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Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

krebsonsecurity.com

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Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#41

Post by smacktoward »

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.

Do we know for sure that they didn't try?

HACKER: "Hello, I am an evil hacker. All your data is belong to me. Cough up $10 million or be destroyed."

ASHLEY MADISON MANAGEMENT: "Whatever, we don't believe you, go away."

HACKER: "All righty then." destroys them

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#42

Post by sbarre »

nostrebored wrote: post #34
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…

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.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#43

Post by watty »

lawl wrote: post #32
watty wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do they need to censor an alias account for someone connected to the hack? There is no "Zu", the photos of Zu and his locations are copied from the internet.

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.".

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#44

Post by gyardley »

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.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#45

Post by Scarbutt »

FilterSweep wrote: post #29
Scarbutt wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish the push was more of a law that let users delete their data immediately and completely from a service with the click of a button.

I second those wishes, but thats feasibly impossible without vast auditing resources. DB backups, logging, and the general "archive-first" nature of the modern web essentially prevents this from happening.....even if service providers wanted to give this opportunity to its users...and most do not.

that's true, but if such law was implemented, services providers will now have to think about running things legally or illegally.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#46

Post by slig »

dougk16 wrote: post #38
lawl wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He could have not posted the twitter handle but a hash instead? echo "The Twitter handle Brian Krebs anonymized in this blog post is..." | sha256sum There you go, you can prove it to anyone at any point in time.

Not familiar with Twitter, but if you can easily get all or most handles through their API or scraping then wouldn't it be easy to brute-force reverse the hash? Edit: Maybe add a private salt? Edit again: Oh, missed that "The Twitter handle Brian Krebs..." is effectively the private salt, nevermind.

Probably one should do something similar to this:

echo "The Twitter handle Brian Krebs anonymized in this blog post is @user and this a random salt qF7KKAUxtrEtQbnj4LPkUZM4." | sha256sum

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#47

Post by eli »

nostrebored wrote: post #34
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…

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?

At best you're arguing for vigilante justice. An internet mob accountable to no one and meting out punishment to people who, for the most part, have not violated any laws. No, that is not ethical. I don't want self-appointed Morals Police going around ruining lives for perceived crimes. I don't think mob justice is ever ethical.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#48

Post by chrischen »

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.

Privacy isn't a natural right, just like lying to someone via marriage isn't universally considered unethical.

Your right to privacy isn't naturally guaranteed, and is only granted by some mutually agreed upon rules in the form of privacy laws.

But if I know some fact about you, what gives you any right to say I can't reveal that information? Wouldn't you be limiting my speech?

If you argue that lying in marriage is a complex issue, then privacy rights is also a complex issue that's not black and white.

A world with no secrets and a world where everyone has a right to secrecy are both potentially equally valid.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#49

Post by vezzy-fnord »

nostrebored wrote: post #34
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…

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?

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 hooking into people's desire to seek taboo and then be exorbitant with charging them fees, even for terminating an account. It was, in no minced words, a con.

Having morals means knowing when to stay out of things that are none of your concern.

Re: Who Hacked Ashley Madison?

#50

Post by ori_b »

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.

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.

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