I find it really gross to go behind your partner's back to sleep with other people, but it's not like this is a new thing that only happens now that we have Ashley Madison. People who want to cheat have always found ways to cheat. I don't have any statistics or anything on this, but I don't think that Ashley Madison's existence has revolutionized the number of people cheating on their spouses.
It's really creepy that these hackers thought that it was their business to do this. I mean, they don't go to bars and make sure that people who are flirting with other people aren't married, do they? They don't go into work places and make sure that married coworkers don't flirt with each other, right? If I wanted to cheat on someone, I think I could find a whole lot of other ways than using Ashley Madison. The difference is that you hear about these mass numbers of people on a website that is supposed to be for cheating. You can't really place a number on the amount of people who are using bars, work, friends, Facebook, dating sites not intended for cheating, or any other strategy for finding people to cheat with, BUT you can easily hear that over 39 million people are on a website that IS specifically intended for cheating. I think that some people might hear about cheating sites and get their feathers all ruffled over it because it makes them feel vulnerable or scared that their partner could easily go on that site and cheat on them. In reality, the risk your partner could cheat is always there when you're in a relationship, with or without a website for it, and unless you just let go and trust your partner, you'll drive yourself crazy over it.
TL;DR: Ashley Madison may seem to be a gross website to some people, but all it does is provides a platform for something that was already happening all along. They didn't invent cheating. People get really flustered over websites like that because they make them feel insecure, but they should let go/trust their partner/get a hobby.
I also read that they had a secondary motivation, exposing ashleymadison.com's fraudulent behavior. They had a service set up where you could pay to have your information deleted from their servers permanently, but apparently weren't actually doing that, just taking peoples money without following through. Speculation as far as I know, though an interesting side note if true.
I'll add that regardless of how scummy those guys might have been, or for their reasons for being on the site, I'm very saddened that anyone felt the need to kill themselves over it. So far I haven't read any details on whether or not those actions were actually directly connected to this leak, or the fact that out of millions of accounts, statistically it's likely anyway. Still, sad.
Why release it? To prove that they weren't kidding and AM still had the information that they claimed they would delete. Otherwise it could just be bluffing. Now everyone knows the extent of the problem.I've heard about those secondary motives, but if the hackers were upset that there was being a misuse of peoples' information, and that's why they attacked the site, why would they release the personal information of those signed up for the website? It seems counter intuitive, like it harms the fraud victims more than the website participating in fraudulent behavior. Maybe I'm missing something, though.
Well, yes, but that's not what happened, is it? What happened was a full dump of all site members. When Peter Tatchell started outing gay members of the English parliament in 1991, there was uproar, but he made a decision to only out MPs who had voted for anti-gay legislation. I'm in support of any information attack on demonstrably hypocritical social engineers. But that's not what this is, and my comments were in relation to this incident.I also do not really agree fully it's only between a couple if someone cheats. A lot of people who spout off at the mouth about morals, marriage, homophobic crap, religious icons, etc absolutely should have their hypocritical crap put on blast and then some. It sheds light on them and their lies and knocks them down as they should be.
This is how I understood it as well. The members whose info was leaked are just casualties of exposing the site. If it's true anyway.Why release it? To prove that they weren't kidding and AM still had the information that they claimed they would delete. Otherwise it could just be bluffing. Now everyone knows the extent of the problem.
https://www.bestvpn.com/blog/26631/likely-fallout-from-ashley-madison-breach/The fun thing is they have never implemented email checks, so if you really dislike one person you could have register them easily.
Anyway, I'm more interested in the long terms impacts, will the divorce rate peek in the next years? will employers use the database to check their employees honesty? how many politicians will be caught with their cock (and vagina) out?
That's exactly what happened. We all know the mass majority of the people on that site were people who were going behind their partners back and trying to/actually did cheat. So yes the mass majority have been outed on their hypocritical crap. I believe cheaters absolutely should be named and blamed so their partners now know the actual truth. What this is was people who took monogamous vows or were in committed relationships and they were liars and cheats instead.Well, yes, but that's not what happened, is it? What happened was a full dump of all site members. When Peter Tatchell started outing gay members of the English parliament in 1991, there was uproar, but he made a decision to only out MPs who had voted for anti-gay legislation. I'm in support of any information attack on demonstrably hypocritical social engineers. But that's not what this is, and my comments were in relation to this incident.
Yeah, it is actually.It must be true, since it's even on the news...
