Who Hacked Ashley Madison? • Hacker News Board

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#71

Post by Nadya » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 6:06 PM UTC

watty wrote: post #43

lawl wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the same reason I don't go around and post an article how "watty" did $x. It doesn't matter if this is a pseudonym and what kind of avatar you use. If watty might be implicated in something illegal I should go talk to the police and not publicly witch hunt your handle, no?

I still don't see the problem. If this handle was directly connected with $x I would fully expect people to be discussing my handle in blogs/forums. Going to the cops is fine and dandy too of course. Krebs even clarifies "If Zu wasn’t involved in the hack, he almost certainly knows who was.".

So I'm 85% sure that ${User} is connected to a CP ring in some way.

Should I publicly out ${User} even though I could be wrong and let them suffer the ramifications that it causes?

If they lose their job, spouse, shunned by family, receive death threats, and have an internet hate mob trying to find where they live because the evidence was "leaning towards them" does that make it okay for me to call them out as being connected?

"Oops, I was wrong. They aren't connected after all." doesn't fix ${User}'s life. Even if it opens up a defamation lawsuit, it won't fix their life - and the lawsuit will be expensive - and even when they win they'll hardly see any money because I'm some nobody who doesn't have any money for them to sue for to begin with.

Do you still not see the problem?

Edit:

Not to mention I may not even be in their country.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#72

Post by vezzy-fnord » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 6:07 PM UTC

humanrebar wrote: post #68

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then that's a breach of contract between two private parties which is of absolutely no relevance to outside observers. It is the married couple's prerogative to undergo court procedure if they so desire. Being on AM wouldn't solely have been about breaking commitment. From what I recall, it became an inadvertent hub for gay dating due to its extraordinary gender/sex imbalance. AM's entire business practice was about…

> Then that's a breach of contract between two private parties which is of absolutely no relevance to outside observers. That's one way to look at things. I happen to have a different philosophy about marriage, that it actually does affect other people, and since you're so understanding, I'm sure you'll grant that my philosophy is equally valid.

Well, I'd like to hear you actually elaborate on your differing philosophy. That'd be helpful.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#73

Post by Nelson69 » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 6:07 PM UTC

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 ammo?

Some people of questionable ethic and questionable intelligence gave a third party incriminating information about themselves and also gave them money all while hoping for discretion. (I say questionable intelligence because the real rich and powerful use different services provided by different people..) Any privacy agreement was a private one between 2 parties, at best covered by civil law, maybe Canadian civil law. Certainly nothing binding in any substantial way was signed.

It's certainly making light of online privacy but I'm not sure there is a battle here, it's just demonstrating that it's still very much the wild west out there. What should happen here? Should AM pay a fine to some government? Class action law suit? (I think that idea is particularly hilarious..)

Riddle me this, so suppose AM goes bankrupt. Can their creditors just take that data and sell it? It's an asset, right? Is it possible for a EULA or some sort of agreement to prevent that? Hackers or not, all that information could be in someone else' hands, that the users have no agreement with. AM is sort of the poster child for these problems but you may have given a lot of information to companies that you wouldn't want other companies to have.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#74

Post by jaredandrews » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 6:08 PM UTC

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…

I googled "Pass1234" assuming it was some sort of exploit tool but didn't find anything. Can anyone explain what this answer means?

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#75

Post by vezzy-fnord » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 6:10 PM UTC

nostrebored wrote: post #70

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then that's a breach of contract between two private parties which is of absolutely no relevance to outside observers. It is the married couple's prerogative to undergo court procedure if they so desire. Being on AM wouldn't solely have been about breaking commitment. From what I recall, it became an inadvertent hub for gay dating due to its extraordinary gender/sex imbalance. AM's entire business practice was about…

Having morals also means speaking out about things when it is your concern. 37 Million (of course potentially non-unique) accounts on a website advertised with the express intent of cheating on your spouse with nobody knowing is fucked up. It's a sleazy website run by sleazy people with sleazy business practices, used by people who are trying to do something which their spouse VERY LIKELY disagrees with. Of course th…

Raw numbers aren't of much use here. You need to also gauge intent and opportunity, which is much harder, and at least in the case of opportunity, there was virtually none. You can't do that, so just stay the hell out.

"An epidemic of cheating over the internet". My God, do you think adultery was invented recently? This is a classic fallacy of blaming the mere institutions as opposed to the root cause.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#76

Post by untog » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 6:10 PM UTC

jaredandrews wrote: post #74

smtddr wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I googled "Pass1234" assuming it was some sort of exploit tool but didn't find anything. Can anyone explain what this answer means?

I assume they mean that they used it as a password.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#77

Post by joshuacc » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 6:10 PM UTC

nostrebored wrote: post #37

serve_yay wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hadn't considered that, but it's an interesting point. That said, all the standard moralizing accompanying this is so gross.

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.

It's worth pointing out that even traditional Western morality looks askance at "detraction" which is "the sin of revealing another person's faults to a third person without a valid reason."

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#78

Post by ori_b » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 6:10 PM UTC

nostrebored wrote: post #58

ori_b wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 re…

> And if a ton of these people are non-monogamous, then perhaps we as a society should have a discussion about how our values are shifting and what new families look like

Why should we have that discussion? If my spouse was cheating, I'd want to have that discussion in private, without gawkers, and without social pressure from the uninvolved.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#79

Post by peejaybee » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 6:11 PM UTC

nostrebored wrote: post #58

ori_b wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 re…

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?

How about we put the line somewhere between physical force and broken promises? Just an idea.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#80

Post by serve_yay » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 6:11 PM UTC

nostrebored wrote: post #37

serve_yay wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hadn't considered that, but it's an interesting point. That said, all the standard moralizing accompanying this is so gross.

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.

I would prefer for people to mind their own business. I don't think that is so "amorphous", do you?