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Privacy Crime The Internet

More Ashley Madison Files Published 301

An anonymous reader writes: A second round of Ashley Madison data was released today. The data dump was twice as large as the first time, which was bad enough for "19 Kids and Counting" star Josh Duggar, and includes some of CEO Noel Biderman's email as well. The release of the cheating sites data has spawned a small scammer industry as people scramble to find a way to have their information deleted from the leaks. Wired reports: "The new release is accompanied by the note: 'Hey Noel, you can admit it's real now.' The message is likely a response to assertions made by the company's former CTO this week, who tried hard to convince reporters after the first leak occurred that the data dump was fake."
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More Ashley Madison Files Published

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  • Ouch? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by bhlowe ( 1803290 )
    How many suicides and divorces and single-parent homes will this lead to...
    • Re:Ouch? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by NoKaOi ( 1415755 ) on Thursday August 20, 2015 @06:08PM (#50358113)

      How many suicides and divorces and single-parent homes will this lead to...

      By "this," do you mean the cheating, or the getting caught? The getting caught wouldn't have happened without the cheating...

      • Re:Ouch? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by SJ ( 13711 ) on Thursday August 20, 2015 @06:27PM (#50358213)

        Given that the customer list is 95% male, I'd rephrase that to "attempted" cheating.

        I'd put money on number of guys that actually got lucky as a direct result of the site being no more than a rounding error compared to the total.

        Now.... If you find your wife on there...

        • and getting caught in the rain?

        • Re:Ouch? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by TWX ( 665546 ) on Thursday August 20, 2015 @06:42PM (#50358295)
          Yeah, even if the actual published numbers are real accounts and not catfish accounts to help draw more men in (which would put the women-members at 15%) the odds that most men using the service actually had an affair as a result of the service are pretty small. On the other hand, a married person that takes the steps in-advance and at personal cost to open themselves up to infidelity very well could mean they've already been unfaithful or are looking for such partners through other avenues too.
          • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

            Not to forget, playing on the site is not the same as playing off the site. How many had no interest at all in an affair, they just wanted to play naughty on the web site with zero follow through. Using the site, making a keyboard connection with someone is not the same as rubbing genitals together with the risk of disease and adverse social interactions, that put families at risk (not so much break up more to do with introducing a psychopath or narcissist into the family relationship not to say that there

            • Using the site, making a keyboard connection with someone is not the same as rubbing genitals together with the risk of disease and adverse social interactions,

              There are still a large number of people who believe that cheating is cheating and whether you're just talking dirty to someone or doing the dirty with them in person doesn't matter. People who value fidelity still exist.

              It's like, if you rob a bank for real it's bank robbery, if you plan to do it it's conspiracy and you've still broken the law.

              • by schnell ( 163007 )

                It's like, if you rob a bank for real it's bank robbery, if you plan to do it it's conspiracy and you've still broken the law.

                That depends. Did you actually plan to go through with the bank robbery? Or from the outset did you know you were just fantasizing about being Bonnie and Clyde, and you were just pretending to plan a bank robbery because it gave you a thrill to act like your nebbishy couch-potato self really ever would?

                I'm sure there are people who believe that even playfully flirting with someone else while you are in a committed relationship is infidelity. Most people - or at least those who have been married a long time

                • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

                  Ashley Madison advertises on pron sites, hence people are already in that mood but with themselves and playing on Ashley Madison is just an extension of the current 'hmmm' mood. Not defending nothing, not being attached it is not a problem for me either way, however, let's not get carried away with actually intentions versus pretty immature playing and having never played on that site but I have tested but never actually used to an conclusion nor even initiated contact other match making sites. Being a net

        • Now.... If you find your wife on there...

          There's an 80% chance she was there to see if you were.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward

          A fuck buddy of mine is on Ashley Madison, she's a sex worker and uses it to find clients.

    • Re:Ouch? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by barc0001 ( 173002 ) on Thursday August 20, 2015 @06:08PM (#50358119)

      I think the real blame lies y'know, with the people who actually used this as a vehicle to cheat on their spouses. Blaming this leak for the fallout is like blaming your spouse's friend who rats you out for cheating on them.

