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Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

krebsonsecurity.com

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Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#51

Post by GigabyteCoin »

>To say that Zu tweets to others is a bit of a misstatement. I have never seen anyone tweet the way Zu does; He sends hundreds of tweets each day, and while most of them appear to be directed at nobody, it does seem that they are in response to (if not in “reply” to) tweets that others have sent him or made about his work. Consequently, his tweet stream appears to the casual observer to be nothing more than an endless soliloquy.

Perhaps that's all Zu is? A bot, or a covert chat channel of some kind. Perhaps prime numbered words from every third tweet contain the real message, or something like that?

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#52

Post by watty »

GigabyteCoin wrote: post #51

>To say that Zu tweets to others is a bit of a misstatement. I have never seen anyone tweet the way Zu does; He sends hundreds of tweets each day, and while most of them appear to be directed at nobody, it does seem that they are in response to (if not in “reply” to) tweets that others have sent him or made about his work. Consequently, his tweet stream appears to the casual observer to be nothing more than an endles…

Some tweets may be a bot but it's clear someone is typing direct responses and tweets from this account.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#53

Post by pascalmemories »

smtddr wrote: post #2

I don't condone this hack, but morals/ethics aside for a moment: The one positive thing this hack has done is really give serious ammo to the battle for online privacy, because the demographic hit by this hack is the most politically & economically powerful demographic in the world....

Unfortunately, that's not how the "politically & economically powerful demographic in the world" works.

What you will see is lots of new laws to crack down on hackers, encryption and any type of computing not specifically 'approved' by some sort of security overlord department.

Look at what the UK is proposing (way before AM became news) and you'll have a rough starting point.

The laws will be the exact opposite of improved privacy.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#54

Post by gwern »

eghri wrote: post #35
x0x0 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find weirdest about the whole thing is the data wasn't sold back to Ashley Madison. The hacker(s) could have leaked 10 or 20 juicy names then probably cleared $10 million dollars or better. It would have been a bargain to Ashley Madison at that price.

The problem with digital data is that it can be replicated at no cost and with no trace, so there wouldn't be any way for Ashley Madison to ever be sure the leak was contained. They could pay $10MM for a copy of the data... and two months later it can anonymously show up on Tor. Not to mention the hackers would need to come forward to collect the $10MM, which might land them in a jail cell before they can collect.

There is no need for it to be a lump sum. A (much smaller) regular monthly payment to a Bitcoin address is perfectly adequate a mechanism.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#55

Post by scythe »

sbarre wrote: post #42
nostrebored wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, well if you engage in a promise with someone that you're going to be in a monogamous relationship -- let's be real, that's what marriage is for the vast majority -- you're a prick if you attempt to break that commitment, and again, that's what being on AM is about. Pretending otherwise is delusional, and having morals isn't a bad thing. Is doxxing always unethical?

Yes, it absolutely is always unethical. Who are you, or anyone else, to question or evaluate "commitment" in a relationship that you have no part of, and know nothing about? Or to force someone's personal private life out in the open where it will be used to judge them without context? Nothing is as black and white as you are claiming it to be.

>Yes, it absolutely is always unethical. [...] Nothing is as black and white as you are claiming it to be.

The irony thickens.

Let me rephrase you: "Who are you, or anyone else, to evaluate 'abuse' in a relationship..." -- the answer is "anyone who knows how to count". While there are exceptions to every rule, the majority of cases fall into rather ordinary examples. Not everyone is special.

Of course, indiscriminately doing this sort of thing like the AM hackers is terrible -- notwithstanding those in third-world countries facing draconian legal consequences -- but plenty of the people exposed certainly deserved it.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#56

Post by mahyarm »

x0x0 wrote: post #26
smtddr wrote: post #2

I don't condone this hack, but morals/ethics aside for a moment: The one positive thing this hack has done is really give serious ammo to the battle for online privacy, because the demographic hit by this hack is the most politically & economically powerful demographic in the world....

What I find weirdest about the whole thing is the data wasn't sold back to Ashley Madison. The hacker(s) could have leaked 10 or 20 juicy names then probably cleared $10 million dollars or better. It would have been a bargain to Ashley Madison at that price.

So, how the hell would you receive your criminal payment of $10mm? How would your life be afterwards? You don't think the FBI or whoever else will be spending $2mm to catch you, and a big money payment like that will be the way to track you?

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#57

Post by btilly »

ewzimm wrote: post #10
jgrahamc wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One positive thing this hack has done is really give serious ammo to the battle for online privacy How?

It's basically the strategy John Oliver used to raise awareness about government surveillance. Most people don't care about privacy until it gets sexual. https://cantheyseemydick.com/

They missed a great straight line.

"But if they realize that your dick is American, they do try to forget that they saw your dick."

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#58

Post by nostrebored »

ori_b wrote: post #50
nostrebored wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you prefer, some amorphous undefinable moral relativism where everyone is somehow a good person, and we're all the same? Public shaming is a pretty decent prosocial incentive.

How about people not sticking their noses into other people's relationships? We used to have the state jail, or even torture, adulterers. Society eventually agreed that it's not their job to do that. Let's hold off on forming lynch mobs.

Where are the lynch mobs? For the vast majority of these people, they're being called assholes because they were being assholes. I'm okay with that. The same "not sticking our noses into other people's relationships" was the root of the Family Values crowd in the 80's saying that domestic violence is a family issue, incest is a family issue, etc. Where do you draw the line at sticking your nose into other people's relationships? I find public shaming for deplorable behavior to be perfectly fine.

And if a ton of these people are non-monogamous, then perhaps we as a society should have a discussion abuot how our values are shifting and what new families look like, but something tells me that there aren't suddenly millions of non-monogamous marriages.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#59

Post by graycat »

smtddr wrote: post #31
graycat wrote: post #28

Can we also ask, HOW did they hack Ashley Madison?

http://digg.com/2015/ashley-madison-hack Not a complete answer, but: "MOTHERBOARD: How did you hack Avid Life Media? Was it hard? The Impact Team: We worked hard to make fully undetectable attack, then got in and found nothing to bypass. MOTHERBOARD: What was their security like? The Impact Team: Bad. Nobody was watching. No security. Only thing was segmented network. You could use Pass1234 from the internet to VPN t…

Wow! It's easy to make jokes, but actually this is serious -- a lot of people are going to be hurt, and so far already two have died.

Sounds like AM's computing was all f__ked up! In US Army terminology, FUBAR. Or SNAFU. Gads.

Wonder how AM paid, maybe I should say, compensated, their server farm system administration staff? Their server farm security was wide open?

Should the users have expected something else?

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#60

Post by differentView »

gyardley wrote: post #44
smtddr wrote: post #2

I don't condone this hack, but morals/ethics aside for a moment: The one positive thing this hack has done is really give serious ammo to the battle for online privacy, because the demographic hit by this hack is the most politically & economically powerful demographic in the world....

Politically and economically powerful people don't need some obviously-for-suckers website to have an affair.

How would you have an affair if you're politically and economically powerful?
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