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The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

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Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#261

Post by mryan »

Asbostos wrote: post #248
mryan wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If "some wacko" killed his family and himself as a result of your disclosure, would you feel any culpability at all? Of course, you didn't force them to join the site, but you did make the decision to disclose the information. What if someone joined the site before they were married, but never contacted anyone? Their spouse receives your email, and confronts them. They are unable to convince their spouse that they ne…

If you spouse divorces you for irrational and unfounded reasons then anything else could trigger them too. You can't blame the messenger.

Agreed - at the end of the day, the decision to divorce comes from within the marriage. I'm not casting blame here - just curious about whether any scenario would lead him to feel culpable about spreading leaked information. IMHO it's a philosophically interesting topic with lots of gray areas.

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#262

Post by marincounty »

I've never felt just because it's legal--it's fine. In fact, some of the worst/slimiest people I know make their money in a legal fashion. Some of the best people I know, have broken societal laws.

When I heard Ashley Madion was hacked, I knew laws were broken, but I really didn't care. I don't like sites/places that make the spread of disease too easy. Kinda like when they closed/modified the rules to the bath houses.

I know we need laws in a civilized society. Did these hackers break the law--yes. Do I care--no! Not in this particular case.

What really bothers me is Ashley Madion didn't stand behind their members. Ashley Madison left their database open. I don't know how, but they were hacked. They were given an opportunity to protect the identity of their members, but they didn't agree to the Hacker's demands. I don't know if the Hackers would have kept their word? But if I owned Ashley Madison, I would have shut down the site immediately-- without discussion. I would have figured, I screwed up; I owe it to the people that trusted me to do the right thing. Companies need to protect customers personal information--even if it means shutting down.

We all know why they didn't shut the site down. They didn't have a lot of high moral reasons to keep it open. The Hackers had this company completely exposed. Ashley Madison lost the war. The only reason they are still open, and their personal customer data was released is because of one reason--Money!

(I don't know how many people this company employed. If it was a large number, that might be valid reason to keep it open? I just doubt they have a lot of employees? They haven't even gone public yet? I heard they were scheduled for a big IPO?)

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#263

Post by icanhackit »

akshatpradhan wrote: post #244
tptacek wrote: post #2

The response to this this on Twitter would be beyond fucked- up if it weren't so completely predictable. People are posting direct links to the dump, screenshots of lists of emails, and statistics for classes of domains. The general reaction to the availability of the dump is reasonably characterized as "glee". But no matter what you think about Ashley Madison --- and I think A.M. is so comically scummy that I had tr…

>The people doing this aren't victimizing Avid Life Media; they're re-victimizing the real victims of what is clearly an actual crime. If it's O.K. to hack into someone else's server and mass-out people for having profiles on a dating site because you suspect most of them might be "guilty" of the crime of "marital infidelity" --- and come on, 98% of the people talking about this on Twitter barely recognize that as et…

The true intent: "In a long manifesto posted alongside the stolen ALM data, The Impact Team said it decided to publish the information in response to alleged lies ALM told its customers about a service that allows members to completely erase their profile information for a $19 fee."

So to show the people who use ALM's services that ALM lies about their policies, the users need to be exposed?

Well it's an effective strategy, I'll give them that. But I can't shake the feeling there's a hidden fuck-you in there somewhere to the people they're outing. Just be honest, this is a complex issue with so many permutations it's hard to take any moral position. A lot of cheaters will be outed, a lot of innocent people may have their lives destroyed. What has been achieved?

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#264

Post by dmd »

bdavisx wrote: post #258
dsacco wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great comment, Thomas. I had an argument with my girlfriend about this. No matter what reasoning I used, no matter what I said, she could not agree that it was wrong that Ashley Madison (A.M.) was hacked. Her position was that marital infidelity is such a pubishable offense that the participants on A.M. deserve to be publicly outed. In her view, it was not even up for debate. She felt so powerfully about in…

I wonder how she would feel if she was addicted to narcotics, went to NarcAnon and then had her name published when someone leaked/hacked their database because "those people shouldn't have done drugs in the first place". Or replace NA with AA.

I can tell you exactly what a person like that's response would be: "I would never do drugs."

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#265

Post by ascagnel_ »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #213
nota_bene wrote: post #186

Snowden has risked his life and will be forced to remain paranoid for the entire rest of his life. His cause is noble and 100% justified. He did it for society, for us . What did we do to thank him? We labelled him a traitor and showed no support. And most of all: Almost nobody listened, almost nobody changed habits accordingly. So what does it take to make people listen and understand that our privacy is about to be…

IIRC, Snowden has yet to be formally charged for treason; "we" didn't label or charge him for that, that's a gross generalization. I know what you mean, but you might want to tweak that wording a bit.

He was charged under the Espionage Act of 1917, so it's spying, not treason as defined by the US Constitution (he hasn't levied war or adhered to an enemy, but it is possible to argue that he's provided aid to an enemy through the leaks).