      • by xQx ( 5744 )

        I think the real blame lies y'know, with the people who actually used this as a vehicle to cheat on their spouses. Blaming this leak for the fallout is like blaming your spouse's friend who rats you out for cheating on them.

        This statement is like saying "Yeah, I know revenge porn is bad, but the real blame lies y'know, with the girl who sent nude pictures in the first place. It was only a matter of time before someone re-published it"

        Three things need to be remembered before you support this hack because the cheaters deserved it:
        1. Ashley Madison was its self a scam. People who used the site were already being punished. Shutting down the site is actually GOOD for cheaters, because they will now know to turn to a more legitimat

        • by vux984 ( 928602 )

          1. Ashley Madison was its self a scam. People who used the site were already being punished. Shutting down the site is actually GOOD for cheaters, because they will now know to turn to a more legitimate dating site in future.

          How would they recognize one? More likely they would be shy of any such site in the future.

          2. Just because someone signed up to the site doesn't mean they were actually going to cheat on their spouse. It's like a list of people who've ever walked into a brothel.

          Fine. Anyone who has an AM account is only officially guilty of having an AM account. For a lot of couples that will be a significant betrayal of trust, assuming the AM account was kept secret.

          2a) / 2b)

          Its definitely going to create a lot of new issues for a lot of people. But if it leads to uncomfortable questions at school or a divorce that's hard on the kids, the fault is ultimately with the person who lied to their partner. Blaming the gossipy neighbor or the internet for airing your dirty laundry so you can't deal with it privately sort of misses the point. And if the only reason you are dealing with it at all is thanks to the gossipy neighbor or internet its a bit of a catch-22.

          You have no privacy online. That horse has bolted.

          Agreed. and its a lesson that needs to be learned. This will hit a lot of people in a way that the target or home depot breaches never would... it might actually make them think before they put something online. That's a good thing.

        • > This statement is like saying "Yeah, I know revenge porn is bad, but the real blame lies y'know, with the girl who sent nude pictures in the first place. It was only a matter of time before someone re-published it"

          Ex-fucking-cuse me? How about this perspective:

          Sending porn to your boyfriend is not a crime. Revenge porn posting is a crime

          Adultery is actually still on the books as a crime in 21 US states. Does that not mean that AM was a potential facilitator of criminal acts in those 21 states? I th

    • Re:Ouch? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Joe Gillian ( 3683399 ) on Thursday August 20, 2015 @06:18PM (#50358169)

      I hope none. The database can't be trusted, and I can verify this because my email address is in their database despite the fact that I had never heard of Ashley Madison or Avid Life Media until the hack happened. You do not need an email verification to make an account there - again, I know this because whoever signed up my address was able to do so without access to my email account. The mix-up is likely due to the fact that my email address is a shortened version of a common first name and a common Hispanic last name (though I didn't realize this when I made the account, oddly enough). I would post my email address here so people could verify, but I'd rather not so that I don't inadvertently attract people to whoever the poor bastard was that made the account using my email.. and also to avoid spam.

      Merely having an email address listed in the leaked database is not proof of anything, and I would hope that any spouses who see their partner's email on that database get independent verification first before accusing them of anything. I know I would hate to have a significant other see that and assume I was trying to cheat on them, even though I'd never attempted anything of the sort.

      On top of this, there's the problem of computer-assisted reporters (most of whom are preparing numbers-based stories about things like how many people in the Canadian government had emails in the database) using this database for stories that may not reflect the reality of what's going on.

      • Re:Ouch? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by amicusNYCL ( 1538833 ) on Thursday August 20, 2015 @06:28PM (#50358221)

        The database can't be trusted, and I can verify this because my email address is in their database...
        I know this because whoever signed up my address was able to do so without access to my email account...
        Merely having an email address listed in the leaked database is not proof of anything...

        How about credit card transactions? It doesn't mean a whole lot when joesmithsonnwa@gmail.com is listed as a member, but when that account is paid for by Joshua Duggar with two of his known addresses [gawker.com] then that's a little more incriminating.