I'm not sure what statement you're referring to. The only statement I'm aware of clearly stated the reason was fraud. As I've stated elsewhere, this includes the fact that a great majority of the profiles were faked to attract subscribers.I'm not so sure that I buy into the hackers statement that their reason for hacking the site and dumping the info on the web was one of moral conscience. If the hackers think that is going to put a dent in the number of people having an affair then they are naive. If the site is a scam aren't the hackers outing the people they claim they are protecting. From what I have read AM or the site owner was about to do IPO. My gut instinct is that someone was about to be or had been screwed out of some money.
And assuming my gut instinct is wrong and moral conscience was the hackers sole motivation what do we do when they decide that caming is morally wrong and they turn their sights on our favorite cam site?
Avid Life Media runs Ashley Madison, the internet's #1 cheating site, for people who are married or in a relationship to have an affair. ALM also runs Established Men, a prostitution/human trafficking website for rich men to pay for sex, as well as cougar life, a dating website for cougars, man crunch, a site for gay dating, swappernet for swingers, and the big and the beautiful, for overweight dating.
Trevor, ALM's CTO once said "Protection of personal information" was his biggest "critical success factors" and "I would hate to see our systems hacked and/or the leak of personal information"
Well Trevor, welcome to your worst fucking nightmare.
We are the Impact Team. We have hacked them completely, taking over their entire office and production domains and thousands of systems, and over the past few years have taken all customer information databases, complete source code repositories, financial records, documentation, and emails, as we prove here. And it was easy. For a company whose main promise is secrecy, it's like you didn't even try, like you thought you had never pissed anyone off.
Avid Life Media has been instructed to take Ashley Madison and Established Men offline permanently in all forms, or we will release all customer records, including profiles with all the customers' secret sexual fantasies and matching credit card transactions, real names and addresses, and employee documents and emails. The other websites may stay online.
So far, ALM has not complied.
First, we expose that ALM management is bullshit and has made millions of dollars from complete 100% fraud. Example:
-Ashley Madison advertises "Full Delete" to "remove all traces of your usage for only $19.00"
-It specifically promises "Removal of site usage history and personally identifiable information from the site"
-Full Delete netted ALM $1.7mm in revenue in 2014. It's also a complete lie.
-Users almost always pay with credit card; their purchase details are not removed as promised, and include real name and address, which is of course the most important information the users want removed.
-Other very embarrassing personal information also remains, including sexual fantasies and more
-We have all such records and are releasing them as Ashley Madison remains online.
Avid Life Media will be liable for fraud and extreme personal and professional harm from millions of their users unless Ashley Madison and Established Men are permanently placed offline immediately.
Our one apology is to Mark Steele (Director of Security). You did everything you could, but nothing you could have done could have stopped this.
This is your last warning,
Impact Team
We are not opportunistic skids with DDoS or SQLi scanners or defacements. We are dedicated, focused, skilled, and we're never going away. If you profit off the pain of others, whatever it takes, we will completely own you.
For our first release, and to prove we have done all we claim, we are listing *one* Ashley Madison credit card transaction for each day for the past 7 years, complete with customer name and address (oneperday.txt) and associated profile information (oneperday_am_am_member.txt and oneperday_aminno_member.txt, selected rows from our complete dump of the AM databases). We are also releasing a hash dump and zone file for both domains, select documents from your file servers, executives' google drives, and emails, and the Ashley Madison source code repository. Also, since Ashley Madison stopped using plaintext passwords, we're also releasing the swappernet user table, which still has plaintext passwords:
https://bitbucket.org/TheImpactTeam/ashley
https://bitbucket.org/TheImpactTeam/ashleymadisondump
https://gitlab.com/ImpactTeam/ashley
https://gitlab.com/ImpactTeam/ashleymadisondump
https://launchpad.net/ashley
https://mega.nz/#!f4smmDCa!YM7eJE2uxDvjGhxPERYk5tgBgeRyZoEYc9d0JMFUCP0
1 example from this dump: "PERNELL GRAZETTE", with profile ID 23288650, who spitefully paid for Ashley Madison the day after valentine's day in 2014, lives at 10 charlotte st. Brockton, MA in the US, with email UPFRONT73@AOL.COM. He is not only married/attached, but is open to a list of fantasies from Ashley Madison's list: |29|44|39|37|7|, a.k.a. "Cuddling & Hugging", "Likes to Go Slow", "Kissing", and "Conventional Sex". He's looking for 'A woman who seeks the same things I seek: passion and affection. If you have such desires then we will get alone just fine','|54|11|9|' which means "Good Communicator", "Discretion/Secrecy", and "Average Sex Drive". He also says "I have only two personal interests on this site. Making sure that You are comfortable with me should I be so fortunate to hold your attention and making sure I take the role of discretion to an artform. I mean isn't this why we are here, to be as discreet as possible?" From the login table, we know his user ID is 'Heavy73' and password hash is '$2a$12$ndvz/F.EXyJKRYkrErX/w.EDgzF7cNkJcQvNeDGQylEMHRw2COLZO'.
