Ashley Madison Hack Claims First Victims 706
wired_parrot writes: Toronto police are reporting that 2 unconfirmed suicides have been linked to the data breach. This follows pleas from other users of the site for the hackers to not release the data before it was exposed- an anonymous gay Reddit user from Saudi Arabia, where homosexuality is illegal, pleaded for the data to be kept private: "I am about to be killed, tortured, or exiled," he wrote. "And I did nothing." And when The Intercept published a piece condemning the puritanical glee over the data dump, one user who commented on the article said she's been "a long term member" of the site because her spouse's medical condition has affected their intimate life. Her spouse knows she's engaged with other Ashley Madison members, she says, but now fears she will likely lose friends and have to find a new job now that her association with the site is out there.
Ashley Madison has now offered a $380,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the hackers who leaked the data. Security researcher Troy Hunt has also posted about the kind of emails he's received from users after the data leak.
Very sad - but let's get legislation in place NOW (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Very sad - but let's get legislation in place N (Score:5, Insightful)
Rest assured that the new legislation will make hacking a crime worthy of being hung, drawn and quartered while at the same time not changing anything about how corporations have to secure data, or even (god forbid!) be punished for having sloppy security.
Re:Very sad - but let's get legislation in place N (Score:5, Insightful)
And, of course, don't forget carving out huge exemptions for copyright holders aggressively being assholes^Wdilligent ... there will be one of those.
And one for law enforcement, because hacking is OK if you're law enforcement.
And to protect the children. You can do anything if you're protecting children.
And national security, even if it is unrelated to national security. You know, that way the Stingray devices are still OK.
By the time all of those exemptions get made, it will boil down to "it shall be illegal for any private citizen to exploit the security holes we have ensured are in place", and will be utterly meaningless.
But, nosirree, we can't risk impacting quarterly profits and executive bonuses by ensuring corporations have legal responsibility to safeguard data. That would be like Communism.
Re:Very sad - but let's get legislation in place N (Score:4, Interesting)
not changing anything about how corporations have to secure data, or even (god forbid!) be punished for having sloppy security.
And why should it? For the sake of argument do you think the government should tell you that you MUST install a home security system, have dead bolts on every exterior door, require exterior doors be steel or solid wood, limit the side of windows to no more than 1" by 1" or require bars? If you violate any of these rules on your structure fine or punish you? Should we lighten up the sentences for "breaking and entering" or even burglary?
Personally I think with certain exceptions like public Utilities etc that already enjoy a special relationship with government and a captive market, that companies ought to be allowed to have whatever security posture they like. They should simply have to be honest about it with consumers. Government ought to do one of the few things its Constitutionally supposed to do and set some standards of measure.
Develop some NIST definitions for overall information security postures. If companies then want to claim they have a 'Double plus good can't hack me bro' rating there is a way to prove that. Then if one of these breaches happens and its done in a way that should not have been possible while in compliance like 'plain text data on laptop found on bus' we would all be able to go after them for contract fraud or false advertising etc.
Additionally we should have some disclosure laws, just like food labels there need to be some standardized categories and forms companies that maintain any information that is personally identifiable other than firstname, lastname, current address, billing address, and primary phone number, should be required to disclose that on a standardized and both electronically readable and human readable format. Maybe a nice TML or INI like file.
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If you store other peoples' shit in your home for money, damn right you are responsible for its security. Nobody cares if your own stuff gets stolen.
Re:Very sad - but let's get legislation in place N (Score:5, Informative)
If you store other peoples' shit in your home for money, damn right you are responsible for its security. Nobody cares if your own stuff gets stolen.
My wife has a yarn store and import/distribution business for fancy schmancy yarns. We have customer data, not by choice, customers demand it for their convenience. I happen to be a security/crypto type engineer. So we worked out what the plan was based on the notion that a yarn store is helpless in the face of electronic warfare.
1) Outsource anything touching PCI-DSS. The payment card machine doesn't attach to the computer. The online payments are through a service that handles the card data on their servers while appearing to be on our web site and PCI-DSS compliance is part of their service. PCI-DSS sucks (I've read the specs - It's not pretty). But it's what we have. So pay someone else to hold the responsibility who on the surface may be better positioned that a yarn store to handle such data.
2) Don't keep customer credit card data on a computer. Use other means.
In general, there's nothing anyone can do who isn't deeply involved in computer security and cryptography, which on average is everyone. Those few who are involved in the intersection of retail and computer security are disempowered by the payment card companies who dictate terms, avoid liability and push absolutely useless security standards on the rest of us.
