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"

More social decay.

[Anonymous Coward]

Faithful is one of life's top priorities. Without trust, you are a decoration at best.

Re:More social decay.

[Anonymous Coward]

Free will is an illusion. Morality is relative and whatever society says it is.

Re:More social decay.

[x0ra]

Why does lifelong monogamy has to be the moral norm ? There is strictly no biological basis to it. At best, monogamy for a period of 5 to 10 years can be justified, in order to raises children. But lifelong ? You got to be kidding...

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.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, this kind of argument is beyond the capacity of most slashdotters.

Re:More social decay.

[TsuruchiBrian]

Why does honesty have to be the moral norm? There is strictly no biological basis to it. At best feigned honesty can be justified in order to trick people into thinking that you can be trusted. But actual honesty? You got to be kidding...

Re:More social decay.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention the possibility of passing STDs to your current partner.

Re: More social decay.

[cartesius]

Prisioner's dilemma

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: More social decay.

[Anonymous Coward]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f6xsDl4aAVE

Re:More social decay.

[x0ra]

Given that the average American commits 3 felony a day, and probably lies exponentially as much... I fail to see your point. Lies are the foundation of social life, might it just be lie by omission. There is no such thing as immaculate honesty, and those who preach it are the first liars.

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.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anal sex is old school ans was accepted in lesser civilisations long ago as a mean to get on with the business without having to worry abou babies since they did not have anything to wrap their dicks into. Also it could be performed to keep the girl as a virgin.

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:More social decay.

[Anonymous Coward]

> There is strictly no biological basis to it

Look again. Thee are plenty of naturally monogamous species, such as beavers. They're just not a majority.

OK, I admit, your mother changes the human average all by herself.....

Re:More social decay.

[Anonymous Coward]

The immorality is the deception and betrayal of trust.

Go back to pol you right wing conservitard evangelical fascist MRA woman hating gamergater. Whine about "immorality" and "degeneracy" somewhere else.

Re:More social decay.

[Anonymous Coward]

Darwin explained it.

Tribes with honesty as moral norm, just had more success than tribes without it.

Re:More social decay.

[Anonymous Coward]

Heheh, struck a nerve there. Think it forgot "anti-abortionist", "NRA" and "inbred redneck" on that rant list.

Re:More social decay.

[Rei]

I find a weird assumption of many of the polyamory folk that most everyone would be polyamorous if not for "societal mores keeping them repressed". Don't get me wrong, I think greater acceptance of polyamorous folk is a good thing, and there probably are some polyamorous people in the closet for some reason or another. But it's simply not true that most people would be polyamorous if "given the chance", as a lot of polyamorous people think, any more than most people would be gay if "given the chance" or whatnot.

Look at human societies throughout history, and not just Judeo-Christian ones. How common is polyamory? I'm not talking about cheating, or leaving one's spouse and finding another, or anything of that nature - I'm talking a group of people who live together, love each other, and all F* together as desired. The reality is, it's been extremely rare. Many societies have normalized "playing the field" - having sex for fun without feelings getting involved - while others frown upon it. But that's not the same as polyamory, which implies a love and bonding relationship between multiple partners.

When feelings get involved, poly situations can get very complicated. "Why is he favoring her???" "Is she no longer interested in me???" "He keeps wanting to spend time with this new girl but I can't stand her". Etc. Don't get me wrong, some people do pull it off - and kudos to them. But let's not pretend that it's for everyone, or even the majority.

I live in a country (Iceland) where there's very little judgement about people for having sex or who they sleep with, in comparison to the US. It's pretty much just expected that if you're an adult, you're F*ing someone, at least one person, possibly multiple, of whatever gender. When our previous prime minister's party was elected, the fact that she's a lesbian was such a big deal that when a call went out for rat's asses, nobody gave one. When she was in office, it only came up in the context of "X country is causing inconveniences for Iceland because they don't like the fact that our PM is gay". Same-sex marriage passed parliament without a single vote in opposition. Reykjavík Pride is one of our country's largest annual festivals, with as much as a third of the population attending. The concept of "dating" without having sex is pretty much an alien concept here. When a couple has been together for a long time, their families generally don't start asking "when are you two going to get married", rather "when are you two going to have kids?" The typical order is meet->sex->get to know each other while having more sex->start dating->kids->optional marriage if you feel like it.

But people from overseas hear this and they misinterpret it, applying their own stereotypes about "how the world would be without holdups about sex" to Iceland. So for example, we get tourists (mainly guys) who come over here and think that this means that any girl he starts talking to in a bar is going to want to F* him. It's really annoying - they don't get the connection that "not being ashamed of sex" doesn't mean "interested in F*ing anyone who says hi". Likewise, polyamory isn't particularly common here. People sleep around aplenty, but if they start getting feelings toward someone, it usually stays toward one person. If things change, the result is usually the same sort of "cheating and/or breakup" situation that you're used to in the states. And people cheating on their spouse - aka, deceiving them - is still very frowned upon, because deceiving a person is a scummy activity no matter what country you're from. There's no shame in divorce here, but cheaters are still rightly seen as scumbags.

Regardless of where you're from: Either be open and honest with the person you're with, or accept that you're a total douchebag.

Re:More social decay.

[Trogre]

Oh, I get it now. You're on a crusade to de-construct the virtues of humanity one by one.

Well, lots of luck to you.

Re:More social decay.

[Rei]

Indeed, animal behavior covers the whole gamut, from sexual free-for-alls to lifelong monogamy without repartnering after death. There've been some interesting studies of cheating behavior in duck species that are mostly monogamous but still sometimes cheat on their partners. It makes for an interesting read because they approach it in a similar manner to humans - waiting for their partner(s) to leave, meeting up, checking around to make sure they don't think they're going to get caught, having the tryst (usually in less time than it would take with their spouse), then hurrying "home" - and if they get caught by their "spouse", it can end their "relationship". But even ducks alone, depending on species, run the gamut from sexual free-for-alls to loyal, lifelong monogamy.

Re:More social decay.

[Sardaukar86]

Sadly, this kind of argument is beyond the capacity of most slashdotters.

Oh piss off. The average intelligence of the /. readers and posting community is not in doubt, especially in comparison to more mainstream discussion forums. Contrary to popular opinion, many nerds are the man or woman of their own family, usually one made with a completely normal game of hide-the-sausage.

In my experience - and despite the 'Aspie' stereotype - nerds are keenly aware of other people's feelings and I often find they hold their own behaviour to a higher standard than most.

Re:More social decay.

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that the average American commits 3 felony a day

I thought it was: "The average American quotes fabricated statistics 3 times a day". You have now two times left for today.

Re:More social decay.

[Anonymous Coward]

I find a weird assumption of many of the polyamory folk that most everyone would be polyamorous if not for "societal mores keeping them repressed".

Yet the amount of monogamous folk personally telling me I'll change my mind if I meet "the right person" I suspect is greater than the number of poly folk trying to convince you the other way around. Since I've started telling people that I'm not the right person they don't try so hard to convince me.

Re: More social decay.

[Anonymous Coward]

That part is not a lie. I think you're unaware of just how low the bar is for a felony these days. It's one of the major problems with our screwed up society.

Re:More social decay.

[LaurenCates]

Eh, I have no problem with polyamory.

I suspect I'm outside the norm in that regard, but not nearly as far as one might suspect.

I had a discussion with a divorced man in his 40's not too long ago. He said that life isn't much like it used to be, where people stuck it out in marriage because there really weren't any better options. Divorce was difficult, living independently was difficult, people were more judgmental of your life choices, people lived shorter lives and didn't change environments, whatever.

It's getting to where most people kind of shrug at the idea that it's okay not to be in "true love forever". You grow, you change, you find you're not the same person you used to be, nor is your partner. And hopefully, you're not hanging out with the same people forever and ever.

All that having been said: most people don't give the idea of polyamory a little more than a seconds' thought for the same reason I don't: Who has the fucking time?

Seriously, unless you have Dan Savage's podcast on continual stream, you get the idea that most people aren't that preoccupied with the idea of sex or relationships all the time, and have other things that they want to do. And most of the time, being predominantly occupied in romantic relationships aren't conducive to getting those other things done.

Nor do most people really want to go through the idea of "maintenance" (weight loss, working out, updating wardrobe, etc.) to actively seek out a new partner. Hell, I think a lot of unhappy people stay married because they don't want to do the amount of work it takes to not have to be single again.

Really, I think more people than you'd suspect would be at least okay with polyamory, outside of ideological puritans (and even then, ha ha).

Re:More social decay.

[Anonymous Coward]

TL;DR: Iceland doesn't have a lot of conservative Christians.

Re:More social decay.

[AmiMoJo]

It will require changes in the law, because the current system is set up for two person relationships. Adapting to homosexual relationships was relatively easy, and often included recognition of non-married couples as well. In most of Europe if you live with someone for a long time, have kids together and generally act like you are married then when you break up the courts will treat it more or less like a divorce.