As another, profile ID 48040 is listed as a "paid delete", which means a few of his profile text boxes are gone, but from purchase records we know it is "RICKIE RAMRATTAN" from "5499 Cosmic Crescent" "Mississauga","ON" "L4Z3P8" whose fantasies are |7|40|17|34|33|37|38|48|36|42|43|50|44|32|39|29|49|18|, which includes "Likes to Give Oral Sex", "Likes to Receive Oral Sex", "Light Kinky Fun", "Role Playing", "Erotic Tickling", "Erotic Movies", "Good With Your Hands", "Sensual Massage", and "Dressing Up/Lingerie" among others. You must be glad you paid for your profile to be deleted, huh?
Too bad for those men, they're cheating dirtbags and deserve no such discretion. Too bad for ALM, you promised secrecy but didn't deliver. We've got the complete set of profiles in our DB dumps, and we'll release them soon if Ashley Madison stays online.
And with over 37 million members, mostly from the US and Canada, a significant percentage of the population is about to have a very bad day, including many rich and powerful people.
We all know the mass majority of the people on that site were people who were going behind their partners back and trying to/actually did cheat.
No, it's not. You have no idea what percentage of the people registered to the site have publicly expressed opinions that would make them hypocrites. I'm guessing it's very low, but I have no idea.That's exactly what happened.
No, we don't. We don't "know" anything about "the mass majority of the people" on that site. We can make assumptions, and until we nail down the details, that's all they'll ever be.We all know the mass majority of the people on that site were people who were going behind their partners back and trying to/actually did cheat.
That's not what "hypocrisy" means. Someone cheating on her husband is not a hypocrite. She's an adulterer. That's not the same thing. If she had come out as the head of FAmily Together and publicly endorsed the family unit etc., and she was then discovered to be cheating (of which membership of Ashley Madison is nowhere near enough evidence), then you could say it was hypocritical.So yes the mass majority have been outed on their hypocritical crap.
While that's certainly a valid opinion, you will no doubt concede that others have different opinions about this. And it might not be a good idea to impose your opinion of what relationships "should" be on someone else's life.I believe cheaters absolutely should be named and blamed so their partners now know the actual truth. What this is was people who took monogamous vows or were in committed relationships and they were liars and cheats instead.
Someone who was in an open relationship/ non-traditional marriage would have no reason to sign up for a site like Ashley Madison. The advertising for the site clearly was geared for men who were seeking affairs/prostitutes without the knowledge of their spouse. As for those claiming it was also used by gay men, I'm going to once again disagree and maintain that those accounts were registered not on Ashley Madison but on a sister site for gay men called "Man Crunch".No, it's not. You have no idea what percentage of the people registered to the site have publicly expressed opinions that would make them hypocrites. I'm guessing it's very low, but I have no idea.
No, we don't. We don't "know" anything about "the mass majority of the people" on that site. We can make assumptions, and until we nail down the details, that's all they'll ever be.
That's not what "hypocrisy" means. Someone cheating on her husband is not a hypocrite. She's an adulterer. That's not the same thing. If she had come out as the head of FAmily Together and publicly endorsed the family unit etc., and she was then discovered to be cheating (of which membership of Ashley Madison is nowhere near enough evidence), then you could say it was hypocritical.
While that's certainly a valid opinion, you will no doubt concede that others have different opinions about this. And it might not be a good idea to impose your opinion of what relationships "should" be on someone else's life.
I am from a country where homosexuality carries the death penalty. I studied in America the last several years and used Ashley Madison during that time. (For those of you who haven't been following the story, Ashley Madison has been hacked and its users' names and addresses are on the verge of being exposed.) I was single, but used it because I am gay; gay sex is punishable by death in my home country so I wanted to keep my hookups extremely discreet. I only used AM to hook up with single guys.