Re:Very sad - but let's get legislation in place N (Score:4, Informative)
And why should it? For the sake of argument do you think the government should tell you that you MUST install a home security system, have dead bolts on every exterior door, require exterior doors be steel or solid wood, limit the side of windows to no more than 1" by 1" or require bars?
If you're in business and promising your customers that you're keeping their stuff secure, well, yeah, there should be legal penalties for not meeting some standards of due diligence (admittedly, there's quite a bit of wiggle room as to where those standards should be set).
Re:Very sad - but let's get legislation in place N (Score:5, Interesting)
Your own Apples to other people's Orangutans comparison.
The Government requires you to have vehicle insurance because you impact other people if you wreck on a road. Banks are required to have insurance protecting a specific percentage of deposited wealth. You will go to jail if you kill someone while driving even if it was on accident if you don't have insurance. Banks have had people go to jail when they lied about or have not met obligations required by law. Why should a business be treated differently exactly? No reason, except that we lack enforceable regulation.
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And as long as we have people in power who don't know the first thing about computers and think that laws can solve problems this won't change.
Re:Very sad - but let's get legislation in place N (Score:5, Insightful)
As much as I'd like to drag all the cheap-ass executives who shortchange IT security and reliability with an eye on promotion and their own bonuses into the street and have them tarred and feathered, I can only imagine that such a regulation would have loopholes a mile wide.
What makes a system insecure? The system integration/networking? The software, especially third party software with its disclaimers about "no liability for implied merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose"?
Who judges a system as secure/insecure? If I get a third party to sign off on it, are the execs then immune? How long does a system retain its status as officially secure? Can you patch it with new patches, which theoretically could introduce their own flaws?
How about unknown zero-days? You could judge a system as secure and then a new zero-day appears in some critical security juncture that renders it insecure. Worse yet, what about unknown exploits used for which there are no patches?
To me it smells like Sarbanes-Oxley all over again.
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What makes a system insecure?
the fact that it's been broken into
Who judges a system as secure/insecure?
maybe it could be the people whose credit card info has been stolen
How about unknown zero-days?
Why not make it really simple? If your system gets broken into, it's your fault. This same logic is very successful in many other such situations. The threat of punishment is enough all by itself to keep bad actors in line. You don't need to construct more government apparatus to oversee them.
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Legislation is useless because no one bothers to prosecute these crimes unless it's easy. Oh, and we don't need legislation because we already have it, which is why I can say with authority it's useless...
Re:Very sad - but let's get legislation in place N (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a bit like saying you're going to send someone to jail for getting rear-ended waiting at a traffic light.
I totally agree, data security is a big deal - but I think "gross negligence" probably covers the fact that someone did not put proper security in place. Beyond that, it's an arms race. You can't hold someone responsible for being hacked, unless they've demonstrated that they didn't even try to avoid it. Reasonable preventative measures.
The same reason you can't claim insurance when you don't have any locks on your house. But if they really want to, that moat and electric fence won't stop someone from breaking into your house.
Re:Very sad - but let's get legislation in place N (Score:4, Informative)
You can't hold someone responsible for being hacked, unless they've demonstrated that they didn't even try to avoid it.
Sure you can, this is why we have insurance. If I put stuff in a storage unit and it gets broken into, it's the storage unit's fault. Period. They will have to pay me. It matters not if they tried to keep out the burglars or not. They will get paid by their insurance company but it is most certainly their fault that my stuff got stolen.
Re:Very sad - but let's get legislation in place N (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah I could row in behind this. We need governments in particular but also corporations to enshrine peoples' right to privacy in hard legislation. The net is turning into a sick dystopian version of its original golden promise.
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Considering that Ashley Madison as a whole is illegal in most jurisdictions I would be really surprised if those laws had no effect.
In NC, USA, the Ashley Madison website is in direct violation of several marriage statutes, namly around willful alienation of affection, which is punishable with jail time.
Affairs are probably illegal in most states in the U.S. If not all. Facilitating criminal conduct intentionally IS a crime in every state in the U.S.
Re:Very sad - but let's get legislation in place N (Score:5, Insightful)
Eating pussy is also illegal in NC. Who cares?
Re:Very sad - but let's get legislation in place N (Score:5, Interesting)
And that is the root cause of this whole situation. We need to find a way to change the overall mindset (especially in these here Unitee States) towards other people's personal sexual congresses. Not only should it be nobody else's business, but nobody should even **care** what some person they're neither related to nor dating is doing.