Dealing with polygamy is more tricky. For example, infidelity is grounds for divorce, but without detailed documentation cheaters will be claiming that they were in a polygamous relationship and that their partner is now just looking for an excuse to take half their stuff. Currently courts are unlikely to recognize polygamous pre-nups and the like...

What I'm getting at is gay people could just live together as if married and the law had little to say about it, but it's going to be harder for polygamous groups because the law actually makes what they want to do difficult.

One thing is for sure, lawyers will be making plenty of money.

Re:More social decay.

[drinkypoo]

I find a weird assumption of many of the polyamory folk that most everyone would be polyamorous if not for "societal mores keeping them repressed".

I find the opposite assumption to be completely bizarre. That's how basically our whole society works. You get forced into a lifestyle because if you don't at least appear to live it then your whole life gets shit upon continually by jealous fucks in a position to make it harder.

Re:More social decay.

[dcw3]

I clearly was raised in the wrong country. No wonder my wife doesn't want to go on that Iceland vacation I suggested.

Re:More social decay.

[Rei]

Where you live, but not where I live. People here really don't care who you're F*ing. Honestly. Yet polyamory still isn't common.

Re:More social decay.

[drinkypoo]

Where you live, but not where I live. People here really don't care who you're F*ing. Honestly. Yet polyamory still isn't common.

I don't believe you. People everywhere care who you're fucking. Sometimes, though, they're just politely interested or curious.

Re:More social decay.

[houghi]

I assume that ReykjavÃk Pride is the Gay Pride Parade where people celebrate that they like people of the same gender.
How much larger is it compare to the Hetero Pride Parade, where people celebrate their fondness of the opposite gender?

Re: More social decay.

[Anonymous Coward]

lesser civilisations

'nuff said.

Re:More social decay.

[wvmarle]

You don't have to have a problem with polyamory, and GP also doesn't seem to have any. It just doesn't happen much. People tend to life in couples. That may be a heterosexual or homosexual couple, but a couple it almost always is. It's extremely rare to see more than two people within a single relationship, even in homosexual relationships it's normally just two people. Sure, polygamy and polyandry happen but it's really rare, and then usually only in certain religious cults (no idea what they do with all those surplus men for whom there is no wife available) or when there's a shortage of men after some devastating war or so.

Re:More social decay.

[LaurenCates]

I would argue that polyamory is the domain of only those things, like you say.

There are dating sites for this sort of thing. Craigslist even makes the accommodations for this sort of thing.

Personally, I think people just want things that are simple, and are often too selfish for their own good ("You are mine and nobody else's forever and ever..."; and then we wonder why people cheat).

Re:More social decay.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what happens when governments get and stay involved with religion. Marriage is a religious sacrament and governments should have nothing to do with it. The division of property and other issues can be handled by legal agreements.

Re:More social decay.

[afeeney]

It seems quite possible that polyamory/monoamory are part of human biological sexual orientation as well as part of culture. If so, oxytocin would play a strong part, probably also with factors that drive extinction of a response to a stimulus, estrogen, testosterone, etc..

Re:More social decay.

[wvmarle]

The listings that I have seen are usually a couple that's looking for a playmate (or two) to have sex with, not looking for an extra person to have a lasting romantic relationship with.

Re:More social decay.

[DNS-and-BIND]

I love how your culture is so superior and open-minded and you can't even bring yourself to say the word "fuck".

It's not to save the feelings of everyone else on this site, either, because we fucking say fuck all the fucking time.

Re:More social decay.

[Anonymous Coward]

Going to a Pride festival hasn't really been about being gay for a long time. It's about demonstrating that you support equality for those of all sexualities I suppose, but mostly it's just a big party and as far as I can figure it out straight people started going because it was a big and *good* party.

I don't know of any hetero festivals, but assuming they're the opposite of a Pride festival it sounds like they would be celebrating people's intolerance of anything except (probably monogamous, because intolerant people seem to like monogamy) heterosexuality. Perhaps Russia holds one.

Re:More social decay.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dealing with polygamy is more tricky. For example, infidelity is grounds for divorce, but without detailed documentation cheaters will be claiming that they were in a polygamous relationship and that their partner is now just looking for an excuse to take half their stuff.

Doesn't seem to be that tricky a problem. Either you start off marrying normally and then add members to the marriage, or you start straight off with a polygamous relationship. Either way, the marriage certificate would record the name of everyone in the marriage just like a marriage certificate does today (records the names of both parties). Sex with anyone listed on the certificate would not count as adultery; sex with anyone not on the certificate would count as adultery. It is a more interesting problem to consider what happens with polygamous divorces as there are a range of possibilities: the entire group wants to divorce one member; the group wants to split into two subgroups (in which case not all members of the group will necessarily agree on what the subgroups should be). I suspect the easiest solution would be that any poly divorce divorces the entire poly marriage and assets are presumed divided equally; any subgroup wishing to remain together would then have to remarry.

Re:More social decay.

[painandgreed]

Why does lifelong monogamy has to be the moral norm ?

Probably because it's the easiest, emotionally and due to resources like time. Ever tried to balance two relationships at the same time? Even when everything is above board and they know about each other, there are a multitude of scheduling issues. Emergencies and times of need can happen at anytime and balancing everything makes for a lot of overhead if not stress. Then, if things are beyond the friends with benefits stage, then they are pretty much going to have to interact with together. If you're lucky, they're going to get along great and conspire against you all the time (usually in a good way), and if not, then you have to manage to people who are constantly at odds. Add another other people and it just increases the complexity that much more.

Re:More social decay.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you double your women, you only double your problems.

Re:More social decay.

[snowsmann]

Regardless of where you're from: Either be open and honest with the person you're with, or accept that you're a total douchebag.

This. My partner and I are in an open relationship where we see other people. The only thing that has made what we do OK is the fact that we are very open and honest to each other about everything. In fact, the only real "rule" we have is to be honest with each other. There is nothing worse than sneaking around and lying to the person you are supposed to be the closest with.

Wrt why people get into poly-amorous* relationships in the first place, there are many reasons for different people. In our case I tend to want a full on relationship with the others and my partner tends to simply want more varied physically sexual experiences. It's all OK because we don't lie to each other.

*or poly-whatever, not big on putting labels on things like this.

Re:More social decay.

[Rei]

I've spent time on enough websites that get mad at people for writing the word fuck that it's just easier to abbreviate it.

Re: More social decay.

[avatar avatar]

"Life long" was probably a lot more reasonable back when marriage was devised and most folks died by 40. And that's my gripe with their slogan. It should be "Life is LONG. Have an affair." Were life so short, it wouldn't be so much of an issue.

Re:More social decay.

[Anonymous Coward]

Shhhh. He might get upset to know his lack of moral integrity isn't justified by his delusions. No telling what he might do after that.

Re:More social decay.

[x0ra]

I define my own ethic, other's morality doesn't apply to me.

Re:More social decay.

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting take on things, especially societal acceptance of child-bearing outside of marriage. As an American, its still somewhat frowned upon (certainly more so in certain circles) but is quickly gaining more acceptance.

The primary concern here is that there aren't the same social safety nets in place to assist single parents (or married parents, for that matter) that you might find in most other countries, particularly those in Northern Europe. Its difficult enough to raise a child without paid mat/pat leave, state sponsored daycare, and other types of assistance even if you're married. I'd say the predominant reaction to hearing about a single (by choice) parent isn't "Ugh, thats wrong!" but rather, "Ugh, that sounds tough!".

Re:More social decay.

[TsuruchiBrian]

I never said we need to have a 100% honest society. There is a difference between lying to preserve social harmony (i.e. "you look good", "No I never got you email", etc), and lying about an extramarital affair.

Of the countless different moral systems people have, I have never seen one that doesn't require some degree of honesty.

If you are advocating a moral system that has no requirement for honesty at all, I feel like you are just advocating that we shouldn't have any moral system at all.

Re:More social decay.

[TsuruchiBrian]

That's fine. What is immoral in your ethical system?

Re:More social decay.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your fucking abbreviation of the word fuck fucking offends me. You fuck.

Re:More social decay.

[WSOGMM]

Now now, yall have the right to judge cheaters just as much as cheaters have the right to cheat. But those 'vigilante' privacy-hating folks have the right to steal private information just as much as anarchists have the right to kill.

Re:More social decay.

[cbhacking]

While the precise way the term "polyamory" is used varies from one person to another, it's frequently used as a shorthand for "ethical non-monogamy" or similar. Swinging or bringing in temporary outside partners are very much forms of ethical non-monogamy and involve a person being amorous with more than one person at a time. I'd say the term fits.

You seem to have a fairly narrow view of polyamory, where if it's not full inclusion of everybody with everybody it doesn't count. That's absolutely a type of polyamory, but it's by no means the only one. In fact, I think it's relatively rare; most people that I know in poly relationships (warning: anecdote; warning: sampling bias) are at least open to the idea of either themselves or their partner(s) having a fling, without some or any of the other partner(s), without it being expected to become a long-term thing. Often (though not always) there's an expectation that the partners will meet the newcomer before things go past a certain point, and there are of course rules in place for things like STI safety, but real-world poly relationships are often just like normal pairwise relationships, except you're allowed to be in more than one at a time.

