The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked • Hacker News Board

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#471

Post by camillomiller » Wed, Aug 19, 2015, 7:47 PM UTC

zamalek wrote: post #240

camillomiller wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Tout se tient :)

Let me finish off by agreeing with you about eliminating the Bible in court. Not only is it out of place, but a person who doesn't believe in such things could swear on it and proceed to lie simply because they don't believe that they will go to Hell. This means that not only is it completely ineffective, but if an actually Christian person comes along they would be at an unfair disadvantage: being unable to lie like…

I like how you applied pure logic to the Bible problem. That was just an example for how even the court system, in the U.S. takes religion as the de facto standard for setting moral ground. :)

I do not agree though that text isn't the right form. We will probably never talk to each other in person, but we had a text-mediated prolific and mature discussion that, in the end, enriched both of us.

Thanks.

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#472

Post by camillomiller » Wed, Aug 19, 2015, 7:55 PM UTC

nsxwolf wrote: post #465

camillomiller wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The elevation of monogamy and closed relationships as the God-given natural status of a couple is the source of too many problems. Same for not living our own sexuality in the open. By acting like this (that is: like you are supposed to) you are constantly prone to blackmail. If you happen to have a wife that is entitled in her social-induced belief that even thinking about other women is good ground for the terminat…

The conclusion of your post seems to be that privacy is only necessary or desirable because of our ancient, obsolete religious hangups. This seems to be a common view of the left on HN. The biggest example being the most common defense of privacy I see: "Gays need privacy because many live in countries where they will be killed if found out". So in other words, once the entire world is accepting of gays, there will n…

Nope, maybe my formulation was a bit foggy, but that's not my point. I'm not saying that the old adage that you shouldn't be worried about your privacy being breached if you have done no harm or if you have nothing to hide. Quite the contrary.

Mine was a very specific assertion related to the king of leak we're witnessing: what's making this data so relevant and prone to gossip is the way we give for granted the monogamous nature of our relationship and how we deal with a moral set of dogmas that society inculcates on us "because God says so".

Who doesn't live by these archaic impositions and accepts more open forms of relationship has a strong advantage because his pursuit of perfectly natural sexual desires doesn't need to be hidden and is not considered (especially by the partner) as an immoral and punishable thing.

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#473

Post by rnovak » Wed, Aug 19, 2015, 7:56 PM UTC

varjag wrote: post #125

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…

Speaking of NSA, do you think Snowden's revelations were unethical or misguided?

If it had resulted in even a single death, then yes, it would have been negligent of him to release it.

But from what I understand, after watching his talks, was that was THE REASON he gave the docs to journalists, so they could evaluate the downsides of releasing each doc.

Unethical, absolutely. He breached his employment contract, and exceeded access to systems under the pretense that he was given access to them.

Since you asked...

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#474

Post by camillomiller » Wed, Aug 19, 2015, 7:58 PM UTC

enlightenedfool wrote: post #313

camillomiller wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The elevation of monogamy and closed relationships as the God-given natural status of a couple is the source of too many problems. Same for not living our own sexuality in the open. By acting like this (that is: like you are supposed to) you are constantly prone to blackmail. If you happen to have a wife that is entitled in her social-induced belief that even thinking about other women is good ground for the terminat…

Or maybe simply don't marry? That's anyway the present and future and humanity is in transition. The west drives it and east follows in a few generations. EDIT: When almost 30% of marriages end in divorce and that number growing, it doesn't make sense to have laws around marriages.

Yes, have a partner, if you want, but don't marry. I agree. In Europe, where I live, is considered normal to legalize a union not as a marriage but as a simple contract between two persons. That's more than enough to take care of the legal stuff that getting married would normally imply (right to visit a sick partner in the hospital, some forms of mutual agreement about the financials of the couple, etc...).

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#475

Post by camillomiller » Wed, Aug 19, 2015, 8:02 PM UTC

ElComradio wrote: post #443

camillomiller wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The elevation of monogamy and closed relationships as the God-given natural status of a couple is the source of too many problems. Same for not living our own sexuality in the open. By acting like this (that is: like you are supposed to) you are constantly prone to blackmail. If you happen to have a wife that is entitled in her social-induced belief that even thinking about other women is good ground for the terminat…

I think you might be confusing cause and effect. Long term serial monogamy is the norm across cultures and religions. It does not mean any other arrangements are objectively "wrong" but this meme of "Everyone would do X if not for cultural oppression!" is wrong. It's the same delusion that goes on with people who claim everyone is bisexual; it's a wish fulfillment fantasy of people who are outside the norm.

Where did you get that from? I'm not saying that, not at all. Do I think that living and open relationship (not necessary polygamy, because the terms implies numerous relationships each with the same affective and contractual status) is the best way to go? Yes. Does that imply that humanity, freed from the religious oppression, would go for that? Not at all. There might even be some biological bases for monogamy, but we are rational beings. We can work around our instinct. We do that all the time. Some of us can successfully do that for monogamy, too. It would be great if that could be more largely accepted.

