputation by signing them up for all kinds of shady services and then waiting for the (inevitable) breach. Of course that possibility will not stop the witchhunt but I'm fairly sure that at least a small percentage of the people in that database have no idea they're even in it.

Not really an issue. If that's your real email they're using, you still need to verify it (many services request that as a way to confirm the account creation). That Ashley Madison data is full of unconfirmed addresses. I think Troy Hunt's tool excludes them.

Well, except the large number of people who have signed up for services such as credit protection, Sprint, AT&T, etc. all without my email address being verified first, means this is not fool proof.

Re: Here’s what Ashley Madison members have told me

#36

Post by transfire »

Anyone notice that the media is eating this up? But let me tell you the media also lent its support to this website. I was watching CNBC a few years ago and they had the CEO of Ashley Madison on and had a great time talking about their "brilliant business model", and how great the site was. No one seemed morally repulsed then.

Well I was curious just from a business perspective (and curious how many people would actually go for it). Turns out you could not even peek at the site without giving them your email address. So I did, thinking little of it, and discovered to my surprise that is all it took to create an account. After being thoroughly unimpressed (honestly I don't even recall the site it was so lack luster) I went to delete my account only to discover they wanted $80 to do so. Well, I discovered their brilliant business model.

Far more disgusting than any individual that wound up in this data dump are the heads of this business. How have we come to accept this kind of immoral behavior on the large scale, while blanket condemning all the individuals who fell prey to their game?

Re: Here’s what Ashley Madison members have told me

#37

Post by RodericDay »

mayaross wrote: post #34

One thing that struck me about this is that all the messages from people worried their data are from men. Troy even states that explicitly: "very close to 100% of the emails I got were about men having accounts on the site". Why is that? Is it because men are more likely to cheat, or because men are more likely to need the help of online services to do so? I suspect both are true, but can say with confidence that the…

of "the remaining" gender inequality?

Re: Here’s what Ashley Madison members have told me

#38

Post by dvh »

jalanco wrote: post #6

Reading this made me think about the hard problem of "removing" yourself from the internet. I don't think it is possible. But I do think there might be an opportunity for a service that creates so much conflicting and false information about a person that it is not possible to know the truth about them: false addresses, phone numbers, credit histories, you name it. Just a thought.

Or just change your real name to John Smith.

Re: Here’s what Ashley Madison members have told me

#39

Post by Ollinson »

jalanco wrote: post #6

Reading this made me think about the hard problem of "removing" yourself from the internet. I don't think it is possible. But I do think there might be an opportunity for a service that creates so much conflicting and false information about a person that it is not possible to know the truth about them: false addresses, phone numbers, credit histories, you name it. Just a thought.

I wonder if making your social media account mimic a spam bot would get it flagged for deeper deletion on the host servers.

Re: Here’s what Ashley Madison members have told me

#40

Post by nsajko »

transfire wrote: post #36

Anyone notice that the media is eating this up? But let me tell you the media also lent its support to this website. I was watching CNBC a few years ago and they had the CEO of Ashley Madison on and had a great time talking about their "brilliant business model", and how great the site was. No one seemed morally repulsed then. Well I was curious just from a business perspective (and curious how many people would actu…

Was that even legal?
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