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Affair Site Hackers Threaten Release of All User Data Unless It Closes
heretic108 writes: According to KrebsOnSecurity, the infamous Ashley Madison affairs hookup website has been hacked by a group calling itself The Impact Team. This group is demanding the immediate and permanent shutdown of Ashley Madison, as well as similar sites Cougar Life and Established Man, owned by the same company: Avid Life Media. If the sites aren't shut down, the hackers are threatening to publicly release personal data for 37 million users. ALM has confirmed that a hack took place, and the hackers posted snippets of account data, as well as bank and salary information from the company itself.
when I signed for ashleymadison.com
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapenos. What you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.
I get the feeling most of the profiles are fake anyway to pull in gullible males. Never give in to blackmail.
The first thing that came to mind when I heard of this site is "This is a prime target for a hacking/blackmail scheme." The only surprise here is that it didn't happen sooner.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Now I'll get my listing circulated without paying a renewal fee!
Perhaps so; but We, the Righteous, will hack them all and show our moral superiority!
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"shut down your predatory sites or we will forcibly liberate 37 million victims of either abusive, dead end, loveless, or empty relationships and leave them to reconcile the adult responsibilities of integrity, trust, and honesty while potentially fostering an atmosphere of open discourse on the nature of marriage, divorce, alimony, custody, and child support."
Good people go to bed earlier.
Full disclosure: I'm not defending this company for what it does.
For those of you who were tired of the old criminal justice system, be careful what you wish for. To these hackers and many other people, the fact that this company is not illegal in the eyes of the old criminal justice system is irrelevant. To these hackers, it is amoral. These hackers have decided unilaterally what morality is, who is guilty, and how punishment will be executed. Publicly destroying people and businesses that somehow offend somebody else is now the new normal. The old system of justice won't protect you anymore because even if the old system catches these hackers, the damage will be done and can't be undone.
I would actually be interested to know what the logic is here: the hacker clearly doesn't like AM, or they wouldn't be spoiling their rumored-IPO quite this enthusiastically, they also don't like the users they are threatening to expose; but they also appear to be really bent out of shape about AM's allegedly-dishonest-and-exploitative 'pay to purge the embarrassing traces' feature.
Anger about that feature would seem to be something more likely in some portion of the users, or among people who identify with the interests of the users; but this interested party displays only contempt for them; rather than viewing AM's attempt to squeeze them as an amusing and justified punishment.
We obviously have no particular reason to trust their statement; but we do have to expect that they have a reason worth the legal exposure for doing this(especially since the dataset they are talking about would probably be worth a decent sum for sale to others looking for really juicy spearphishing targets ) rather than not attempting the hack at all or hacking but then staying quiet about it. My guess would be that it is more about attacking the site operator than about the users specifically; it is pretty common for at least a person or two to end up suitably embittered during the course of business.
There ought to be some societal reward for all of us married folk who take our vows seriously, even if that reward comes in the form of a Nelson laugh at the cheaters' expense.
HA ha /Nelson
It costs $15 and their data doesn't even get deleted...a scam that has netted $1.7M for ALM
I'd hazard a guess that one of the hackers on the team was mad that his wife had an affair using the site, so he got his hacking buddies together to take revenge.
I'd hazard a guess that this is a disgruntled insider, based in part on the fact that they claimed knowledge of internal practices (charging for profile deletion, but then retaining the information anyway). It's certainly possible someone could find that out through other means (having paid to have it deleted, then having it found anyway), but insider access explains a lot of things.
I know! I hate everything the website in question stands for and I find the idea of breaking the law to shut them down reprehensible. How to choose sides?
You apparently never played D&D. "Alignment" in D&D is actually a fairly ingenious way of looking at belief systems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
This site was Lawful Evil.
The hackers were Chaotic Good. (well I guess we don't really know do we?)
You're apparently Lawful Good, so you're conflicted. The site breaks the "Good" part of your personality, but the hackers break the "Lawful" part.
I'm probably Chaotic good... So this seems legit to me.
It's simple. Living with someone exposes their flaws. It's hard to see the flaws in people you don't live with. Less flaws = more attractive.
But the fact of the matter is, you should live up to your obligations. Sometimes you make bad choices in life... sometimes they are so bad that it affects the rest of your life... you end up missing an arm, or in prison, or married to a drunk. You've got to live with your choices, and do your best improve the situation. But lies, and dishonesty are not the way. Don't like your wife? Go to counseling, work it out with her... if all else fails, be honest with her and get a divorce, then start dating.
What exactly is the person that's visiting a site like this doing? It's pure, 100% evil. There is nothing good that comes of cheating. You're exposing your wife and children to all sorts of danger and instability. STDs, scorned women... God only knows. You're further harming your marriage with distrust and dishonesty. Infidelity is the ultimate selfish act, and it's at the expense of the people that are the closest to you. There are few other acts that even remotely compare in their depravity, and self interest.
It's not the cheating... it's the lying... and why you're lying. You're causing your spouse ultimate pain, for basically nothing. And you could avoid all of that with a few months of heart ache and once court appearance.
Heard on NPR this morning that they think it's an inside job, and has all the hallmarks of it being so.
Apparently someone got tired of the all unethical behavior. Something about an account being free to create, but $20 to delete (and then not really being removed, or something like that)
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...