Sometimes they even form chains of considerable length. I have never met my girlfriend's (other) boyfriend's best-friend-and-fuck-buddy's girlfriend... and while it would be fun to do so at some point, it's no big deal to me. I'm not interested in my girlfriend's boyfriend as anything other than a friend, either, and to even call him that is stretching things a bit at this point as we've only met a handful of times.

Re:More social decay.

[cbhacking]

"I'm talking a group of people who live together, love each other, and all F* together as desired."
That's an extremely narrow class of polyamory. The term, as the communities I'm a part of use it, encompasses pretty much all forms of non-exclusive or more-than-pairwise relationships. There's some discussion over whether it applies to people who, alone or along with their regular partners, engage in casual sex outside of their relationship(s), though most people seem to count that too. Any form of "polycule" certainly counts, even though there may not be a single cycle within the relationship graph and there might not be any subgroup larger than two who live together. A man (such as a king or other important/powerful person) who has a harem of voluntary, non-coerced and non-captive members (OK, that may be idealizing things a bit) would count as poly, even if none of the women have other lovers themselves.

With that said... I don't really know how common it's been. The powerful have often had it, including in decidedly non-Judeo-Christian societies, but the powerful have always operated outside of social norms - it's one of the appeals of power, after all - but the more interesting question is how often everyday people have had it.

One thing to bear in mind, though, is that hetero sex used to near-unavoidably mean children, and children of uncertain parentage were a cause of inheritance nightmares (and by "nightmares" I mean anything from simple resent and abuse to full-scale civil wars). The institution of marriage grew out of a need to formalize inheritance by stating that the children of this woman were the inheritors of this man (and if the woman was caught doing something that could lead to bearing another man's child, she was trying to defraud her husband and thus adultery was a crime). Modern advances - like paternity tests, child support, birth control, and women owning property independent of their father or husband - have made this ancient system irrelevant, but it was the way an awful lot of the world worked for a really long time. In such a society, polyamorous relationships of any form *other* than multiple women exclusively with one man is obviously not acceptable.

Re:More social decay.

[cbhacking]

Oh, bullshit. I realize you're probably just a troll, but whatever. Marriage *is* a legal agreement specifically to handle things like division of property (originally, specifically to handle inheritance).

Religion co-opted it as one of many way to separate the righteous (those who held to their vows, assuming they make them with the right kind of people) from the sinners (those who would do such terrible things as tempt somebody to break a vow). After all, nothing unites a people like having an outsider who is terribly wrong and will destroy all that you hold dear. If you don't have an enemy, invent one. History, both religious and secular, is chock full of examples of this behavior.

Back to marriage: marriage ceremonies have borne religious trappings (and often been conducted by religious figures) since long before Christianity or even Judaism - one wishes to bless the couple with health and fertility, to grow the tribe and make it stronger - but its core was always a secular agreement even back to the days before law was a concept. It was a declaration that the child of this woman is that man's heir, and often enough also that the woman was essentially now his property; she would serve him (and bear his children) and he would provide for her (and his children as she bears them). The requirement that they be his children (not those of some other man) is where the exclusivity of marriage comes in. By the time Abrahamic religions came along, people had enough property (and social expectations of how it is distributed) that a fledgling religion that tried top upset the system would be shunned or even destroyed, but by co-opting the system and making its rules *religious* rules, it emplaced itself as the enforcer of good laws... and, coincidentally, the keeper of marriage.

Re:More social decay.

[cbhacking]

Legally-recognized poly relationships would indeed be legally complicated, and I expect that this is coming within the next century or so, but legally-unrecognized poly relationships will become (relatively) commonplace well before that. If gay marriage is just now crossing from the third to the fourth states of "first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win", polyamory is mostly still at the first stage.

Re:More social decay.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your entire narrative above emphasizes that people in Iceland don't view polyamory as normal.

What's more, as you say, they aren't even necessarily that free about having sex compared to some other societies historically.

You see what's around you and assume that it says something about human nature when actually you're just telling us about the norms of the society you live in.

Re:More social decay.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does lifelong monogamy has to be the moral norm ? There is strictly no biological basis to it. At best, monogamy for a period of 5 to 10 years can be justified, in order to raises children.

Children don't die at 10 years old, you dumb fucker. Oh yes, let's see what happens when all fathers abandon their kids at formative teenage years -- now that's a recipe for success! IF YOU'RE IN THE FUCKING PENAL BUSINESS.

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.

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny how Slashdot's fierce Fighters for Privacy turn a blind eye when it's something they don't care about that gets hacked.

But I guess these people "deserved" it because they didn't adequately protect their identities...or something.

Thugs are thugs whether they are stabbing you for your wallet or stealing your personal information. A swift death is the best option for them.

Re:Yeah, right.

[ThatsMyNick]

Your take on that comment was that he was turning a blind eye? To me it seemed like a lament, that privacy is dead. Long live privacy.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

it was possible for anyone to create an account using the name and e-mail address of other individuals.

I would assume that the site verifies email addresses like any other, so this fact is probably false.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

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

On the other hand, the website is over a decade old, so you may be chastising people who signed up 14 years ago.

Re: Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

"x is dead. Long live x."

I do not think it means what you think it means.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the previous AC, but yes, I do. Re-read it with GMail replacing this website. The entire world would jump on the comment.

"FWIW, I believe that people's email boxes are their own business. But I find it difficult to drum up any sympathy for people who are foolish enough to go looking for something via a big flashy commercial website dedicated to that purpose."

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.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're missing the point with regards to the quoted text. E-mails submitted to the site were never verified, i.e.: you didn't have to "Click a link to activate your account". Credit card numbers aren't linked to e-mails. In other words, anyone could signup with whatever e-mail they wanted, as long as they didn't care missing out on notifications.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting as AC for obvious reasons.

I work for one of the vendors used by ALM. No credit card details were ever stored in the database, only transaction IDs for successful billing transactions. ALM is PCI compliant and any CC details are kept by their processor, not internally at ALM. To the best of my knowledge, the recent dump seems to contain some legit information (info which was originally released as a warning) mixed in with some other data which came from elsewhere. I downloaded the archive and transferred to an isolated VM before I decompressed and opened any files. I didn't check it for viruses but I wouldn't be surprised since the dump doesn't contain any new info which wasn't already released as the warning.

captcha: regain

Re:Yeah, right.

[tlambert]

Funny how Slashdot's fierce Fighters for Privacy turn a blind eye when it's something they don't care about that gets hacked.

I think we are just laughing our asses off about trying to decide whether Pat Robertson was actually able to employ competent system crackers, or whether the security on the site was so lame, given its purported purpose and clientele.

Also, note that this isn't a privacy issue, it's a database hack; it's just incidental that it involves a website that contained prurient details of illicit affairs, rather than, for example, credit card data for everyone who used a credit card at Target, Home Depot, and Lucky's, or the OPM's personnel database and security clearance validation records (I still think the goal was data insertion on that hack, rather than obtaining the data, or it was at least a dual goal).

If you think that information about sexual exploits, however obtained, should not be dumped en masse to the press, then you must be from Europe and it's "right to have your hookers dressed as Nazi photos be forgotten" laws. Because in the U.S. -- once it's out, it's out.

I'm waiting for the data mine on specific famous persons and political figures to be published with quite some interest... wonder if anyone is going to be dropping out of the presidential race over it...

Re:Yeah, right.

[readin]

Funny how Slashdot's fierce Fighters for Privacy turn a blind eye when it's victims have done one of the cruelest and most inhumane things one person can do to another.

FTFY

Re:Yeah, right.

[TsuruchiBrian]

Funny how Slashdot's fierce Fighters for Privacy turn a blind eye when it's the NSA's private files getting leaked. But I guess the NSA "deserved" it because they were not being honest about what kind of information they were gathering... or something.

Thugs are thugs whether they are murdering little babies or exposing dishonesty. A swift death is the best option for them.

Re:Yeah, right.

[TsuruchiBrian]

I'm waiting for the data mine on specific famous persons and political figures to be published with quite some interest... wonder if anyone is going to be dropping out of the presidential race over it...

Hillary is out...

Re:Yeah, right.

[gl4ss]

you would only need the credit card details to remove the account.

now, who the fuck in their right mind would get on a site like that anyways? the site was probably just full of fake women anyways and fat men, if their business was to blackmail money from people to delete the account.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Well, for an analogy for someone that comes from the age of radio and newspapers -- even if it is legal, you'd probably find it rude if the postman read the postcards you got while walking up your driveway, and if your neighbors steamed open your letters and read them, you'd probably go to the police.

GMail may not be "private", but go get Snowden to say that, it'll occupy a whole news cycle.

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.

Re:Yeah, right.

[cbhacking]

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. Discounting things like giving your partner a disease, which is a risk that increases when cheating but is its own separate problem, the heartbreak from cheating is nothing compared to the enduring pain from the death of a loved one, or the trauma of violent rape, or the horror of the battlefield, or even the crippling injuries one can get from a car crash. Cheating is cruelty and betrayal, but at the end of the day it's not likely to ruin your whole life, much less end it.