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#266

Post by mseebach »

yellowstuff wrote: post #257
Hhefferman1989 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a valid example. "Expat" is a very specifically defined term in the vernacular of people that live outside of their home countries: it means a person that moved to another country for a specific job (usually because they were recruited into that job). Expat is a sub-class of immigrant; not all immigrants are expats, but all expats are immigrants. Also, despite what people that make this argument try to cla…

Wikipedia somewhat agrees with you, saying: > In common usage, [expatriate] is often used in the context of professionals or skilled workers sent abroad by their companies. A Guardian writer disagrees, saying "expat" means "white immigrant": http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-... Personally, I think "expat" is used more in the sense of an (usually white) immigrant from a richer country to a p…

While that does ring quite true to me (I'm an 'expat' immigrant myself, although moving both to and from rich countries), I think the piece hit a bit off target: It's a 'rich' thing, not a 'white' thing - the white polish plumber or builder in the UK is unequivocally considered an immigrant, the software engineer is more likely to be an expat.

Also, one deeper, to my ear, 'expat' has a flavour of intending to return, where immigration generally sounds more one-way and permanent - which of course again parallels the 'rich' narrative: it's much easier to intend to return to your rich country of origin than it is to return to a poor one.

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#267

Post by zaphar »

akshatpradhan wrote: post #244
tptacek wrote: post #2

The response to this this on Twitter would be beyond fucked- up if it weren't so completely predictable. People are posting direct links to the dump, screenshots of lists of emails, and statistics for classes of domains. The general reaction to the availability of the dump is reasonably characterized as "glee". But no matter what you think about Ashley Madison --- and I think A.M. is so comically scummy that I had tr…

>The people doing this aren't victimizing Avid Life Media; they're re-victimizing the real victims of what is clearly an actual crime. If it's O.K. to hack into someone else's server and mass-out people for having profiles on a dating site because you suspect most of them might be "guilty" of the crime of "marital infidelity" --- and come on, 98% of the people talking about this on Twitter barely recognize that as et…

    Stick to the facts when opining, Thomas :).
Where in his comment did you see him speak to the intent of the leakers. He's just pointing out the consequences and the hypocrisy of spreading the leak all over the internet when you complain about widespread spying. Hurting someone in order to get back at someone else is a very poor justification.

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#268

Post by joshstrange »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #201
waroc wrote: post #9

Ashley Madison Database (not parsed): http://pastebin.com/9t6DLKm3

What are the repeated "111111Iwillneverdoitagain" strings?

I have not seen the dumps but if I had to make a guess maybe they set that to the PW when the user deletes the account? You won't be able to ever login again because I doubt there is a string that when hashed and salted comes out to that exact string.

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#269

Post by Lawtonfogle »

aaron695 wrote: post #255
tptacek wrote: post #2

The response to this this on Twitter would be beyond fucked- up if it weren't so completely predictable. People are posting direct links to the dump, screenshots of lists of emails, and statistics for classes of domains. The general reaction to the availability of the dump is reasonably characterized as "glee". But no matter what you think about Ashley Madison --- and I think A.M. is so comically scummy that I had tr…

> and I think A.M. is so comically scummy that I had trouble believing it was a real thing Reddit AMA - https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3dy732/i_worked_at_as... "We had one guy I'll always remember. His wife was in an accident and stuck in a wheelchair, unable to do anything. She forced him to join the site and encouraged him to find a woman he could have sex with. He ended up finding partners that would last…

Yet this doesn't apply when people are doing illegal things in their private lives. Given the distinction between immoral and illegal is often an unfairly weighted popularity contest, it is not a justifying distinction.

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#270

Post by inversionOf »

aaron695 wrote: post #255
tptacek wrote: post #2

The response to this this on Twitter would be beyond fucked- up if it weren't so completely predictable. People are posting direct links to the dump, screenshots of lists of emails, and statistics for classes of domains. The general reaction to the availability of the dump is reasonably characterized as "glee". But no matter what you think about Ashley Madison --- and I think A.M. is so comically scummy that I had tr…

> and I think A.M. is so comically scummy that I had trouble believing it was a real thing Reddit AMA - https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3dy732/i_worked_at_as... "We had one guy I'll always remember. His wife was in an accident and stuck in a wheelchair, unable to do anything. She forced him to join the site and encouraged him to find a woman he could have sex with. He ended up finding partners that would last…

That whole AMA is absurd, and conveniently appeared right after the hack was first announced, and is surprisingly apologetic for a former employee.

"My co-workers were a bunch of mad geniuses"

"one of the best companies I've ever worked for"

"my gut reaction was "Great, the bitter wives brigade has done it again.""

Also, they had to retain your information for law enforcement, unless you paid $19 when they would do a super duper all layers deep wipe (apparently law enforcement no longer matters if you have $19?).

They claim be be a senior employee in management, but apparently also talked with every wife calling to find out about their husband.

It's an absurd AMA, and honestly could only possibly fool the gullible.

And FWIW, it makes no sense for someone in the situation described to use a service like Ashley-Madison. Not only is it overwhlemingly males, the few females are generally pursuing the sites dogma of having an affair -- is the healthiest way to fulfill that relationship to engage in someone else's domestic issues? It's like joining an "Al Queda Bombmakers" site because you want to make some cherry poppers for the cub scout glee -- the story isn't rational.

That seems like an absurd story to cast a sympathetic shadow on the site in the wake of a hack.

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