If someone's cheating on a spouse (and the spouse does not approve of extramarital sex), the spouse will likely find out one way or another at some point. What happens to the couple is up to them. But what your employees, or Congressional reps, or sports/music/theatre idols do in their personal lives including sex, just plain shouldn't matter.
Re:Very sad - but let's get legislation in place N (Score:5, Informative)
alienation of affection, which is punishable with jail time.
Bullshit. Even in NC, alienation of affection [wikipedia.org] is a civil matter.
Affairs are probably illegal in most states in the U.S. If not all.
Also bullshit. Just a few states still have these laws on the books.
Furthermore, such laws are plainly totalitarian, they misplace responsibility, they view a marriage as little more than a property deed, and they elevate particular religions to sources of law. No small government conservative, nor any other supporter of a free society, could possibly support such a law. The only reason they haven't been declared unconstitutional is that no relevant case has yet reached the Supreme Court.
One NC attorney, quoted in the Wiki, says it quite well:
One North Carolina divorce attorney has written: "Adultery is not uncommon, but an alienation-of-affection case just polarizes everyone and devastates everything in its path including the children and both spouses....The world has changed. Women are no longer viewed as property. Alienation-of-affection is something that dates way, way back, and if there was ever a law that needed to be removed, this is it."
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This position reminds me a lot of the folks that want to sue gun companies when someone commits a murder with a gun. The people who released this data have the blood of the two (so far) victims on their hands - they're at least partly resonsible for their deaths.
Re:Very sad - but let's get legislation in place N (Score:5, Interesting)
If I leave my door open, and my stuff gets stolen, I am the one who has been punished.
If some asshole corporation fails at security, and my stuff gets stolen, I am still the one who has been punished.
See, the stuff being stolen here ... It's not the property of the corporation, and they're not the ones who suffer when it is stolen. They've deemed themselves trustworthy to hold onto your data, and failed to safeguard it.
Oh, sure, they might get a little bad PR, and the stock might slip a little. But that asshole executive who decided security was too costly? It's not his data being stolen, and it's not him who has to deal with it.
So he, being an asshole executive, says "wow, we're not really sorry but if we say it will you shut up and go away?"
This is more like I've got stuff in my safe deposit box, and the bank gets robbed, and the bank say "wow, that's totally not our fault".
Your analogy sucks.
Corporations failing to protect the private and sensitive information they have been entrusted with are not the fucking victims, and they don't get to play the victim card.
Re:Very sad - but let's get legislation in place N (Score:4, Insightful)
if the data hackers grabbed ak 47s and stormed the colocation facility and ripped out hard drives, then your analogy works. the company is innocent and the hackers deserve full condemnation
but obviously that's not an analogy to what we happened with ashley madison or other infamous corporate hacks
more like the bank president installed a keypad on the bank vault by a well known manufacturer whose name is written on the keypad and is known to have default passwords on their products. he never changed the default password. or he wrote the password on a post it note above the keypad
the hackers simply punched in the obvious password, walked in and walked out. the hackers aren't innocent, no one is suggesting that. but obviously the bank president is hardly innocent either. his negligence is disgusting
now you have a valid analogy to what we are talking about here, and absolutely the bank president needs to be punished
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If you are told that your door is unlocked, but you still don't lock it, and some robber comes and steals your stuff, the homeowner should be thrown in jail.
what's the point? losing your stuff should be motivation to lock your doors
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Let's do that for homeowners too. If you are told that your door is unlocked, but you still don't lock it, and some robber comes and steals your stuff, the homeowner should be thrown in jail.
Not really the same. But I would argue the insurance company might have a leg to stand on in a fraud case if they had some extra data to prove you enticed the burglar to enter.
A better scenario, is if you rent out rooms in your apartment complex, and you are told that the door locks you installed on the rooms are defe
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Re:Very sad - but let's get legislation in place N (Score:4, Insightful)
You are talking about two different coins, not even two sides of the same coin. I believe that if you leave 100.00 on your door step you should not expect it to be there when you get home. The person who took it is not right for doing so, but you are not right for leaving 100.00 on your door step where people would be tempted to take it and in other circumstances would not have done so.
What GP said is that if you leave your doors unlocked and get robbed, people would claim that _you_ should go to jail. Which is not a valid argument since AM is not holding their own stuff, they are holding EVERYONE ELSE'S STUFF!
