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The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

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Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#511

Post by tripzilch »

jokoon wrote: post #121

Well the "sanctity" of marriage argument is something I don't really value, so of course there is an opportunity to make money if you get information like that. I just pity their clients, that's all I can really think about this story. I really wonder what most people would side with, the hackers, who want to unmask infidelity, or Ashley Madison and their clients, who might not deserve to be blackmailed. In a trial o…

If the hackers actually wanted to "unmask infidelity" (in some sort of twisted sense of service to society) they couldn't have done a lazier, lower effort, shittier job at it than blindly dumping the whole AM database onto the torrents.

This is like publishing the local biker bar's bar-tab, claiming you've "unmasked organised crime".

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#512

Post by saiya-jin »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #502
fweespeech wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it that simple? Yes. The legal system is responsible for bringing criminals to justice. The system maybe imperfect but its better than vigilantes with a deeply held, righteous cause who honestly believe their targets to be evil. Fanatics of all stripes see themselves in that light and that kind of thinking is extremely dangerous. In truth, it should only be used in the event a blood revolution is the only option…

If we say that it is never acceptable for vigilantes to release illegally-obtained information, then shouldn't we also be decrying Ed Snowden and Chelsea Manning? Their dumps certainly contained unpleasant stuff that could be traced back to individuals. There's got to be a line somewhere, even if it's not at Ashley Madison specifically.

the sad thing is, both of you are right, and no matter what I do, I cannot decide who is "more right". strange times indeed :)

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#513

Post by tripzilch »

paulhauggis wrote: post #352

I'm actually happy this happened. When the private conversation of Donald Sterling was leaked..it didn't matter..because morally, he did something wrong and needed to have everything taken away from him. When it was leaked that the Mozilla CEO donated a small amount of money to a cause that angered the left, it didn't matter how we got the information. He was bullied online (and offline) until he resigned. When Wikil…

> When Wikileaks leaked the locations of covert soldiers in foreign countries, we had many people here on HN saying it doesn't matter if they even get killed..they shouldn't have been there in the first place. I was down voted and silenced for saying anything contrary to this or even having an opinion on it that didn't fit the narrative.

Because that would be misrepresenting the narrative.

Link to the "many people here on HN saying it doesn't matter if they get killed"?

The closest I've seen was people calling out and asking for any evidence that even a single soldier was killed because of these leaks. Because there isn't any. If it were, we wouldn't have heard the end of it in the mainstream media.

Any few comments about people actually arguing (these) people's lives do not matter, I expect to see at the bottom of a thread, flagged and with heavy downvotes.

While I strongly agree with those asking for evidence, I spit on the latter.

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#514

Post by kalms »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #226
kalms wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you have that expectation about marriage, but that doesn't mean your expectations are shared by every married couple. You're forcing your point-of-view upon others.

I'm not forcing my POV on anyone, I'm just stating what is the generally accepted POV in the western society. You may share it or not, but you ignore it at your own peril.

Consider it ignored.

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#515

Post by joaq »

s73v3r wrote: post #455
joaq wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's a private matter between two (or actually, more) people." Well, given that they're keeping their partner in the dark in the first place I don't see anything wrong with exposing the cheating scum.

If you were only telling the person being cheated on, you might have a point. But since you're now telling the entire world that someone was cheated on, or maybe not even cheated on, you've kinda lost that.

Well the point is that the hackers picked a pretty good target. You're never going to convince me and millions of others that exposing cheaters is a bad thing, even to the entire Internet.

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#516

Post by fweespeech »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #502
fweespeech wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it that simple? Yes. The legal system is responsible for bringing criminals to justice. The system maybe imperfect but its better than vigilantes with a deeply held, righteous cause who honestly believe their targets to be evil. Fanatics of all stripes see themselves in that light and that kind of thinking is extremely dangerous. In truth, it should only be used in the event a blood revolution is the only option…

If we say that it is never acceptable for vigilantes to release illegally-obtained information, then shouldn't we also be decrying Ed Snowden and Chelsea Manning? Their dumps certainly contained unpleasant stuff that could be traced back to individuals. There's got to be a line somewhere, even if it's not at Ashley Madison specifically.

You'll notice I left out an exception for revolution / rebelling against the government. If you get to the point you need vigilantes to fight the government, well, yeah.

In the context of a private company, yes, its never acceptable.

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#517

Post by david-given »

gjm11 wrote: post #400
david-given wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point that really came home to me from that post is that --- to use the author's terminology --- an outgroup is a tribe which is in conflict with my tribe. In other words, a tribe whose activities is irrelevant to me is not my outgroup. So tolerance towards it is easy and therefore worthless. This is something I've never seen stated outright before, and it seems totally true to me.

Yup! (For the avoidance of doubt, my comment that what you said applies to lots of things on SSC wasn't intended as any sort of criticism -- I wasn't saying "boo, you failed to describe the article in a way that distinguishes it from the others" but "yay, SSC has a lot of really good articles".)

It's okay, I totally got that. I will admit that I haven't read any of the others; I'm still thinking about this one...

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#518

Post by jokoon »

tripzilch wrote: post #511
jokoon wrote: post #121

Well the "sanctity" of marriage argument is something I don't really value, so of course there is an opportunity to make money if you get information like that. I just pity their clients, that's all I can really think about this story. I really wonder what most people would side with, the hackers, who want to unmask infidelity, or Ashley Madison and their clients, who might not deserve to be blackmailed. In a trial o…

If the hackers actually wanted to "unmask infidelity" (in some sort of twisted sense of service to society) they couldn't have done a lazier, lower effort, shittier job at it than blindly dumping the whole AM database onto the torrents. This is like publishing the local biker bar's bar-tab, claiming you've "unmasked organised crime".

> This is like publishing the local biker bar's bar-tab, claiming you've "unmasked organised crime".

I was talking about public opinion on the subject. I'm sure there are people siding with the hackers because they're against AM. The moral of the story is always the same, be careful with your data. I don't really care about the scandal, it doesn't bother me. It's the most important problem of the centralized web architecture.

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#519

Post by hoopd »

camillomiller wrote: post #478
hoopd wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 opportun…

I suppose I gave him too much credit in assuming he would avoid this topic entirely.

Re: The Ashley Madison Database Was Leaked

#520

Post by Natsu »

the_af wrote: post #437
Lawtonfogle wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There are countries where having sex under false pretext is considered rape. Exactly. And I'm not saying that is right or wrong. That is why I said 'possibly', because it depends upon if you agree with such a definition or not and if the legal jurisdiction you live in operates with such a definition or not.

In exactly which countries is having sex with someone under the false pretense you're being faithful the same as rape? Note: not simply illegal or punishable by law, but actual rape. Otherwise I think this point is moot. If there are such countries, I wouldn't want to live there. PS: if we're talking about countries where adulterous women can be stoned to death, I think we can all agree that is horrible and the publi…

I thought that was said of Sweden, due to the Wikileaks thing. I'm not expert enough on their laws to claim to understand it, though.
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