Who Hacked Ashley Madison? • Hacker News Board

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#201

Post by throwawayaway » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 9:08 PM UTC

balabaster wrote: post #82

x5n1 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The future is a future where no semblance of privacy exists. In the year 3000: "Truth about the ugliness of the human race will finally be revealed when every single detail about anyone's life is public knowledge available to all."

and only at this point will everyone realize we're all hypocrites, liars and cheats that will all do whatever we can get away with when we need to or it serves our purpose. We'll all have to acknowledge that life isn't as black and white as we like to pretend but is almost entirely some blurry shade of grey that only resembles our own specific set of beliefs in the most narrow of circumstances... and that any and all…

You can't generalise like that. It's a mistake to tar everybody with the same brush in supporting the erosion of privacy. Some people, rightly, hold themselves and others to higher standards. Because they do so, does not necessarily mean they support outing cheaters.

> any and all human behaviour is totally normal

Categorically not. Lines are drawn and accepted socially. People even abide by the rules.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#202

Post by s73v3r » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 9:08 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…

"Having morals also means speaking out about things when it is your concern. "

Nobody on AM was your concern. At all.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#203

Post by rubicon33 » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 9:09 PM UTC

jasonlotito wrote: post #164

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue the opposite. The AM hack hasn't helped at all, since enough people view it as a just retribution due to it being about a pet moral value that is held dear, namely marital fidelity. And to others, it's all a big joke. The cheating cheaters (who likely never got the opportunity to cheat) have been named and shamed, and because of those asserting that it's acceptable to do this if it strokes their personal mo…

The naming and shaming is disgusting. There are people who are cheering on the hackers. They completely disregard the ramifications of this for the innocents involved (the family members and loved ones of the person who signed up) who now have to deal with all this publicly. Imagine any couple that went through a rough patch and reconciled. They've already moved past this, and now they have to live with the knowledge…

In life, you get to choose your actions, but you do not get to choose the consequences.

Yes, some 'went through a rough patch' and 'already moved past this', and are now dealing with a world of pain. But ask yourself, what makes you the authority on how much pain they should have endured for their mistake? As fate would have it, whatever 'moving past' they did will now be really put to the test. This will give some couples a second chance, to really ask themselves if all is forgiven.

Yes, some 'innocents' are hurting now. Some spouses, some children maybe too. Is this the fault of the hackers? I'd argue not. Ask yourself, if it weren't for the actions of the people cheating, could this have ever happened? Ashley Madison wouldn't even exist, and this hack would never have transpired, if it weren't for the liars, and cheaters, who made such a site possible. So should we be upset at the hackers, who exposed liars, and cheaters? Or should we be upset at the liars and cheaters, who thought they would get away with it? It's the liars, and the cheaters who hurt their family, not the hackers.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#204

Post by throwawayaway » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 9:10 PM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #154

jsprogrammer wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You won't need CCTV. Many already carry around always-connected surveillance devices. Those devices will only grow in number and their capabilities increase.

Yes, but I was using CCTV to illustrate and conceptually link an already existing privacy debate that's been going on for quite a while.

> We can not legislate away capabilities that are fundamentally the same as what's existed previously, but have a greater effect because of the digital age, and expect those to hold[1].

If you think about genetic predispositions to certain illnesses, and technologically enabled screening for that after conception as a precursor abortion, then you can see how people will disagree with your statement here.

The same principal applies to digital technology, just because people are able to do certain things, does not mean that the law will ultimately allow it.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#205

Post by s73v3r » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 9:13 PM UTC

nostrebored wrote: post #81

eli wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody asked you to intervene in their marriage, investigate their spouse, or enforce any laws -- adultery isn't even a crime in many places. You do not get to impose your morals on others. A stranger cheating on another stranger has nothing to do with you.

Clearly from the response we're seeing from society outside of this tech bubble where your privacy must be protected at all times otherwise doom ensues, people want to know when their spouse is cheating on them. You make an assumption that quite frankly ignores reality in favor of a weird moral relativism where any sort of judgment is bad. Odds are that people don't want their spouse cheating on them. Someone stealin…

"people want to know when their spouse is cheating on them"

That's completely different than people outside the family wanting to know.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#206

Post by bduerst » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 9:16 PM UTC

Tloewald wrote: post #183

x5n1 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The future is a future where no semblance of privacy exists. In the year 3000: "Truth about the ugliness of the human race will finally be revealed when every single detail about anyone's life is public knowledge available to all."

Once privacy disappears we can actually base our morality on data rather than wishful thinking. It's the transition period (i.e. now) where we have pretty arbitrary morals largely based on ancient religious texts, etc. and we're finally getting actual data on what people actually do that is the nasty part. E.g. we know that rich people have always obtained abortions, used illegal drugs, and had promiscuous sex, but p…

Many of our arbitrary morals, even religiously influenced ones, are based on tribal culture and human biology. For example, chastising monogamous cheaters is one way to reduce jealousy and oxytocin-induced stress in a community. Following your example, anti-abortionists may see themselves as championing undefended members of society.

Even in lieu of a privacy-free utopia where we fully analyze our motivations, I think we'll still have biological and tribal inclinations influencing our societal morals. (Unless this hypothetical utopia is so far in the future we've biologically evolved.)

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#207

Post by anigbrowl » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 9:17 PM UTC

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #18

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....

I'd argue the opposite. The AM hack hasn't helped at all, since enough people view it as a just retribution due to it being about a pet moral value that is held dear, namely marital fidelity. And to others, it's all a big joke. The cheating cheaters (who likely never got the opportunity to cheat) have been named and shamed, and because of those asserting that it's acceptable to do this if it strokes their personal mo…

I have to agree. The only way it will lead to change is if multiple powerful people are drastically inconvenienced, and honestly I don't think you get to be powerful in western society by being stupid enough to outsource your guilty pleasures to an online information broker.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#208

Post by zaroth » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 9:23 PM UTC

Ded7xSEoPKYNsDd wrote: post #136

biot wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The inclusion of a salt only protects against precomputed hashes. It makes almost no difference to how many millions of hashes one can perform per second.

I think the idea is not to publicize the salt. The proof still works (after both user name and salt are publicly known), but a dictionary attack with all twitter handles won't work.

Exactly. If you publish just the digest of "HMAC(salt,handle)" and want to find a new salt in order to fill in a different twitter handle but with the same digest, this is called a pre-image attack -- finding a message with a specific hash value, with a time complexity of 2^n.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#209

Post by superuser2 » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 9:23 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #178

superuser2 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any architecture that facilitates this will lose massive amounts of customer data, full stop. Backups have to be in places where live systems can't touch them, or can append only. Backups have to be offline and immutable. If you can mutate a backup based on a user request, it's not a backup. Offline backups are, however, pretty hard to steal (unless you're stealing the physical tapes). So... immediately, maybe. Compl…

That's what encryption is for - burn the key, and the backups are useless even if they're immutable.

Which is going to throw out all the other users' data too. Unless you have one key per user, in which case those also need nontrivial backup.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#210

Post by CyberDildonics » Wed, Aug 26, 2015, 9:24 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....

It shows the solution really. Turn the focus on the people making decisions. Put them under surveillance and see if they still think everyone needs to have all their communication public for their own safety.