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

In other news

[Korbeau]

Ashley Madison rebrands itself as "Cheating Liar" dot com, reality show on the way.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Except AM specifically did NOT so as to help avoid leaving a trail.

One of my friends is on this list because I created his account for him as a prank.

Sanctimonius pricks

[DNS-and-BIND]

From Ashley Madison's official email on the hack:

It is an illegal action against the individual members of AshleyMadison.com, as well as any freethinking people who choose to engage in fully lawful online activities. The criminal, or criminals, involved in this act have appointed themselves as the moral judge, juror, and executioner, seeing fit to impose a personal notion of virtue on all of society. We will not sit idly by and allow these thieves to force their personal ideology on citizens around the world.

Anyone detect a massive case of projection here? "Freethinking people"? As in, people who think freely and disagree with Ashley Madison's position? Why is it always "freethinkers" are on the despicable side of things? You'd think that actual free thinking would mean that you were free to think whatever you wanted instead of being required to arrive at a pre-arranged conclusion - one that Ashley Madison arrived at. "Forcing their ideology"? WTF is that all about? Sounds to me like they can't handle the fact that the world is a big place and there might be people out there who disagree with them. Shocking, eh?

Sanctimonious: making a show of being morally superior to other people.

Re:More social decay.

[cbhacking]

I wonder how long it's going to take before polyamory and related "ethical non-monogamy" concepts become as accepted in society as, say, anal hetero sex or lesbian sex (neither of which are universally accepted, but at least they aren't seen as completely bizarre anymore). The ideas aren't new; swinging/wife-swapping (at least in semi-secret) goes back at least a hundred years, there have been multi-partner communes since decades ago, Heinlein wrote of multi-partner families as a social norm in a number of his books... but it's only relatively recently that social norms have come to accept the concept, and it's still viewed askance by many even in those parts of the west coast where it's most common.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

> just full of fake women anyways

One report I read said only 4% of the profiles were from women. I have three good friends that are male that each spent hundreds of hours on that site without ever meeting anyone. It wasn't any better than any other dating site I've seen, and considering I've done several marketing studies on them and worked for one, I know. All of these sites have very few actual women and lots of desperate men. Very, very few of the men ever even get a real response. It's sad how my generation of women just aren't interested in men. I'm not, but it seems like more should be.