Besides, humans aren't really wired very well for monogamy. I mean, some people find that their completely natural state, sure, but most of the way we view the topic is due to societal expectation. Throughout history, the powerful have had mistresses or consorts or even kept harems, there have been entire societies that practiced polygamy at all levels, and various forms of consensual non-monogamy have been practiced more-or-less in secret for centuries even in "modern" culture. 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. I'm not saying that justifies lying and cheating any more than the DMCA and eternal copyrights justify pirating music, but it does mean you shouldn't be surprised when it happens, and that you're better off changing the rules and saving everybody - yourself included - the anguish.

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

Re:Yeah, right.

[gl4ss]

they were supposed to _not_ store them.

if you work in the biz you should know that bunch of companies still do store them if they happen to see them. it's bad practice/against the PCI but they still do it. usually it just costs them a bit more money to do it so that their servers send the stuff over from their UI(in which case they can store it because they see it) instead of using an iframe from you or similar.

for a company this size it doesn't really matter to them to put down the 20-50k whatever

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.

[goose-incarnated]

Besides, humans aren't really wired very well for monogamy. I mean, some people find that their completely natural state, sure, but most of the way we view the topic is due to societal expectation. Throughout history, the powerful have had mistresses or consorts or even kept harems, there have been entire societies that practiced polygamy at all levels, and various forms of consensual non-monogamy have been practiced more-or-less in secret for centuries even in "modern" culture.

You're talking about societies in which women had few to no rights compared to men.

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

Agreed. But note well that while we are free to exercise non-monogamy, once we make a monogamy choice we are punished if we deviate from it. Sure, you can leave your wife/husband of 10 years if they decide not to "be okay" with your new choice to have many partners, but a divorce (for a man, anyway) is a very punitive experience.

So, while you are correct that humans are monogamous, and it is also correct that we are not forced into monogamy, it is also true that monogamous breakups exacts a very punitive measure.

Seems like we can't have our cake *and* eat it too.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's yet to be proven wrong.

That's simply because you're a nobody. Nobody gives a fuck what you say or do.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Viol8]

Don't have much life experience do you sonny. When you grow up you'll realise relationships arn't as black and white as you seem to think.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Men of my generation aren't interested in women either. Filthy caked make-up face, annoying, noise making, disruptive attention seeking cunts, untrustworthy hypocrite bitch; the reason to dislike women have no end. Fortunately, for men that still do not hate them, there is pornography. With the biological need taken care of, one is free to disregard female and pursuit valuable achievement.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Rei]

Indeed, while it's interesting to note that while polygamy has been moderately common at times and in some societies throughout human history, polyandry is fairly rare, and true mixed polyamory very rare. And most cases of polygamy, there was no expectation that the wives would physically love each other, only that they'd get along and try not to be jealous of each other getting attention from their husband.

Interestingly, the views toward children vary significantly between polygamy and polyandry. One of the more common arrangements is associated with a view that a man having sex is just a "trigger" for a woman to conceive, that the child is simply part of her line and has nothing to do with him (the opposite to the view that a woman contributes nothing to a child but the growth environment for a man's seed). In such arrangements, men still do often assist in raising children, but usually the children of their sisters or other close relatives. Another of the more common arrangements is for a woman to share multiple brothers in a family; they are all effectively seen as equal "fathers" to the children and help raise them. Both of these arrangements are easy to explain genetically - in all cases, the men are raising children who carry genes similar to theirs, whether they're literally the father or not.

Re:Yeah, right.

[DNS-and-BIND]

You realize that those examples you point out are super-alpha males who keep large numbers of women, and it has nothing to do with how the ordinary folk live? In fact, those societies where practices like that flourish are horrid ones to live in.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny how Slashdot's fierce Fighters for Privacy turn a blind eye when it's something they don't care about that gets hacked.

You do realize that there different persons posting?
Some post under a nick, that should give you a clue.

Others, like me, post under anonymous coward. This might seem as a surprise to you but anonymous coward postings aren't always the same person.

I know it sounds ridiculous when put it that way but I hope I've cleared up the confusion you apparently had with the argument: x persons complained and now y complained but it's the opposite.

They might not be the same people.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sex lives is one thing. Vows is another.

That's the problem for many when they see infidelity. People take vows, just as you do when you join the navy or the police or starting work as a doctor/nurse etc. then they get tired and cheat, ignoring all the health and moral issues of that, those people lied in their vows. Which means you can't really trust them to defend your country or not shoot you in the back "in self defense".

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Throughout history, the powerful have had mistresses or consorts or even kept harems, there have been entire societies that practiced polygamy at all levels, and various forms of consensual non-monogamy have been practiced more-or-less in secret for centuries even in "modern" culture."

Where are they now? All dead, extinct, gracing only the history books, or currently getting blown up for some idiotic reason or another.

The way I see it, monogamy is winning through natural selection.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hah. It may be true in normal relationships. I have been cheated and I have cheated myself, and indeed it didn't feel like a *huge* deal. However, there was *once* which was different than all the other instances. That time it was when I was truly, truly in love and I didn't expect it at all (as in the relationship was quite well going).

The following week was the worst of my life (and I have had my fair share of really painful stuff in my life). However, the worst week of my life was that, by far. I almost committed suicide and I have never ever even thought about suicide at all in my life (so no, I am not a suicidal/depressed kind of guy).

Re:Yeah, right.

[JMJimmy]

I'm waiting for the data mine on specific famous persons and political figures to be published with quite some interest... wonder if anyone is going to be dropping out of the presidential race over it...

I'm thinking more likely Canadian politics is going to be rocked... 1 in 5 people in Ottawa (Canada's capitol) were supposedly members... That's a good chance that a fair number of people seeking re-election right now are going to show up in that database.

Re:Yeah, right.

[JMJimmy]

*I'd laugh so hard if Rob Ford is in there.

Re: Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

The NSA was and still is in possession of data they are not entitled to have which was obtained by illegal means. How you can draw any kind of parallel here is beyond belief.

You're obviously one of those conservative absolutists who is actually upset that your worldview of who is right and wrong about things got upended, and you'd rather defend their illegal behavior than admit to it. After all, in your two dimensional world, good solid upstanding people like you would never be the targets of anything like that, so it must all be good--right?

Re:Yeah, right.

[DarkOx]

Which is why this "marry who you love" narrative is so dangerous. Should you marry without love, probably not after all its going to be hard to do the right things in more trying times if you are not committed to the cause of being with your spouse. That said love is not enough.

Marriage should deliver on those things you mention, - stability, a family, a home, security, companionship etc. It should be advantageous for both parties. To that end the partnership is a contract. Many of the benefits flow direct from the belief the other person will honor their commitments.

If society allows marriages to be entered into or exited from lightly the benefits get watered down. So to say "going behind your partner's back when you know it will hurt them is not right" is a understatement. Not only are dealing great harm to that person by depriving them of something they have potentially made an enormous investment in when you have been married along time, its even bigger than the two of you (or three of you as the case may be). It harming society as whole.

Honestly no-fault divorce should have never been a thing, and society should look down on adultery. Its really better for all of us. We need more shame and more shaming not less. If you don't want to commit don't get married its that simple.

Re:Yeah, right.

[drinkypoo]

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.

It doesn't have to be a monogamous relationship to begin with. That's a societal construct designed to control people. It's only going behind their back if you have that kind of relationship to begin with.

If you can't trust a happy partner who's having their needs met, how can you trust an unhappy one who isn't?

Re:Yeah, right.

[houghi]

I have the same sympathy for somebody for who was hacker through a sony website hack, target POS hack or a website to cheat;

This because I do not only say that I believe their sex lives is their own business. I also act like it.

The word 'But' automagically means that whatever you said before is not true e.g. I am not racist, but .

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

I view a cheating partner as being worse then if she died. I can accept death, I couldn't accept that she lied to me and found someone else to be intimate with.

And some of us are wired for monogamy. I drive a 20 year old car that is falling apart, but I won't buy a new one until it won't run anymore. My parents and grandparents have all been married to each other for 40+ years... If I found the right girl, I would have no problems being with only her.

Re:Yeah, right.

[AmiMoJo]

Sure, I agree with you, as long as both parties are aware and happy with the situation it's fine.