        • The Joshua Duggar scenario is certainly one where it is possible to prove he did it, but consider this (hypothetical) scenario:

          The person who used my burner email to sign up pays for his Ashley Madison subscription with a pre-paid Visa or Mastercard, the kind you can buy at any Wal-Mart for cash. My (nonexistent) SO knows about my burner email. She Googles and finds any one of the number of sites that allow you to put an email in and see if it's in the leaked database (without showing supporting info such a

          • The Joshua Duggar scenario is certainly one where it is possible to prove he did it

            Proof is irrelevant now, he's admitted to everything

          • by vux984 ( 928602 )

            The possibility that I cheated now exists, and the possibility alone can be enough to cause a breakup or divorce.

            "The possibility" always exists. You could have another email she doesn't know about, or use another service that hasn't been hacked.

            She's going to have to evaluate the likelihood of your burner address finding its way onto the site, via any other explanation than that you put it there. IF your a celebrity... its pretty reasonable someone would use it. IF its a common name or phrase its reasonable. If its an address known to your friends and your friends are known to be the sort of people who would use it o

        • Still doesn't mean anything, with all of the data breaches that have happened over the years; would Ashley Madison really be beyond plumping up their membership lists bought from hackers? Real cheaters would be using freebee Gmail or outlook accounts with Greendot cards and burner phones. You only have to watch a couple movies to learn more spy-craft than the Impact Teams expects us to believe the typical cheater has.

        • Pffff.

          Still can't be trusted. Case in point:

          I had my brand new enhanced security chip embedded credit card from my bank for all of thirty days before it was compromised and utilized to purchase some porn subscription out of Europe. ( Likely wait staff at the restaurants I frequent, since that's the only thing I had used it for before it was hit. I pay cash only now when I eat out. )

          Since I have account alerts active on all my accounts, I get shot a text message the instant anything happens to any of my a

          • The chip-and-pin system itsself is very secure. The weakness lies elsewhere: Those cards have three different means of authentication, and you only need to hack one in order to make a payment. The other two are weak (magstripe) and absolutely pathetic (The numbers printed on it).

      • Re:Ouch? (Score:5, Informative)

        by DaHat ( 247651 ) on Thursday August 20, 2015 @06:43PM (#50358301)

        I hope none. The database can't be trusted,

        Agreed, when you see addresses like the following in the DB it becomes clear how easy it was to insert records that are not indicative of actual use:

        • billgates@microsoft.com
        • stevejobs@apple.com
        • Tim_cook@apple.com
        • barack.obama@whitehouse.gov
        • cllinton@whitehouse.gov
        • billybob@whitehouse.gov
        • barackhusseinobama@whitehouse.gov

        Doubly so when some addresses show up more than once:

        • president@whitehouse.gov x13
        • gwb@whitehouse.gov x5
        • georgebush@whitehouse.gov x3

        ... as just a few examples.

      • The mix-up is likely due to the fact that my email address is a shortened version of a common first name and a common Hispanic last name.

        Dear Canadian Hispanic friend,

        I feel for you. I'm also a politician and someone has registered my email address by mistake as well. Luckily that person is 10 years younger, 30~ pounds lighter, 3 inch taller, and an homosexual, according to the leaked data, which definitely proves that my Ashley account was started by someone completely different.

        So I can't really say that my situation is as dire as yours.

    • Good question.

      Here's another one: is the person releasing this info criminally liable for felony murder or wrongful death if any deaths are a direct result? Suicide, homicide, you name it... somebody is carrying a big legal liability flag over this, regardless of the social ethics.

      • by ihtoit ( 3393327 )

        dunno, are you going to go after the Ford Motor Company or Colt Firearms when their products are involved in deaths as well?

  • The whole operation of Ashley Madison - at least what is described of them in wikipedia [wikipedia.org] - is crooked. I have no respect for such an operation that is built on lies and deceit. However, hacking them and dumping their data publicly is illegal regardless of what they are doing (and to the best of my understanding while Ashley Madison did immoral things, they were not illegal things).

    If the hackers want to shut down Ashley Madison they might accomplish that, but they have also shown in so doing that there is a market demand for the services they provided, which will just cause someone else - presumably with better network security practices - to launch an identical service.
    • by NoKaOi ( 1415755 )

      which will just cause someone else - presumably with better network security practices - to launch an identical service

      People used the service because they thought it was a way to cheat without getting caught. While I'm sure there would be enough demand to make a future service profitable, I would expect the demand would be significantly reduced by this incident.