Re: Very sad - but let's get legislation in place (Score:5, Insightful)
How stupid do you have to be to misunderstand the parent post so badly? Adequate data security stops all but the most skilled hackers. Laws are already in place to force corporations to act better than they otherwise would in other areas and there is a good case to be made that that should be the case with data security as well. When you're responsible for other people's personal details, you have to act responsibly and have proper data security. Just like airlines must follow safety regulations and are penalized if they don't, corporate executives should be held responsible if data security is neglected. The main question is how to formulate it into a law and the parent proposed a solution which I don't fully agree with but I do agree with the idea. We've seen it happen over and over and over again - corporations need to be held in a short leash through laws because their ultimate incentive is always shareholder wealth. A bad reputation is nothing that a good PR campaign won't fix cheaper than preventing the problem in the first place.
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FWIW, negligence is tough to prove. Criminal negligence, even more so, but I'll wager that what those responsible for security at Ashley
Re: Very sad - but let's get legislation in place (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree. If any, the guilty here is AMs poor security and data management. And its nothing new, people cheat, we are good at it . I think it's a little over the top to "make a new life because... Oh the shame".
"If anyone"? That's overboard. I agree that to a degree, AM is complicit due to their poor security and negligence with their clients data, yes, but still the truly guilty party here, quite simply, is the one who actually committed the crime and stole data they were not entitled to. I'm a fool if I leave my house or car unlocked at night; nevertheless, if someone breaks in and steals stuff, they have committed a crime, not me; I was naive, negligent, careless, but I didn't steal anything. Granted, I'd feel more culpable if I had several friends' gear in my house or car that got stolen, as that's less excuse to be so careless, and some responsibility must be shouldered in that case, but still, I am not directly responsible for the behavior of a thief, he is. The thief must still be found and held accountable. That is not debatable.
Re:Very sad - but let's get legislation in place N (Score:5, Funny)
My wife says it already is.
Oddly specific (Score:2)
Re:Oddly specific (Score:5, Informative)
It is, it's a 500k CAD reward, which translates to ~380k USD.
Re:Oddly specific (Score:4, Interesting)
Seems ridiculously low. They have already been sued for over half a billion CAD. This is likely to end their business. Is that really all they can afford or are willing to pay?
Shows how much they care about their users. Presumably they are hoping to get someone to grass on the cheap, and only ramp it up later if no-one comes forward. Even more alarming, it suggests that they have no idea who it is and their security is so poor they have nothing to go on.
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Seems ridiculously low. They have already been sued for over half a billion CAD. This is likely to end their business. Is that really all they can afford or are willing to pay?
Shows how much they care about their users. Presumably they are hoping to get someone to grass on the cheap, and only ramp it up later if no-one comes forward. Even more alarming, it suggests that they have no idea who it is and their security is so poor they have nothing to go on.
I'd say how much they cared about their users was shown much earlier--or has the claims about them not deleting information they demanded money to delete not been verified yet? If it has, they're probably going to be gotten for fraud.
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That's an oddly specific reward. They really couldn't spring for $400,000?
Convert it to Canadian dollars.
"I am about to be killed, tortured, or exiled," (Score:4, Insightful)
"I am about to be killed, tortured, or exiled," he wrote. "And I did nothing."
No, what you did was expose yourself using social media to an authoritarian, abusive government. Realize that or do not.
Re:"I am about to be killed, tortured, or exiled," (Score:5, Insightful)
So the message is "shut up and live a lie in your repressive regime"?
Be careful what you wish for. You might have to do it soon.
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That's BS. You could make that argument about anything that would get him caught. The website did not willing give up the account information- it was stolen.
Re:"I am about to be killed, tortured, or exiled," (Score:5, Insightful)
I ask because many times on here when talking about people stealing songs the argument is always brought up that nothing was actually stolen since the original owner still had the song. Therefore, there was no theft but is instead considered "sharing".
If the above analogy is correct then there's no problem. Nothing was stolen, only shared because information wants to be free. So which story are we going to use today?
You are (deliberately?) conflating theft with copyright infringement. That's your first mistake. By illicitly sharing a copyrighted song you are not stealing from the copyright owner. You would be infringing their legal right to control distribution. If they took you to court for that, you would not be charged with theft (a criminal offense). You would be charged with copyright infringement, which is a civil tort. By calling it "stealing" (a tactic designed to make it sound worse than it is) you are actually contradicting the very laws that created copyright in the first place!
The data copied from the AM breach is not part of a copyright dispute. The people affected did not have a copyright infringed. The people affected had their privacy infringed. They were not intent on selling copies of that data for money. They were intent on keeping that data secret.