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.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Very human yes, but it can be more hurtful than death. Perhaps you're not seeing it through anyone else's eyes. Contrast being with someone and loving and being loved by them until the very end (death) versus being cast aside like an abandoned pet or a piece of trash. That can do far more emotional damage than loss by death. I say don't take a vow to stay together until death do you part unless you actually intend to keep that vow. I.e., if you know it's optional for you, then cross those words out of the ceremony in your case.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

My meter may be set different than yours... but it is close.
Cheating, in the truest since, is exceptionally cruel, exceptionally inhumane, and exceptionally disruptive.
Think of the worst case scenario that may exist: Family unit of Husband, wife, and kids. Wife cheats for free on a website, or at work, or in any other way, while coming home and saying nothing, perpetuating the false marriage to Hubby and children. When the secret gets out, either through a slip up by the cheater, some sleuthing by the husband, or any of the number of ways cheaters can get caught, what is left of the husband and kids. The cheater has already rationalized their behavior as being "very human", but the husband is left with thoughts of who, what, how many times, where, why, etc. The kids are now in a broken home, may over hear some very adult language, and will live with it for the rest of their life. And depending on to what degree the husband bought into the love of his mate, he may fall into depression, lose his job, lose friends, or as I can attest, lose his life. Like I said, I can attest to the damage it can do to a family... I lived above a guy this happened to, my flat directly above his, and when I came home to an ambulance, and police, I can say that cheating almost killed this man, and probably kills many through suicide or disease. It is very inhuman to treat someone's feelings with such indifference, such disregard, that you throw their love (a very strong human emotion) away, rationalize your own inhumanity, and move forward with out guilt. Most cheaters are sociopaths, and totally unable to empathize with their mates. However, I agree, in a lot of cases, cheating is just a symptom of a bad marriage, and two people will part amicably, and without the dramatics I detailed above. Sometimes it is not cheating, it is just an open arrangement, but if we are talking about cheating, then it is not an open arrangement, it is a very deceptive and disruptive practice. But again, my meter is different, and having seen every type of relationship there is, and seen every situation of cheating and open relationships, and met and spoke with every one in the world, I feel comfortable making blanket statements without hyperbole... oh, and I wasn't being sarcastic, just pathologically unable to tell the difference between reality, literal meanings, and written words.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

I see marriage as a partnership between two people.

There are others who see it very differently, and their viewpoint is just as valid as yours. Especially since the definition of marriage is now far more malleable than ever.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed, thugs are thugs no matter if they wear a badge or not, off to the ovens with everyone that ever fired a gun at anyone, moral and ethical questions are moot it's the end result that counts.

I'm happy that we're on the same side of this.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Too right...
In fact the word adultery comes from a man pointing out that his blood line had been adulterated by the introduction of another man's seed.
Only women can commit adultery, men commit to sowing their seed, by the strictest of definitions. However, biblically, both the sower and the adulterer would or should be stoned (Leviticus something or another), but besides that, the point is that for years only women could be convicted of adultery, and in many states, and in the armed forces, it is against the law.

I think alienation of affection is the newest term for interfering with the relations of another.

Either way, adultery, cheating, has always been held more against the woman than the man... and been accepted more for men than women.

Re:Yeah, right.

[bluefoxlucid]

You're all deluded.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

I pulled down the files as well. The CC archive is split out by month from 2008. I did notice that most of 2009 through 2014 were zero sized. The archive (7zip) itself was fine, so that leads me to believe they do not have all of the CC data, or they suck at zipping files).

Re:Yeah, right.

[mightychondria]

>Honestly no-fault divorce should have never been a thing, and society should look down on adultery. Its really better for all of us. We need more shame and more >shaming not less. If you don't want to commit don't get married its that simple. I was in agreement until this. No fault divorce is by far the best thing to happen to divorce law. The fact that people can get divorced is good for many reasons, and the division of property without a long drawn out process takes a lot of load off the legal system. If you marry while drunk, vegas style, or while young and stupid, have no kids, no real property issues, no reason for divorce other than you married the wrong person at the wrong time, then please, by all means, file the papers, pay the fee, and wait the 90 days, and dissolve the marriage. If there are kids, if there is fault, and I mean a lot of fault, not just some mildly capricious actions, but fraud or violence, then yes, there should be an at fault, or penalty for that kind of marriage dissolution. The games people play with the Private Investigators, the hidden microphones, the pages of phone calls and texts, all to get an extra 15% is ridiculous, because in most cases, a divorce with fault will only sway the distribution of property by 15 - 20 % at most.

Re:Yeah, right.

[MightyYar]

Email is a plaintext protocol where, by definition, at least two copies exist of every email. Why in the world would anyone expect email to remain private, with or without GMail?

Re:Yeah, right.

[Jiro]

The NSA is funded by taxes, which are extracted from us at the point of a gun, and could never have done what it did without the use of government force. AshleyMadison was funded by voluntary transactions.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm waiting for the data mine on specific famous persons and political figures to be published with quite some interest... wonder if anyone is going to be dropping out of the presidential race over it...

I'm thinking more likely Canadian politics is going to be rocked... 1 in 5 people in Ottawa (Canada's capitol) were supposedly members... That's a good chance that a fair number of people seeking re-election right now are going to show up in that database.

I heard about this stat of 1 in 5 Ottawa residents ebing on A-M. There is no way in hell that can be accurate...not a chance.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree.. But I don't see a need to release CC info, even if it's not the full info. You want to embarrass people, release their names.

But if your real goal was to extort money from the company, you release everything when they finally say "no deal"

Besides, did you read the manifesto these morons put out? They are clearly people who found their spouses on that site, there's no doubt in my mind.

This isn't hacktivism at all, this benefits no one. This was attempted extortion. "Remove the sites completly or else" BS, not buying that for a second, I suspect there were back channel talks about a monetary donation to whatever paypal account they had hacked, the company said FU and they dumped the records.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's even worse than that. I don't know if there are special exemptions in other places, but here in Ontario if you've been raising that child as a parent, even if it is not your own biological child, you will be legally obligated to continue to support that child until it is an adult (actually it's until the child is self-sufficient, in most cases support ends around the age of 21).

A friend of mine had a stepson young enough to call him "dad." His wife was receiving child support payments from the biological father, but when they divorced he was required to pay child support payments as well. Yes, the child was receiving double support payments from two "fathers", and this was legally enforced. The reason? The child called him "dad."

The law doesn't really care about the parents in cases involving child support and custody. Courts are required to rule in the best interest of the child. And so if you've been raising a kid that's not your own, all the courts will care about is what is best for that child. You're on the hook until the child is grown up and self sufficient.

Disclaimer: IANAL. Part of this is anecdotal (my friend's story), and the rest was explained to me by my lawyer when I went through a separation of my own.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

internet privacy never existed...

Re:Yeah, right.

[TsuruchiBrian]

Yeah I read Atlas Shrugged too.

So what you are saying is that if AshleyMadison had received any tax money, it would be OK to leak all the customer data?

Like for example, lot's of medical facilities receive money from the government, so it's ok to hack and release all that information, because some of their funding comes from taxes which are stolen from tax payers?

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

So moral and easy to care about the "best interests" of someone else when you're not the one on the hook for it. Typical hypocritical, government scum.

You know, it'd be in the best interests of my children if they could go to Disneyworld. It would make them "feel better about themselves". But I can't afford it. Where's the government to step in and hand us some money?

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

How does this tripe get modded up so high?

You even go so far as to refute your own argument!

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

How is the "biological standpoint" interesting ?
I mean, what difference does it makes if there exists a person that has some of your genetic material inside their cells ?
How does that affect your life in a concrete way ?

Re:Yeah, right.

[Charliemopps]

Funny how Slashdot's fierce Fighters for Privacy turn a blind eye when it's something they don't care about that gets hacked.

But I guess these people "deserved" it because they didn't adequately protect their identities...or something.

Thugs are thugs whether they are stabbing you for your wallet or stealing your personal information. A swift death is the best option for them.

They deserved it because they cheated on their spouse. Which is morally wrong, everywhere. This isn't a religious thing... it's wrong like "Lying" or "Stealing" You're harming another person for your own personal transient gratification.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Charliemopps]

You're also wired to pee where you stand. Pee in the middle of my living room and see how far that argument gets you.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Charliemopps]

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.

It doesn't have to be a monogamous relationship to begin with. That's a societal construct designed to control people. It's only going behind their back if you have that kind of relationship to begin with.

If you can't trust a happy partner who's having their needs met, how can you trust an unhappy one who isn't?

A societal construct used to control people? What are you 15? I'd love to see the look on your face when you try and talk a girl you're interested in, into this.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Get off your high horse. There are plenty of ways for a person to pass on the essence of who they are. Through their intellectual accomplishments and the lessons they give. Through the moral stance they choose to take in life, the example they lead. Through the support and caring they provide. Parenting is a lot more than just jizzing in a pussy.

Re:Yeah, right.

[tsotha]

I always assumed that one would be full of single guys thinking landing a married woman would be easier than what they were experiencing on one of the other dating sites. And I wonder how many of that 4% were actually hookers.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

So you _don't_ believe that people's sex lives are their own business.

Re:Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheating is cruelty and betrayal, but at the end of the day it's not likely to ruin your whole life

It IS likely to do that when you have built a life based on trusting and being together with that person.

Re:Yeah, right.

[cbhacking]

For the record: my first personal experience with polyamory was when a girl I liked (but figured I had not chance with, because - among other things - she was married) told me she wanted to date *me* and wanted to know if I was OK with the fact that she had a husband. The relationship eventually ended, but I'm still friends with both her and her husband, and another of her ex lovers (from while she was married, with husband's consent), though I haven't met the new guy in her life yet.