    • Perhaps the hackers believe that leaking the customer details will reduce the demand for these services by proving that nothing done on the internet is ever really private.

    • Being illegal doesn't make something wrong.
  • Otherwise, they're going to miss out on all the fun. I mean, the US Army said they didn't like this conduct of their soldiers, so adding a lot of known emailaddresses for high ranking officials could be fun.

    More suggestions for the next release: contacting some well-known figures in advance, and extorting money from them. Yeah I know - a lot of scammers are already trying that one. Too bad. You could still give it a try though. Adding a few presidential candidates in the mix would be entertaining too.

    My hop

  • by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Thursday August 20, 2015 @06:10PM (#50358137)

    The thing that is really concerning about this AM hack is not the data being real. I'm sure it MOSTLY is.

    The problem is that the hackers could ALSO have added a handful of entries for people they hate for whatever reason. Even if AM could verify they were not a customer, would anyone believe them?

    You also have to wonder, how much did the hackers make from pre-accepting payments for deletion from the master set they are releasing...

    It will be very interesting going forward who is rapidly identified as being in the database... especially political figures.

    You have to wonder, how did someone find Josh Duggar in there so quickly? Were they tipped off?

    • by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Thursday August 20, 2015 @09:24PM (#50358983) Homepage Journal

      Way back when Heidi Fleiss [wikipedia.org] got arrested for running a prostitution ring, and her list of clients fell into the hands of the police, my first thought was: if it were *me*, I'd have:

      a) had a backup copy, and

      b) been regularly adding high-ranking authorities (for instance: the chief of police) to the list of clients. In a diary fashion, interspersed (in the records) with the appointments of real clients.

      For b) especially, having dates and times when the high-ranking official is known to be away from home, such as noon times if they have a day job, or adding verifiable corroborating information such as "and he came in soaking wet" on rainy days and such, would have gone a long way towards giving Ms. Fleiss some leverage.

      Ah well... people don't think ahead in these modern times.

      Apropos of nothing, I saw this on a friend's twitter feed:

      ME: Hunny, did you have an Ashley Madison account?
      HER: What?! No!
      ME: Damn. That would have made what I'm about to say, a lot easier.

    • You need medication. Or counseling. Or better yet, both.

      how did someone find Josh Duggar in there so quickly?

      "The wedding episode of âoe19 Kids and Countingâ racked up 4.4 million total viewers and posted a 3.5 household rating" - and every news rag on TV, magazines, and vlog wannabes are constantly on the lookout for tips on celebrities.

      Ever watch TMZ? It's on OTA TV, so sometimes I turn on the TV when it's on. They spend a lot of time looking for info. And when the next data dump hits, the

      • 4.4 million total viewers and posted a 3.5 household rating

        So what? You seriously think there's not someone even MORE famous, or good for gossip, in that set of data?

        Why Josh, of all people, to be first there? It's not like I'm a fan, or car at all about what people think of him. I just find it odd that his is the only well-known name floated, and it happened just hours after the release of the data.

  • by gnu-sucks ( 561404 ) on Thursday August 20, 2015 @06:22PM (#50358185) Journal

    They paid to get screwed.

    Seems they are getting their money's worth.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • with no "takers". such is life.
  • ...stolen from the hacker's files! [battleswarmblog.com]

    Like: “Sure, Miss Wong, I’ll let you use my login!” — SecuritySupervisor@opm.gov.

    100% authentic!*

    *Which is to say, every bit as authentic as the vast majority of "women" you can contact on Ashley Madison...

  • ... was in the data dump. It seems he was having a secret fling with the Democratic Party.

  • Does anyone have the number of the good divorce attorney?

    Asking for a friend.

    • by ihtoit ( 3393327 )

      1-800-flt-rich

      You're welcome.

    • Want some divorce advice?

      If there is any disagreement about who gets what property, you should promptly and immediately just sign over all of your possessions to your lawyer.

      You will end up doing it anyway, so get a jump on starting over with a new life.

  • Way to go guys, now if I click top right to open comments on the reposted poll, it doesn't go anywhere until I expand options.
  • And the lesson to be learned is that once you post 'stuff' on the Internet then it is no longer private and it could come back to haunt you at any time.

If all else fails, lower your standards.

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