Most of you are Westerners in countries that are relatively liberal on LGBT issues. For those of you who are older--try to think back to a time 10 or 20 years again when homosexuality was intensely stigmatized. Multiply that horrible feeling of stigma by a million, and add the threat of beheading/stoning. That's why I used AM to have discreet encounters.
I BEG you all to spread this message. Perhaps the hackers will take notice of it, and then, I can tell them to (at the very least) exercise discretion in their information dump (i.e. leave the single gay arab guy out of it). As of now, I plan on leaving the Kingdom and never returning once I have the $ for a plane ticket. Though I have no place to go, no real friends, and no job.
UPDATE: I have gotten enough money to get car to Riyadh and a plane ticket to the US. I got a PM from a redditor who is in the Kingdom and a paralegal at a a major US law firm with an office in Riyadh (I will be traveling there this weekend). The firm's has a big pro bono practice that specializes in refugees! And it is very pro LGBT; tor he redditis going to arrange for me to meet with an associate to explain my association. It appears I'm in good hands. I will let you all know more soon! It looks like I'll be out of here in a few days with a concrete plan of action.
UPDATE: A bunch of people are accusing me of lying because 'AM is only for married people.' AM is actually about "discreet hookups," and hence its main appeal is to married people, since premarital sex isn't stigmatized in the West. But it also appeals to gays from regressive cultures, and their website has an option specifically for gays, as you can figure out if you do 5 minutes of research.
The idiots who claim I'm lying are projecting from personal experience, and forgetting that, for many gay people around the world, being outed is a life-threatening experience. The risks for us are greater than the risks for married Westerners cheating on their spouses. That's why AM's promise of discretion appeals to us. (Seriously, you think that there are no gay Muslims on there out of 37 million users?) In any case, that people would accuse me of being a liar on the basis of no evidence--at a time when I stand a serious chance of being tortured, murdered, or exiled--makes me pessimistic about humanity.
No, it's not. You have no idea what percentage of the people registered to the site have publicly expressed opinions that would make them hypocrites. I'm guessing it's very low, but I have no idea.
No, we don't. We don't "know" anything about "the mass majority of the people" on that site. We can make assumptions, and until we nail down the details, that's all they'll ever be.
That's not what "hypocrisy" means. Someone cheating on her husband is not a hypocrite. She's an adulterer. That's not the same thing. If she had come out as the head of FAmily Together and publicly endorsed the family unit etc., and she was then discovered to be cheating (of which membership of Ashley Madison is nowhere near enough evidence), then you could say it was hypocritical.
While that's certainly a valid opinion, you will no doubt concede that others have different opinions about this. And it might not be a good idea to impose your opinion of what relationships "should" be on someone else's life.
By that logic, divorce is an even worse hypocrisy. Do you considered divorced people to be hypocrites with the same vigour?I never said they publicly expressed opinions that would make them hypocrites. I said they were going behind their partners back. But yes cheating on a partner is being a hypocrite. You seem to be the one who doesn't know what hypocrisy means so i'll define it for you. "The practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform; pretense." Marrying someone and saying vows then going behind their back makes you a hypocrite.
And if the logic you presented is correct, divorce is disgusting too, right?Cheating is disgusting.
You used pretty strong language in the posting of your opinion, with phrases like "should have their hypocritical crap put on blast". I used similarly strong language because I assumed we're both grown-ups. I wouldn't have used the kind of assertive tone I did if I got the impression that you were precious about that sort of thing.I also of course understand people have different opinions. That's why i said "I believe" and such. It's an opinion like any other and I never claimed otherwise. I only speak for myself and my feelings and every one here can express there's just as freely. Don't try to tell me though i'm imposing my opinions on someones elses life by just saying how I feel.
Indeed.Lol really.
I have no idea who would or wouldn't have a reason to sign up to any site. I'm not going to waste my time trying to get into people's heads about it. It's nothing to do with me. And more important, what happens inside someone else's marriage is definitely nothing to do with me. I'm not defending cheating or anything, but I do think that people choose the strangest things to get worked up about.Someone who was in an open relationship/ non-traditional marriage would have no reason to sign up for a site like Ashley Madison.
The latest rumor is that it was an inside job, likely female: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/john-mcafe...one-female-who-worked-avid-life-media-1516833
And AM emails reveal their plans to hack a competitor: http://www.theguardian.com/technolo...ssed-hacking-competitor-site-nerve-com-emails