My OKCupid profile says I'm in an open relationship and only interested in meeting people who are OK with that, and remarkably enough this has not made it any more difficult to find dates. Great thing about open relationships: they mean the dating pool doesn't shrink every time somebody starts a new relationship!

Re:Yeah, right.

[cbhacking]

The first point I'll grant you, though if given a choice I'd undo the death of an uncle who I saw but a few times a year (who died at 50) over undoing all the bad breakups of my life and the reasons for them. Maybe that's unusual of me, but the fact remains that from my viewpoint, it's really, not the same when somebody hurts you and dumps you vs. when somebody is taken from you, and the latter hurts for much longer.

For the rest, though, no. You're taking my sentences out of one context and then trying to claim they're in another. That's gotten you a few mod points, but it doesn't actually address the point I was making in those sentences at all. The point was, in case you somehow failed to read the first sentence of the paragraph you're quoting from, that " humans aren't really wired very well for monogamy". They get away from it when they can, either by being powerful, or with the consent of their partners, or without that consent. I am by no means attempting to claim that these are morally equal, any more than I'm claiming you should look up to the powerful and vicious (which are *not* the same thing, though viciousness, like non-monogamy, is a thing that power can let you get away with and this appeals to many more people than you seem to realize). I'm not justifying a behavior, I'm simply highlighting the fact that it happens, and if society doesn't want it to happen the bad way (cheating) they need to legitimize it happening the good way (socially acceptable ethical polyamory).

As for my "ridiculous strawman", that's actually one of the core advantages of polyamory. Monogamous relationships require a tremendous commitment, not only to give up all the other relationships and partners you might have had, but to be there for your partner for whatever ey expect a partner to provide. Polyamory frees you from both obligations, allowing you and your partner(s) to get everything that is desired from as many sources as it takes. Of course, in practice it doesn't work out perfectly, but a lot of polycules can get closer to that ideal than the typical monogamous relationship.

As for your last argument, I disagree. I'm not going to touch murder, except to point out you've hardly argued that it's not inevitably part of human society. Back on topic, though, cheating *is* inevitable, so long as society requires people to give up a relationship before starting a new one (and accept a huge stigma in the process), but sneaking around without your partner's knowledge is still frequently possible. Adjust the latter and you'll get less cheating, though you'll probably still get some because people are bad at weighing consequences, especially when their hormones are up. Adjust the former, and the rate of cheating will go *way* down, because the only reason to do it will be because you want to hurt your partner even though you don't want to leave them, and that's a really silly reason (especially if separations are made easy and relatively effortless).

Re:Yeah, right.

[cbhacking]

That is indeed interesting. Pretty sure that's mostly an artifact of inheritance laws, though; in societies where men owned and inherited property (and women were little, if anything, more than that) it was a serious concern that a man's wife/wives have no other lovers, or some of his wealth would go to children not his. In modern society, while polyamorous marriage is not legal, anybody (regardless of gender) can split eir inheritance amongst multiple recipients and, if you particularly care to do so, you can determine genetic paternity relatively inexpensively and with excellent accuracy.

Re:Yeah, right.

[cbhacking]

I've known a number of drunks who've done just that (none, thankfully, in *my* living room), and the consequences (of the peeing in particular, not necessarily of the drunkenness altogether) have generally been light. Admittedly, they were all passed out or close to it when the call of nature came...

In any case, though, it's a very false equivalency. People pee where they are *by default*, not *by preference*. Even animals often won't befoul their own nests unless sick, injured, or very young. Pissing where you stand is something children do until they learn better, and the old or sick (or drunk) do when they have no choice, but that the healthy and reasonably-aged essentially never do. Having multiple romantic partners is something you are taught not to do your entire life, and then (in many cases) do anyway when the opportunity arises and the urge becomes unbearable. Very, very different

Re: Yeah, right.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't agree. Cheating is very crippling to its victims. It is capable of causing post traumatic stress disorder, just like the battlefield or a violent rape. It tears apart your beliefs that you could have held for 20+ years, it ruins entire families.
Don't downplay the significance of an affair.

Re:Yeah, right.

[GargamelSpaceman]

It's because the market takes care of the punishment for the privacy loss without 'Fighters for Privacy' getting involved. Nobody is going to trust Ashley Madison again for a long time if ever.

Put your money where your mouth is.

[Anonymous Coward]

Humans can live however they want. These humans did. They just couldn't admit it.

Fake List of Cheaters

[ZippyTheChicken]

That list is extremely salted.. or filled with fakes... it is definitely not a list of only paying customers

Re:Fake List of Cheaters

[techvet]

Krebs' latest post discusses that it's highly likely that this upload is fake.

Re:Fake List of Cheaters

[ZippyTheChicken]

someone extracted only the .gov 's from the list and pastbined it ... its got like mrfakeyfake@irs.gov president@whitehouse... maybe it was honeypot data

Re:Fake List of Cheaters

[Anonymous Coward]

False:

Update, 11:52 p.m. ET: I’ve now spoken with three vouched sources who all have reported finding their information and last four digits of their credit card numbers in the leaked database. Also, it occurs to me that it’s been almost exactly 30 days since the original hack. Finally, all of the accounts created at Bugmenot.com for Ashleymadison.com prior to the original breach appear to be in the leaked data set as well. I’m sure there are millions of AshleyMadison users who wish it weren’t so, but there is every indication this dump is the real deal.

Re:Fake List of Cheaters

[sexconker]

No, Krebs has confirmed that it contains real user info, but they're hedging on "anyone can sign up under any name" for some reason, even though account creation requires email validation and credit card payment requires valid payment information.

The dump is on the pirate bay. It's real. Check it for yourself.

The list does have a lot of fake female users, which is one of the reasons the hackers are leaking this, but all the real users are in there as well, including those who paid to have their records deleted (another reason the hackers are leaking this).

Re:Fake List of Cheaters

[Anonymous Coward]

No, his last post says that is probably real in someway.

Re: Fake List of Cheaters

[Anonymous Coward]

Ac says it's real. That decides it.

Re: Fake List of Cheaters

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you never registered for a (possibly questionable) site out of curiosity using fake email or other information because you had no intent to share any real info? Granted most sites these days perform email validation. If they don't you're in; otherwise, you have to decide whether you want into that site anyways. I guarantee there will be many who tried with such fake info.

Re: Fake List of Cheaters

[Anonymous Coward]

AC didn't say it was real. Krebs said it was real. AC merely relayed. Regardless, decide for yourself.

Re:Fake List of Cheaters

[Anonymous Coward]

someone extracted only the .gov 's from the list and pastbined it ... its got like mrfakeyfake@irs.gov president@whitehouse... maybe it was honeypot data

I fail to see the justification for the -1, mods.

Re:Fake List of Cheaters

[x0ra]

The whole business model of AM rely on a salted list of sexy women looking for affairs, to attract men.

Re:Fake List of Cheaters

[Anonymous Coward]

Except the hackers have added some names to the list.

I swear, honey!

Re:Fake List of Cheaters

[Zontar The Mindless]

Looks like someone's started mod-bombing him, probably in retaliation for this post.

Re:Fake List of Cheaters

[Anonymous Coward]

That's irrelevant because the dump also includes all the credit card transactions. Put the two together and you have the list of paying customers.

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

[alvinrod]

Information doesn't want anything. It's inanimate.

I'm guessing you don't seek any medical attention or do any kind of banking as that kind of information is also stored in computers now. Either you have no problem with your medical or financial records being open for all to see, or outside of the occasional /. post, you encase your devices in tinfoil and retreat to a mountain cave. Or the third, more likely option, you' just haven't thought what you're saying all the way through.

Re:As a wise man once said

[Anonymous Coward]

It's assholes,. not computing, that's the problem with privacy.

Re:As a wise man once said

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't really avoid it these days. More businesses are moving their operations online to save telephone support costs and widen their service hours for the 24-hour culture we live in. We keep talking about making internet a basic human right because we're on the verge of it being required to get anything meaningful done. By all means keep telling yourself you don't have to own a cellphone or a DSL line. You can even protest outside your local bank branch once they've closed it if it'll make you feel any better.

The problem is that we're recording everything 24/7. Through a marvel of technological sleight of hand we can syphon data off into a bit-bucket anywhere on the planet; and mostly without anyone knowing. The NSA has made this their #1 business interest by syphoning basically everything (and not just IP traffic, also POTS and mail). If the NSA is ever broken into the whole world is going to be royally fucked sideways in a meat-grinder. The only thing preventing it right now is the links are too slow to upload a whole exabyte of data at a time. Otherwise you're damn straight your whole tax return, property records, pink slips, love letters, phone records, Facebook profile, gas station receipts and that video of you one time getting slapped by a stripper for fondling her boobs is going to be available to everyone else in a nice handy-dandy search-by-name format.

Just because you don't use Ashley Madison by no means makes you immune to this.

Re:As a wise man once said

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheaters don't see themselves as cheaters, although they can still consider the behavior morally reprehensible. It's called cognitive dissonance. To apply your definition: It allows assholes to hack into computers and compromise the privacy of (what they perceive to be) another bigger bunch of assholes. "It's okay to destroy their lives because they're assholes." And sometimes we just like to label everyone else as assholes because it makes us feel better about ourselves.

