Here’s what Ashley Madison members have told me • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by krapp » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 2:32 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #76

icebraining wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see any problem with the practice per se, but I'd be wary of codifying such Right into law without opening a can of worms.

Isn't the right to be forgotten a can of worms already? In theory it's about individuals and their privacy, but in practice it's about fraudsters hiding their fraudlent behaviour so that they can continue being fraudsters.

You're basically making the case that, if you have nothing to fear, you should have nothing to hide. But, replacing "fraudsters" with "terrorists" or "online weed dealers" in your comment states the law enforcement and intelligence community case against personal privacy pretty clearly.

I think that, in practice, it's about whether or not social media sites and search engines should be forced to maintain a market on personal data to serve as a crowdsourced proxy for state-sponsored surveillance.

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

#122

Post by netcan » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 2:32 PM UTC

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…

If you're going to biology, absolutely strict monogamy is not really part of our package. But, some sort of monogamy (or pairing) is almost certainly. Culture makes these rules, not biology and culture is pretty malleable in this regard.

Your great grandmother might have had a much more forgiving reaction to this infidelity stuff as a lot of people today. She probably thought girls having extra marital relationships some lasting days and some lasting years (as is normal today) as immoral trollop behavior.

Side note on evolutionary monogamy:

A lot of birds are monogamous. A lot of foundational zoologists were Victorians so they saw eye-to-eye. There were a lot of studies of avian reproductive behavior for the entirety of the modern scientific period. Recently, DNA tests on nestlings revealed that birds cheat. The reason Victorians (and other later) rarely picked up on it is because they're so damn sneaky about it. It's a no no in bird marriages, but they still do it.

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

#123

Post by LesZedCB » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 2:32 PM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #117

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…

>How have we come to accept this kind of immoral behavior on the large scale Cheating is legal and doesn't affect me a customer. Its crazy that an entrepreneur forum is obsessed with exposing these men and women. Not too long ago, my dad's generation were saying "A company run by a gay? I'd never do business with such a morally bankrupt pervert!" Meanwhile, my own bosses have said things like, "Hire someone who smoke…

As a successful polyamorous person, I find the whole thing kind of amusing.

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

#124

Post by Retra » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 2:32 PM UTC

marrs wrote: post #99

njharman wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having lots of false information is (very) worse in many cases. People don't know it's false and will assume it is true and about you. So, for instance if this "False info Service" created an account (probably several) on AM, you'd probably be unhappy now. Or posts on some nasty 4Chan that prospective employers find. Or puts up false past address that happened to be the real address of sex offender and now your name…

Facing divorce because your name appeared on a list is more than just embarrassing.

Maybe don't marry someone who will divorce you simply because your name is on a list?

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

#125

Post by Lawtonfogle » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 2:34 PM UTC

roymurdock wrote: post #69

transfire wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't understand what it is like to be a man then. It has nothing to do with "inequality". When it comes to sex it is woman that hold most of the cards. For a man, unless they are handsome, wealthy and well endowed (i.e. perfect) then they are at the mercy of women. Which means they have two choices, they either "beg" for it or try to "take" it. Both come in a variety of subtle and overt forms. In either case it…

I agree with you that women (and men for that matter) find confidence attractive. You don't have to be in a relationship to be confident. I would be careful of conflating the two. From my experience, most women are not interested in holding sex as a trump card. Like you and I, they are simply looking for companionship - for someone they can count on for support and non-judgement during times of crisis, but who will a…

>It sounds like you're pretty bitter about something or other.

What did they say that made them sound bitter? I often see this response for points similar to the one GP made, so I was wondering what about it makes one seem bitter?

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

#126

Post by jsudhams » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 2:35 PM UTC

Is the society in the west changed so much that people condemn people using this service? i know that cheating is bad and blah blah... but atleast in my countty entire telebision serials is completely based on second wife/hidden wife and etc... so i beleive in my society the occurance extra marital affair may be more(my personal view). But would wife consider a husband cheater just because his id was on AM site? Woukld you in the western culture consider a person on chaturbate also same like cheater? How about people who think and masturbate? and what happens when some more sites data leakes like this and people take it as Nuisance

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

#127

Post by Retra » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 2:35 PM UTC

transfire wrote: post #59

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…

You don't understand what it is like to be a man then. It has nothing to do with "inequality". When it comes to sex it is woman that hold most of the cards. For a man, unless they are handsome, wealthy and well endowed (i.e. perfect) then they are at the mercy of women. Which means they have two choices, they either "beg" for it or try to "take" it. Both come in a variety of subtle and overt forms. In either case it…

You're painting an incredibly immature picture of how real relationships work.

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

#128

Post by TeMPOraL » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 2:38 PM UTC

krapp wrote: post #121

TeMPOraL wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the right to be forgotten a can of worms already? In theory it's about individuals and their privacy, but in practice it's about fraudsters hiding their fraudlent behaviour so that they can continue being fraudsters.

You're basically making the case that, if you have nothing to fear, you should have nothing to hide. But, replacing "fraudsters" with "terrorists" or "online weed dealers" in your comment states the law enforcement and intelligence community case against personal privacy pretty clearly. I think that, in practice, it's about whether or not social media sites and search engines should be forced to maintain a market on…

I see a difference between privacy (preventing information about you from getting out) and rewriting history after the fact. Historical data is a public good, it's much bigger than an individual and his affairs, whether legit or not.

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

#129

Post by akshatpradhan » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 2:38 PM UTC

SXX wrote: post #114

gnufied wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be completely fair, internet industry as a whole is hell bent on keeping users in, rather than letting them delete their accounts. The other day, I was trying to delete my Steam account and I couldn't find a way to do that and Valve happens to be one of the most respectable company on earth. I don't know what will change attitude of our industry. I guess lot of us are still stuck with mindset of real-world brick/m…

Let's say fair you shouldn't expect to have account removal on Steam because it's would be abused as hell: family conflicts, script kiddies, "friends" "jokes", etc.

We shouldn't expect the ability for Steam to honor a request to remove our accounts because that ability could be abused by family conflicts, friends and jokes?

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

#130

Post by Lawtonfogle » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 2:40 PM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #4

Immediately, somebody should begin a study on the impact of this data leak. Millions of cheaters exposed? What will be the increase in counseling? Divorce rate? What percentage of folks will carry on like nothing has happened? It's an incredible story. I'm not sure the English language has a word to describe this: watching millions of people go through marital pain all at the same time. It's not a train wreck -- you…

>But I also do not approve on taking action that would result in folks I do not know getting exposed. Folks have a right to their own lives.

Do they? Say this was some tor service that was leaked with users engaging in what you would consider far more immoral activity. Would you feel the same way?

Now, maybe you would. But for most I've spoken to about this hack, they would feel different. For them, they 'right to their own lives' only exists as long as they aren't doing something too immoral. The difference between them and I is not based on if we believe they have a right to privacy with their business... we both do believe there is a limited right. We merely disagree on where the limits are.

For comparison, this isn't the difference between someone who believes in freedom of speech and someone who doesn't, but between two people who both believe in limited freedom of speech trying to decide if some individual case is bad enough to censor or not.