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#476

Post by camillomiller » Wed, Aug 19, 2015, 8:03 PM UTC

carapace wrote: post #408

camillomiller wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The elevation of monogamy and closed relationships as the God-given natural status of a couple is the source of too many problems. Same for not living our own sexuality in the open. By acting like this (that is: like you are supposed to) you are constantly prone to blackmail. If you happen to have a wife that is entitled in her social-induced belief that even thinking about other women is good ground for the terminat…

You're using "that" when you should use "who": "a wife who ", "a person who "

Thanks for the correction, I'm not a native speaker, and it shows. I'm always looking for constructive criticism to make my written English better.

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#477

Post by steveeq1 » Wed, Aug 19, 2015, 8:16 PM UTC

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…

Most people on HN, including myself, side with Edward Snowden

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#478

Post by camillomiller » Wed, Aug 19, 2015, 8:17 PM UTC

hoopd wrote: post #363

camillomiller wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The elevation of monogamy and closed relationships as the God-given natural status of a couple is the source of too many problems. Same for not living our own sexuality in the open. By acting like this (that is: like you are supposed to) you are constantly prone to blackmail. If you happen to have a wife that is entitled in her social-induced belief that even thinking about other women is good ground for the terminat…

Your "partner" may have three other sexual partners that you know about but that doesn't prevent them from having a forth that they keep hidden from you because they know you'll flip out. You're not immune to this kind of scandal unless you're in a sexual relationship with somebody and you have no expectation to be made aware of their other sexual activities, in which case you're not in a healthy relationship. I doub…

Why would you doubt it?

"The psychology of adultery has been falsified by conventional morals, which assume, in monogamous countries, that attraction to one person cannot coexist with a serious affection for another. Everybody knows that this is untrue."

"There can be no doubt that to close one's mind on marriage against all the approaches of love from elswhere is to diminish receptivity and sympathy and the opportunities of valuable human contact. It is to do violence to something which, from the most idealistic standpoint, is in itself desirable." [...] "but I do not recognize in easy divorce a solution of the trouble of marriage[...] but where there are children the stability of marriage is to my mind a matter of considerable importance.

[...]

I think that, where a marriage is fruitful and both parties to it are reasonable and decent, the expectation ought to be that it will be lifelong, but not that it will exclude other sex relations.

A marriage that begins with passionate love and leads to children who are desired and loved ought to produce to deep a tie between a man and a woman that they will feel something infinetly precious in their companionship, even after sexual passion has decayed, and even if either or both feels sexual passion for someone else. This mellowing of marriage has been prevented by jealousy, but jealousy, though it is an instinctive emotion, is one that can be controlled if it is recognised as bad."

Bertrand Russel, Marriage and Morals

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#479

Post by dboreham » Wed, Aug 19, 2015, 8:33 PM UTC

Regarding the "we don't have the CC data" aspect of this: I think it is possible that the management, senior engineering staff etc believed that they were not storing any part of the credit card number, but in fact they were. I say this because in my career I have seen several cases where we had : contracts signed, policy documents written, things said in meetings over and over; all making it clear that information of some type was not to be retained. However, when I inspected production database tables and examined log files, it turned out that said data was in fact present. Bottom line: someone has to follow up and verify that nothing is being stored that shouldn't, and that exercise has to be repeated periodically in case something changes over time.

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#480

Post by Lawtonfogle » Wed, Aug 19, 2015, 8:40 PM UTC

the_af wrote: post #467

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either taking it off or lying about having a vasectomy. From my understanding, the legal problem is that in these cases the man exposed the woman to a vastly increased risk of pregnancy that she did not consent to. And such cases do appear to be rare and only in some countries. Far more common (though perhaps still rare) is meeting people who think that consent must be fully informed. I'm not saying I agree with such…

I think that lying about having a vasectomy is seriously wrong, and probably (but I'm not a lawyer) you can get sued for this in some countries. However, in which country is this considered rape? It's consensual sex between people of legal age, only that one of them is a lying, amoral bastard, and the act can lead to serious long-term consequences like an unwanted pregnancy. But rape ? Seriously? Also, while lying ab…

>Also, while lying about safe sex is certainly a despicable and immoral act, it's still a private matter between two people.

Why is it automatically a private matter? Perhaps you think it should be a private matter, but someone else may think it shouldn't be, and thus the morality of something like cheating may be to them much worse than it is to you, thus morally justifying more extreme actions to be taken to expose cheating.

Also to note, something does not need to be legally considered a given crime for a person to morally consider it such. You may think them wrong, but their view is still consistent given their underlying values that you disagree with.

That a person may view this hack differently than you may not be the result of a different view on the morals of hacking or the right to privacy, but on something more nuanced like a difference in distinction between what counts as consent.