Of course doing that makes you an enormous asshole, and so one can only expect the karma wheel is a few degrees away.

You can't really fix this in a society that still considers doing things "for the lulz". Empathy was lost for a cheap gag to create a lot of pandemonium, discord, heartache and stress...because it was funny. Because of the lulz. These are the people that will eventually end up with a $10,000 dental bill after an $80,000 stay in the local hospital - probably after someone decides to pry off their lower jaw with a crowbar and drag them down the street behind a Harley. People without empathy don't get empathy.

Re:As a wise man once said

[tezbobobo]

You're right. Data hates when you give it anthropomorphic qualities. Also, when you take things too literally.

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:As a wise man once said

[Anonymous Coward]

Data hates when you give it anthropomorphic qualities. Also, when you take things too literally.

Yes, data is all about the figures.

Re:As a wise man once said

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a statement of intent, it's a statement of tendency. Objects want to be on the ground; entropy wants to rise; information wants to be free.

Re:As a wise man once said

[AmiMoJo]

I wouldn't be so sure that no-one is interested in your medical records. Your boss might be. Maybe it looks like you might need a lot of time off to fight cancer, or expensive treatment on the company health insurance, or maybe you or your partner is pregnant and likely want to leave.

There have been incidents of people being stopped at borders because of their medical records too. There was a Canadian women a few years back who suffered from depression about a decade before trying to enter the US. Border security sent her back under rules allowing them to reject anyone who they think might cause trouble, because they feared she might be planning to kill herself at Niagara Falls.

As for your financial records, again your boss would probably love to know that your debts basically make you his slave, since you can't afford to lose your job. They would also be of great interest to criminals looking to do some ID theft or fraud.

We need electronic records in the modern world, and we would expect them to be kept safe. When they are not, we should expect to be compensated. I imagine lawsuits against Ashley Madison are being filed as we speak.

Re:As a wise man once said

[wvmarle]

You're mixing up data and information. It's common, you're not the first who adds this quote to a data breach, but it's not applied correctly.

Clue: data is a representation of information. It's the information that's in the data that "wants to be free". This is about data that's been leaked, not about information. Wikileaks et.al. are much closer to true information providers, rather than the raw data dump this is.

Re:As a wise man once said

[Anonymous Coward]

Data hates when you call him 'it', you insensitive clod!!

Re:As a wise man once said

[meta-monkey]

Information is also not a fan of Mondays, and enjoys lasagna.

Re:As a wise man once said

[painandgreed]

Information doesn't want anything. It's inanimate.

Give it a rest. They say 'water wants to find its level' all the time in the sciences and its inanimate and nobody bickers like you. Second law of thermodynamics states that the natural log of all possible states is going to increase which basically means that it takes more energy to keep information from spreading that to let it spread.

Re:As a wise man once said

[TsuruchiBrian]

I wouldn't be so sure that no-one is interested in your medical records. Your boss might be. Maybe it looks like you might need a lot of time off to fight cancer, or expensive treatment on the company health insurance, or maybe you or your partner is pregnant and likely want to leave.

I didn't say no one is interested in anyone's medical records. I said no one is interested in *my* medical records. I don't have anything embarrassing or job threatening (yet).

And if you read what I said, it is not that I don't think anybody should want to keep their records secret. It is that I just don't think it is possible to do with any high level of certainty.

And maybe one day I will want my records to be secret, but I will have not be deluded into thinking that they are secret. Every action that creates a record is a decision weighing the benefit of that action with the risk of that record becoming public.

In the case of medical treatment, I will probably just accept the risk of public medical records, as that consequence is probably better than the consequence of avoiding treatment.

We need electronic records in the modern world, and we would expect them to be kept safe. When they are not, we should expect to be compensated. I imagine lawsuits against Ashley Madison are being filed as we speak.

What I am saying is that this will be impossible. You can sue as many people as you like, this is as much a certainty of compensation as the certainty that your information is safe.

Re:As a wise man once said

[Distan]

I'm guessing you don't seek any medical attention or do any kind of banking as that kind of information is also stored in computers now.

You guess wrong. I do indeed seek medical care and carry out banking. However, I do so under the assumption that everything I do could easily become public. Consequentially, I am circumspect about what I tell my Doctors. I would never reveal anything to a physician that I didn't want on the front page of the newspaper. Similarly, I don't carry out any financial transactions that I wouldn't want disclosed.

Fortunately it is still possible to pay cash for many things, including limited medical services provided under an false name.

Re:As a wise man once said

[Karlt1]

"Information wants to be free".

and the rest of the quote is....

"Information also wants to be expensive. ...That tension will not go away."

Cheating is for Cows

[Anonymous Coward]

You are all cows. Cows say Mooo. Mooo Cows Mooo! Mooo say the cows. YOU COWS!!!

Re:Cheating is for Cows

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget the cows, where's the download link?

Re:Cheating is for Cows

[ihtoit]

go via TPB and search "Ashley Madison", it's the 9.69GB one. The 5.somethingGB one (marked "Repack") is fake.

Re:Cheating is for Cows

[GameboyRMH]

Here you go:

https://thepiratebay.vg/torren...

Re:Cheating is for Cows

[Anonymous Coward]

Here you go:

https://thepiratebay.vg/torren...

The link only leads to a software installer using a Microsoft CAB file. No hacker in their right mind uses CAB files to distribute data or code.

Re:Cheating is for Cows

[Anonymous Coward]

Cows were on AM? Wow, were they trying to drum up business with furries?

Re:Cheating is for Cows

[Anonymous Coward]

My god.

Folks need to read the comments section of that TPB page (User: leracos, to be specific).

It seems The Team left an Easter Egg in the file dump...

That's Funny...

[Greyfox]

I just felt a strange disturbance in The Force, as if a million divorce lawyers suddenly yelled out "CHA-CHING!" and then... yelled out "CHA-CHING!" again!

Re:That's Funny...

[Zapotek]

Undoing accidental negative mod, was going for +1 Funny. :)

Re:That's Funny...

[cold fjord]

I just felt a strange disturbance in Di Vorce, as if a million divorce lawyers suddenly yelled out "CHA-CHING!" and then... yelled out "CHA-CHING!" again!

FTFY

Re:That's Funny...

[Anonymous Coward]

I also guess a bunch of them were going "Oh shit!"

Re:That's Funny...

[flopsquad]

I also guess a bunch of them were going "Oh shit!"

Yeah, for some it may just be easier to gather all their clients in a small auditorium and tell them, "Ok, each of you just lost the house, the kids, and the frequent flier miles."

Re:That's Funny...

[CRC'99]

I just felt a strange disturbance in The Force, as if a million divorce lawyers suddenly yelled out "CHA-CHING!" and then... yelled out "CHA-CHING!" again!

No no no - you've got it all wrong.... They're just backing up their database to 'the cloud'.

Re:That's Funny...

[Anonymous Coward]

I also guess a bunch of them were going "Oh shit!"

Yeah, for some it may just be easier to gather all their clients in a small auditorium and tell them, "Ok, each of you just lost the house, the kids, and the frequent flier miles."

Well, that too...but I think what he was getting at is that there may be a fair few lawyers who also availed themselves of the services of AM.

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.

Yupper. I am ther.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am lothario donchuno. Me with Soulskill now for all to cheer.

Ashley Madison torrent download ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Onion: http://yuc3i3hat65rpl7t.onion/stuff/impact-team-ashley-release.html

Yeah, that's the ticket

[Anonymous Coward]

"...people should remember that it was possible for anyone to create an account using the name and e-mail address of other individuals.

Says the journalist who spends an inordinate amount of time doing "research" on the Ashley Madison site.

Missing the point...

[x0ra]

The point of the hackers is not to point out the moral decay of society, but to point out that AM are really scammer, with the number of real males on the website greatly outnumbering the number of real women.

Re:Missing the point...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well what else would you expect? I don't know any women my age that are interested in men. Admittedly, I don't have many female friends since as a developer all of my coworkers are male, but I do have a few good female friends. None are married, and I can't remember any of them ever being in a long term relationship. I've never been on more than one date with someone. We don't want to be pressured into doing something we don't want to do so we just avoid men. The men that joined that site are delusional. They think women are as interested as they are in sex. That just isn't true.

Re:Missing the point...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds more like you are psychologically disturbed and have collected similar people around you.

Re:Missing the point...

[Anonymous Coward]

> I've never been on more than one date with someone.

Perhaps if you bathed? Or paid for dinner?

Re:Missing the point...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or paid for dinner?

Yeah, handing out money to women is a good way to attract them. Thinking about it, it is also a good way to attract any parasite.

Re:Missing the point...

[Anonymous Coward]

Guys, if you pay as much attention in real life, it's no wonder women don't want you. The comment you're discussing was written by a woman.

Re:Missing the point...

[drinkypoo]

The men that joined that site are delusional. They think women are as interested as they are in sex. That just isn't true.