See, just because both issues involve the loss of control of some data, does not mean they're the exact same thing. This, again, is you conflating two separate issues in order to make a point that isn't valid. If you are passionate about copyright issues that's great, but it's obviously clouding your judgment and causing you to be the guy who has only a hammer and thinks therefore everything must be a nail.
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"I am about to be killed, tortured, or exiled," he wrote. "And I did nothing."
No, what you did was expose yourself using social media to an authoritarian, abusive government. Realize that or do not.
Don't worry. If he took realistic achievable steps to protect himself, I'm sure a cacophany of narrow-minded Slashdotters -- with no knowledge of history and no understanding of the kind of people who like to run things -- would howl at him for being a tin-foil hatter.
Re:"I am about to be killed, tortured, or exiled," (Score:5, Insightful)
That's my main problem with this, I get that this data breach is a violation of people's privacy, but if someone is killed for doing nothing, it's the fault of the person who killed them, not some hacker. If we blame the hackers, we're reducing every other participant to some sort of deterministic machine, with no mind of its own. That's not what they are; a killer (a person, or a government) can choose not to kill someone for being gay, and if they choose to kill, it's entirely on their hands, and they are responsible for their actions. They don't get to claim that some hacker fed them information and they somehow completely lost control of themselves.
Re:"I am about to be killed, tortured, or exiled," (Score:4, Interesting)
No, I'm saying everyone is responsible for their actions. The people who snitched are responsible for snitching, the people who killed are responsible for killing. If you put it all on the snitches, you're making the nazis as machines, like they don't make their own choices. Turning someone in to the gestapo is not the same as pushing someone in front of a train. The train is a machine, it obeys the laws of movement, it can't stop, so the blame is with whoever pushed the person. Someone who kills someone else for being gay or cheating on their spouse is not a machine, is a person that can make choices, and is responsible for the consequences of those choices.
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"And I did nothing
That is the problem, right there. You're expecting different results by doing nothing.
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Care to gauge the relative risk of using a website vs trying to date without one in Saudi Arabia? I have no idea, and I bet you don't either.
Re:"I am about to be killed, tortured, or exiled," (Score:5, Informative)
Actually he didn't. When he was in the US he used the site and now he is back in Saudi Arabia where he doesn't use the site. But he is afraid that what he did in the US will be exposed and will be punished for it in Saudi Arabia.
When you define anything as "cheating"... (Score:4, Insightful)
When you define any extramarital intimacy as "cheating", you've already cut off the debate paths that the victims from the summary illustrate. Not, mind you, that AM's marketing did much to discourage that definition.
But, hey, enjoy your puritanical two-minute hate, and don't worry about collateral damage.
(Posting as AC, even though I've never gone near the site, because I'm stuck with this country's puritanical environment and the consequences it imposes for even talking about ethical decisions that don't fit the standard mold. And, yeah, I guess I'm a bit of a coward.)
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This is slashdot. We will lynch you for saying you were, but forgetting to post as AC, and not care about your ethics. You must be new here.
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This is slashdot. We will lynch you for saying you were, but forgetting to post as AC, and not care about your ethics. You must be new here.
Hey now, I haven't made that mistake in a long time. And even when I did, I didn't brag about posting AC but forgetting to check the stupid box.
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ACs used to have class.
Was that during the GNAA years, or during the slashfic years?
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this country's puritanical environment
Yeah, people in Canada and Saudi Arabia are so judgmental. I'm glad I live in the US where we can have these discussions!
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When you define any extramarital intimacy as "cheating"
"This isn't a spade. It's a hand-held dirt shifting implement."
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If consenting adults want to have physical intimacy with someone who isn't their spouse, and everyone involved (spouse included) is okay with it, then it isn't cheating.
And the other person that the spouse is involved with? What do you call what they're doing? Or is everyone on A-M there with the permission of their SOs?
not everyone is that insecure in themselves or their partner
Oh, I see. Those of us who expect our partners to not be fucking some random stranger on the side are just not as civilized.
Re:When you define anything as "cheating"... (Score:5, Funny)
(Posting as AC, even though I've never gone near the site, because I'm stuck with this country's puritanical environment and the consequences it imposes for even talking about ethical decisions that don't fit the standard mold. And, yeah, I guess I'm a bit of a coward.)
