Hackers Publish Cheating Site's Stolen Data

pdclarry notes that many news outlets are reporting that 9.7 GB of data stolen from cheating website AshleyMadison.com has been published online. "The dump contains files with titles including 'aminno_member_dump.gz,' 'aminno_member_email.dump.gz,' 'CreditCardTransactions7z,' and 'member_details.dump.gz,' an indication that the download could contain highly personal details." Brian Krebs questioned the way this has been reported without confirmation, but added that he's been contacted by several people who found their own accurate details within the data dump. Many of the reports note this detail: "Assuming the download turns out to be authentic, people should remember that it was possible for anyone to create an account using the name and e-mail address of other individuals."

Comments

... using the name and e-mail address of other ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Usually all sites will send a confirmation email and only enable the account if a confirmation link or code from that email is used.

So i guess it's a bit hard to "create an account using the ... e-mail address of other individuals"

Yeah, right.

[Zontar The Mindless]

Assuming the download turns out to be authentic, people should remember that it was possible for anyone to create an account using the name and e-mail address of other individuals.

...And supplying other people's credit card details as well, no doubt.

FWIW, I believe that people's sex lives are their own business, married or not. But I find it difficult to drum up any sympathy for marrieds who are foolish enough to go looking for something on the side via a big flashy commercial website dedicated to that purpose.

Internet privacy was over at least a decade ago. There's been plenty of time for you to figure this out.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Zontar The Mindless]

I've always assumed that GMail isn't really private, either.

For most of the last 25 years, I've followed a little rule I learned in my radio days: "Don't say it on the air if you don't want to read about it in the paper." It's yet to be proven wrong.

Re:Yeah, right.

[AmiMoJo]

I see marriage as a partnership between two people. Each gets a lot out of the marriage - stability, a family, a home, security, companionship etc. So refraining from cheating on your partner is just one of the sacrifices you have to make in exchange for that. Sure, you can agree not to be exclusive with each other and maintain the marriage, but going behind your partner's back when you know it will hurt them is not right.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

the heartbreak from cheating is nothing compared to the enduring pain from the death of a loved one

This is one of those generalisations that betrays a close to zero understanding of human emotion. Cheating and unexpected death are both often experienced in similar ways as losses: you had a strong bond with someone that was very important to you, and now suddenly you don't. The loved one has gone, and it's not relevant whether they've gone to the guy/gal the next town over, or six feet under.

the powerful have had mistresses or consorts or even kept harems

They've also waged brutal offensive wars and raped and pillaged. "The powerful" tends to be a fairly vicious standard to look up to - fortunately, most people don't.

there have been entire societies that practiced polygamy at all levels

Polygamy is not about cheating. There is nothing dishonest in everyone agreeing to a particular arrangement, whatever it is. In confounding two separate arguments, you're making polygamy look bad, even when you seem to want to make it look good.

If you think you can truly be your partner's everything, the only one they'll ever need to provide everything they desire, then (statistically speaking) you're delusional.

This is a ridiculous strawman, and you know it.

Cheating may feel inhumane, but it is very, very human.

This statement is vacuous. What does "human" mean here - that it's something humans can and sometimes do do? Then murder is "very, very human". It's certainly not inevitable for even a small minority to cheat. You don't want to be faithful to Bob? Go tell Bob!

Re:Yeah, right.

[readin]

Oh, please. Cheating is bad, but "one of the cruelest and most inhumane things one person can do to another" is at risk of breaking my hyperboleometer.

Let's see you build your life around a commitment and the other person breaks it. From the biological standpoint of a man you forgo all other chances to reproduce on the belief that you're partner will have your child and then you spend a huge portion of your life caring for that child and earning money to support that child. Then you find out it's not your child. You've been tricked into spending your whole existence serving the interests of another man. If you believe the theory of evolution you understand that you have been murdered for eternity.

There are reasons men get jealous and why in most successful societies female infidelity incurs severe punishments, and why rape should also incur severe penalties.

As a wise man once said

[Distan]

"Information wants to be free".

The idea that AshleyMadison (or any other entity) would keep registration information private forever was laughable. My rule of thumb is that if I don't want what I do to be published all over the internet, then don't do it.

Re:As a wise man once said

[TsuruchiBrian]

"Information wants to be free" isn't meant to be taken literally. It's a metaphor for the fact that it is very hard to restrict access to information once a large enough number of people have already have access to it. It only takes one person to leak it, and the odds that no one will leak it goes to nearly 0 pretty quickly.

So yeah, don't create or share any information with anyone unnecessarily if you don't want it leaked. The morality of violating someone's privacy is irrelevant, to the reality of the difficulty of restricting access to information.

And yes, if I actually cared about keeping my medical information secret more than I cared about getting medical treatment, then I wouldn't get the medical treatment. Luckily, no one gives a shit about my medical records. Medical record are like genitals, everyone's got them. The same goes with financial records.

Re: ... using the name and e-mail address of other

[x0ra]

It's not a prank, it's identity theft, either a felony or a misdemeanor.

Re:More social decay.

[vux984]

Why does lifelong monogamy has to be the moral norm ?

Who said it does? Nobody says it has to be your norm. You don't have to get married, lots of people don't. You certainly don't have to stay married, again lost of people don't.

There is nothing particularly immoral about having multiple partners over your life. The immorality is the deception and betrayal of trust. If your going to bang strangers from the internet fine... tell your partner(s) that's what your going to be doing. If they're cool with that great. If they're not, you can leave each other and find a partner(s) that will accept it.

But sneaking around behind their back(s), lying to them, and violating their trust? What's your "moral" argument for doing that?

Re:More social decay.

[The Rizz]

However, lies to strangers and casual acquaintances are a different thing than lies to someone who is supposed to be able to have implicit trust in you. I'm not talking about small lies like "I'm on my way right now" when you'd totally forgotten something, but the big important ones like "I'm swear not fucking the babysitter." It's a sheer betrayal on a personal level - it causes emotional pain and suffering, and is of the type that such relationships almost never recover from.

Re:More social decay.

[Gavagai80]

The average American of course commits 0 felonies a day, but by repeating that lie you're at least providing evidence for the lying part.

Re:... using the name and e-mail address of other

[McGruber]

Arstechnica reports:

For what it's worth, more than 15,000 of the e-mail addresses are hosted by US government and military servers using the .gov and .mil top-level domains.

I wonder how many federal employees will be losing security clearances as a result of this?