Replying as AC, to tell you that you forgot to mark the "Post Anonymously" checkbox, even though I've never posted AC before, because I'm stuck with this site's puritanical environment and the consequences it imposes for even talking about posting as AC and not using the preview button.
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I bet you guys are just the same AC having an argument with yourself.
Non-Original AC here!
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Cheating is a lot more common than many realise [washingtonpost.com]. Maybe it's about time to open up the conversation on why we find one physical activity with another person to be taboo, but not another (like say tennis).
In a 1991 study, sex researcher Shere Hite found that 70 percent of married women have cheated on their partners; a 1993 follow-up study found that 72 percent of married men have as well. According to a 2004 University of Chicago study, 25 percent of married men have had at least one extramarital affair.
Re:When you define anything as "cheating"... (Score:4, Insightful)
Here let me fix that for you:
In a 1991 study, sex researcher Shere Hite found that 70 percent of married women WHO RESPONDED TO THE SURVEY have cheated on their partners; a 1993 follow-up study found that 72 percent of married men have as well. According to a 2004 University of Chicago study, 25 percent of married men WHO RESPONDED TO THE SURVEY have had at least one extramarital affair.
just remember that most people hang up the phone when it's a survey, those who bother to answer are usually pretty biased one way or the other
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Maybe so, but if that's the case then we may as well throw out phone surveys as a valid method of research entirely, and I don't think anyone's suggesting that.
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Maybe so, but if that's the case then we may as well throw out phone surveys as a valid method of research entirely, and I don't think anyone's suggesting that.
really?
http://www.people-press.org/2012/05/15/assessing-the-representativeness-of-public-opinion-surveys/
It has become increasingly difficult to contact potential respondents and to persuade them to participate. The percentage of households in a sample that are successfully interviewed – the response rate – has fallen dramatically. At Pew Research, the response rate of a typical telephone survey was 36% in 1997 and is just 9% today.
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/hang_ups.htm
This very low response rate prompted a hard look at where we lost potential respondents in the survey process.
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Okay well again that's one perspective. The point I'm making is that I see no reason why we should attach special emotional value to sex in this age of contraceptives. I mean I can be friends with whoever but stick a dick into the mix and suddenly there's this whole cultural framework that swings into action, expectations and semi-elaborated rituals.
Maybe we all need to grow up and act like adults.
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country's puritanical environment and the consequences it imposes for even talking about ethical decisions that don't fit the standard mold
1) If your spouse says you can have an affair (in general) you're okay, not subject to this problem
2) If your spouse says you cannot have an affair, or else you're in trouble, you're in trouble, and not subject to this problem
The problem is, you've ascribed to society social norms things that are social norms. If you don't want social norms to be social norms, then please be kind to your worker when he shows up in a furry outfit, in an open expression of furry love.
In other words, social norms allow for nom
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When you define any extramarital intimacy as "cheating"
It is cheating no matter what.
So when I talk to my relatives about my childhood experiences (that's pretty intimate) and I don't mention them in the same detail to my wife, this is cheating?
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ANY extramarital intimacy? Really? It's cheating when my wife talks to her brother about their childhood experiences?
Re:When you define anything as "cheating"... (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, some of us do. For instance, those of us who try to follow Christ also, by definition, try to give at least some consideration to how Jesus defined it:
"27 You have heard that it was said to those of old,[c] 'You shall not commit adultery.' 28 But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
(Matt. 5:27-28, NKJV)
The lesson: Big sins usually start off as small ones. Don't lust after other women, don't think about cheating, don't put yourself in the position where you might, don't neglect your marriage to the point where you feel you need to, and chances are pretty good that you won't.
We also try to remember that if God has forgiven us our sins against Him, then we also ought to be willing to forgive those who sin against us. Most marriages can be saved if both partners are willing to save it, and, sometimes, even if one of them is not.
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those of us who try to follow Christ
Don't lust after other women, don't think about cheating, don't put yourself in the position where you might, don't neglect your marriage to the point where you feel you need to, and chances are pretty good that you won't.
When christ said to mind the log in your own eye, before looking at the mote in others, clearly you were not paying attention.
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those of us who try to follow Christ
Don't lust after other women, don't think about cheating, don't put yourself in the position where you might, don't neglect your marriage to the point where you feel you need to, and chances are pretty good that you won't.
When christ said to mind the log in your own eye, before looking at the mote in others, clearly you were not paying attention.
Perhaps you could clarify. I don't quite follow. What is the log and what is the mote in parent's statements?
Personally, I am always amused when Christians (and I am one) try to enforce their morals on others. The Bible clearly indicates it won't work.
No "morally acceptable" sites? (Score:5, Insightful)
While I believe that there might be some people who had no "morally" dubious intents, I fail to see why anyone with a traditional moral compass would sign up for this website.
Even if you are not married and simply looking for a one nighter, you are still signing up to site where married people are looking for an affair. It is right on their main landing page: "Life is too short, Have an affair". While it sucks for them, I feel it difficult to feel pity for them when signing up to a website which main intend is to make is to make it easy for people to cheat.
The other people could have simply signed up for a different website where the main intent is not cheating. It seems there would be plenty, and none of them are getting hacked
Re: (Score:2)
While I believe that there might be some people who had no "morally" dubious intents, I fail to see why anyone with a traditional moral compass would sign up for this website
Exactly, this is like calling on terrorists to clean out the vermin in your attic and then wondering why the authorities are so upset with you.
Re:No "morally acceptable" sites? (Score:4, Insightful)
I fail to see why anyone with a traditional moral compass would sign up for this website.
A single person looking to meet whoever they can, maybe they're only in town for a few nights and don't expect any interaction after that.
Ooooh, wait, I see what you did there. "A traditional moral compass", as in your moral compass. "Why would anyone who's great like me do this?" Yeah, ok champ, why indeed?
Re: (Score:3)
Those worried about being exposed, frankly, should be. Data security arguments aside.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, so they're looking to have sex with a married person, without the knowledge or consent of the married person's spouse. This was not a website for swingers, who know what their partners are up to, and are usually participating at the same time.
Screwing someone else's spouse behind their back is necessarily deceitful.
Poor choice of service? (Score:5, Insightful)
" one user who commented on the article said she's been "a long term member" of the site because her spouse's medical condition has affected their intimate life. Her spouse knows she's engaged with other Ashley Madison members, she says, but now fears she will likely lose friends and have to find a new job now that her association with the site is out there."
At the end of the day these people signed up for a site whose primary market is marital infidelity. I feel a bit sorry for the woman referenced above, but I also have to wonder if the partners of the people she's "engaged with" on AM were as accepting as her husband was. I kind of doubt it.
There are a lot of other sites out there that don't specifically target cheating that she could have used instead. By choosing to have her hookups through that site she was pretty much guaranteeing that she was actively screwing around with someone else's relationship.
Reward (Score:2)
It would be hard to collect the reward when they're bankrupt.
Put their CEO in prison (Score:5, Insightful)
People paid him to have their personal info deleted. He took their money but did not delete anything. Put him in prison for fraud.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Toronto police are reporting that 2 unconfirmed suicides have been linked to the data breach.
so, basically corollary conjecture pertaining to sets of potential outcomes of a data breech. Dont get me wrong, as a homosexual I'm not at all condoning the death of a person for their sexuality. I think puritanical elation is at best inappropriate as a response to the incident. But frankly Ashley Madisons catchphrase was 'lifes short, have an affair.' As a saudi national, someone is unfortunately about to find out exactly how short that life can really be. Standard issue infidelity aside there are numerous gay dating sites you could have chosen. numerous potential outlets for gay, straight, questioning, bisexual, whatever your heart desires. But selecting Ashley Madison shows a puerile approach to interpersonal relationship as well as sexual orientation in general. Homosexuality is not the same as a casual extramarital affair.
When I first came across the ad of the website (when they were in their blanket advertising phase), the slogan stuck me as clever and humorous. It never stuck me as foul or evil.
However, their main logo has a woman with a finger on her lips, evoking discretion. Perhaps people signed up with this website because it feels so hush hush and secretive, exactly what a Saudi gay man would want.
But, I don't know how they got millions of people to sign up for the website. It shows up next to foot-long penis ads
Scott McNealy said it best... (Score:5, Interesting)
When he was CEO of SUN, Scott was once quoted as saying "You already have no privacy. Get over it."
Personal Responsibility? (Score:5, Interesting)
Forgive me for being the odd duck out here, but what ever happened to "Personal Responsibility"? I, too, think it's wrong for the hackers to release that information. It sounds like a despicable act of misguided morality to me, but that's irrelevant.
These people took their own lives, the external stressers don't really matter; they CHOSE to commit suicide. Maybe if signing up and using that site was such an emotional risk for them, they shouldn't have done it?
Re: (Score:3)
TL;DR: Why believe in psychology when you can substitute your own made up shit for science?
It's not puritanical (Score:2)
And when The Intercept published a piece condemning the puritanical glee over the data dump...
It's not puritanical to value honesty. I have plenty of polyamorous friends who have multiple partners, but even in that scenario it is still important to be honest with the people you are intimate with.
Yes it's bad that a few "innocent" people are being caught up in this, but the site is *for* being dishonest with your partner(s).
When will people learn (Score:4, Insightful)
The real question here is why people continue to think of the internet, "the web", and the myriad of online services as secure. I'm not apologizing for what those who have compromised these accounts have done, but really, at this point everyone should know nothing that is done online is secure. There have been too many compromises.
Who has inspired this trust?
Why do millions continue to put faith in something that proves over and over again to be untrustworthy?
That is the real question.
Statistics without control group? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, this is quite unfortunate. However: given a random selection of 30 million individuals, at what rate would suicides be observed? Make sure you know the answer to this question before jumping to conclusions.
Re: (Score:3)
I did some basic stats on this.
There are in Canada about 11 suicides per 100,000 people per year. The Ashley Madison list contains 33 million names. So, on an average year with 33 million random people there are over 3,600 suicides, equating to 10 per day (based on Canadian stats)
So these 2 are well within normal expected rates of suicide for this size of a group. Unless I've bollocked up my stats somewhere in which case please tell me.
Adultery should be exposed (Score:3, Informative)
Ashley Madison Data Dump
http://themobilebay.org/torren... [themobilebay.org]
Don't expect to betray spouses and remain anonymous
And this is exactly why... (Score:5, Interesting)
Social media is for fools. It's not just Ashley Madison. It's Facebook too. It is just amazing to me how people will pony up so much personal information and entrust other people to "manage" it.
How long is it going to be before someone hacks into Facebook and steals millions of user account details? Email addresses, phone numbers (in some cases), family photos, where you work (in some cases), all your friends (in some cases), you name it.
Buyer beware.
Re: (Score:3)
I highly doubt it. Republicans are in the front line of the worst offenders against anything you might consider "decent" while at the same time also being the only ones who give a fuck about someone "important" shagging someone outside of marriage.
I don't really get it. Is it some kind of whipping boy stunt? By punishing someone else I am punishing myself for doing the dirty but I don't wanna stop?
Re: (Score:2)
Funny. I have the same feelings for the religious.
Re: (Score:2)
Not really funny at all.
Re: (Score:3)
And we shall be more compassionate towards jerk bigots until there is a cure for their sickness.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Puritans are scum (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not puritanism. This is looking down on people who make commitments they don't keep. There exists a way for a married person to declare that they no longer intend to maintain fidelity, it's called divorce. There is also swinging for couples that mutually choose that. AM is instead dedicated to people who vowed fidelity and unilaterally choose not to honor that vow.
Trust is basic to civilisation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, I offered two alternatives. One that many puritans wouldn't find acceptable either and one that would make a puritan's head explode.
There may well be a gray area somewhere in fidelity, but having an affair is sufficiently distant from fidelity that it will be well past that region.
Re: (Score:2)
Puritans are just a subset of SJW.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
100% of the worlds pain and misery come from these people who find glee in forcing their beliefs on others.
Never had a broken heart? Probably never been loved either. Most "puritanical" views really aren't puritanical, they're common sense. If you love someone, you don't hurt them by cheating behind their back. AM is for cowards. Pure and simple.
Re: (Score:2)
So then I assume you missed the part where the hackers basically said "we're in 'yer interrubes, we've got 'yer stuff .. close down 'yer immoralz or we're gonna release teh customer info".
This was either someone trying to force their beliefs on someone, or a disgruntled employee who decided to be an asshole and punish the si
Re:Lets all attack the victim of the hack. (Score:4, Insightful)
Look, if you cheat on your wife, that's NOT OUR BUSINESS.
You don't get the right to vilify and laugh and insult someone because they betrayed someone else.
Why do you think everyone has a right to cheat on their spouses, but nobody has the right to the free speech of criticizing that behavior?
Yes, blame the victim because they violated our society's moral code, rather than an actual law.
Worst of all, I have never seen a case where someone cheated on a virtuous spouse. Every single case of cheating I have ever heard of or seen among my friends was one shallow shmuck marrying a clear and obvious player and then getting upset that the player played.
My sister married her law professor - after he divorced his 2nd wife (yes, she slept with him before he was divorced). Surprise surprise, he cheated on her also. What happened to her is pretty much exactly like what happens most of the time.
Why do others not to get to blame the victim, but you do when you think they deserved it?