Keep telling yourself that, and your man will find one and be fucking gone.

Re:Missing the point...

[Anonymous Coward]

The men that joined that site are delusional. They think women are as interested as they are in casual sex. That just isn't true.

FTFY

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.

'It's bad': Aussie cheaters exposed ..

[nickweller]

Ashley Madison hack: hackers claim cheaters' details dumped online

Give me the time to download....

[x0ra]

I have an account on AM with a phony identity, though, I never gave them any CC information. Let me finish to download the leak and I'll check if I'm in the leak :-)

Re:Give me the time to download....

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is the download link?

Re:Give me the time to download....

[x0ra]

I found a torrent on TPB, filenames seems to match the screenshot you can find on various website.

Re:Give me the time to download....

[x0ra]

the database is legit, my phony ID is it.

Re:Give me the time to download....

[x0ra]

"is *in* it"... sorry for the typo.

Re:Give me the time to download....

[Anonymous Coward]

thanks, great job confirming it. can you post a hash of your download?

Re:Give me the time to download....

[McGruber]

the database is legit, my phony ID is it.

"Where do I find the database?" asks every divorce attorney ever....

Re:Give me the time to download....

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey so is your wife's

Re:Give me the time to download....

[AmiMoJo]

How about your GPS coordinates? It appears that people who signed up with the mobile app had their location at the time recorded, presumably to offer them matches in their area.

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:Sanctimonius pricks

[x0ra]

"Free"-thinkers are against the status-quo advocated by the business class propaganda. These hacktivist are a threat to AM business-model (ie. a scam). They are using the same FUD technique as lifelong politicians do to stay in power. I was really surprised by the form used in the message. It is very much binary. Us, law-abiding citizen, and them, criminals.

Re:Sanctimonius pricks

[garyok]

Parent fails English interpretation. The first sentence groups Ashley Madison members with other freethinkers as the subjects of illegal action. Freethinkers aren't the perpetrators, they're another class of victim roped in by the AM crowd to make out that hacking a cheaters website was just gosh-darned un-American.

Of course, the hackers aren't doing this out a sense of morality. Quite the opposite in fact - they just want to stir shit up and cause havoc.

Re:Sanctimonius pricks

[wonkey_monkey]

Parent fails English interpretation.

Sentence fragment.

Re:Sanctimonius pricks

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the parent understands perfectly.

Why is it always "freethinkers" are on the despicable side of things?

Ashley Madison being the "despicable side". This is held in contention by some.

Parent elaborates:

"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."

The parent feels that Ashley Madison misappropriates the use of the word "freethinker".

Re:Sanctimonius pricks

[Mister Transistor]

"Sentence Fragment" is also a sentence fragment

- Lisa Simpson

Re:Sanctimonius pricks

[DarkOx]

I think Ashely Madison was trying to paint their clientele with the brush of being the freethinkers; you know because they are not bound by silly ideas like fidelity in marriage. That was how I read it anyway. I think it really is a rather naked attempt to make them and their customers into sympathetic figures.

It fails to recognize the other person in the relationships they are helping to undermine. Their own logo and nature of the service offering betrays the fact that all of this has to happen in secret. There would be no need for that if the clients spouses were as "free thinking". In fact there are plenty of swinger groups and what not out there for people who want an open marriage where both partners agree to it or are at least aware. AM isn't about free thinking its about helping people lie, deceive, break agreements made with others then charging them for it.

I am not saying what the hackers did is right or even justified. That does not mean we owe AM or its clients any sympathy. They all had a hand in creating the situation they are now in. What the hackers did was a crime and nobody deserves to be victimized, but how much sympathy a victim is due does in my opinion turn on to what degree they knowingly placed themselves in jeopardy.

Its sorta like if you car gets stolen. Its shitty thing to happen to anyone, but do we really feel as bad about or as inclined to do anything about when the victim was known to be in the habit of leaving it unlocked with the engine running?

Re:Sanctimonius pricks

[DoofusOfDeath]

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.

According to this, adultery is illegal in 21 of the 50 United States.

Ashley Madison as at the very least being hypocritical, considering their business is probably guilty of criminal conspiracy for its actions in those states.

Re:Sanctimonius pricks

[bluefoxlucid]

Well I freethink you should keep your damn mouth shut, so I'm going to freethink cut your throat.

Re:Sanctimonius pricks

[Anonymous Coward]

Any site that promotes the idea that it's okay to deceive the person YOU chose to marry/spend the rest of your life with cannot be morally superior.

Although whoever did this did indeed break the law, Ashley Madison promotes the idea that it's okay to lie to your partner to get sex with someone else.

If you aren't happy with your marriage, fucking communicate that to your partner, and explain it to them. Get help, counselling, whatever you need. Or if you really think it's over, leave. Its really that simple. You should be honest with your partner, in whatever you choose to do.

Re:Sanctimonius pricks

[AmiMoJo]

They would have more credibility if they had refused sign-ups from people in countries where adultery is illegal. For example, there are people living in Saudi Arabia in their database, where the penalty for adultery is death.

Re:Sanctimonius pricks

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. I've heard from others that they would rather be raped (again) than cheated on (again), because being cheated on was a much more psychologically destructive. Cheating on a spouse is one of the most damaging things you can do to that person. It is worse than beating them. "Free-thinking" is complete and utter bullshit just as rapists and murderers are just "free-thinkers"

But anyone that derives their entire moral structure from their country's laws is bound for moral destruction. Laws are very poor at creating a personal value system.

Re:Sanctimonius pricks

[Anonymous Coward]

Has anyone bothered to actually look at the READMEs and the little manifesto warnings from the hackers themselves rather than the bad write-ups from journalists who don't understand the mechanics behind AshleyMadison?

The hackers were pointing out that AshleyMadison is actually a con game. They claim that up to 90% of the accounts are actually of men. And I pulled the dump, this assertion does appear on a cursory browse to be true. I haven't had the time to try to go download every popular western/Indian/Chinese/Viet male name and female name and use SQL magic to pull a guess on what the proportion is, but just random flicks through the emails strongly suggest male names.

The site is a sausagefest. That feeds into the second part of the hackers' complaint about the site: your chances of actually getting an encounter on AM are really low because math. But the commercial allure of the site was that there's all these bored, hot cougars ready willing and able to find a married man with a solid job to have an affair with. To keep subscribers on the system the hackers claim they inserted thousands of fake female profiles on to the site, cropped stock photos/etc. and then spammed their male customers with bogus matches. Some of your matches would be a real woman on the site, others would just be someone "browsing" your profile.

So in essence from the hackers point of view what they're really doing is exposing a site that is a con and preys upon horny men in relationships they want out of and turning that into a gold mine.

I see the logic in their argument for this exposure. I'm not agreeing in saying what they did was right, ethical or legal, but they did it anyway. Even if you want to hate on the hackers with all your might, the real evil here is AshleyMadison for not caring about being a good custodian of information that they don't really own. You never own your customer's information, and it's always a liability--not an asset.

Getting to the state where they can IPO seems to be what AshleyMadison's priority was if you look at their Twitter feed of how they marketed themselves and their IPO news was one of their last tweets before the dump. Blinded by that, they failed to protect the very essence of what made their site profitable in the first place--the user base.

The 20GB data dump now has the contents of the CEO's email. This is like the digital version of that show "Cheaters", except the cheater in this case is AshleyMadison itself. If there was any doubt that AM as a company is now completely burnt toast, the 20GB ends all doubt. Someone had to go down in a big way to prove that data security is something that you should do, and I guess this one was it. The company's founders are surely going to be buried under an avalanche of civil suits from its user base now. So much for those millions.

learn to earn

[Anonymous Coward]

very useful website, however you can find more resources on http://foundation4knowledge.blogspot.com/ and http://foundation4knowledge.blogspot.com/p/home.html for learning more

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

[mwvdlee]

In what way is this a prank if your "friend" doesn't ever get notified he even has an account there?

"Information wants to be free".

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a Doctorow quote, he is a fucking idiot, world class.

Re:"Information wants to be free".

[Anonymous Coward]

The quote is generally attributed to Stewart Brand, not to Cory Doctorow.

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

[gl4ss]

well the second part of the prank was obviously to hack and publish the user database.

a pretty elaborate prank I must say, I salute!

people use the CCs of others for sure

[ruir]

Now let me see the transactions of the other 2000 guys that use my credit card. Gonna be back in a while!

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody creates accounts using or linking my email address (and which I have not confirmed) all the time.

And this happens even with big companies who should know better. Microsoft, Skype, Twitter, Banks, etc.

I have no love for the hackers, but...

[Trogre]

If you don't want to get caught cheating, then don't fucking cheat.

These morons deserve to have their details posted.

Re:I have no love for the hackers, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you for real? Seriously....

Re:I have no love for the hackers, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if there is no fucking then there is no reason to cheat ;)

Re:I have no love for the hackers, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at the mangina. He use a quote from his wife as signature.

Re:I have no love for the hackers, but...

[njnnja]

So what? She is saying that 10% of life's problems can be best solved by setting fire to something. That sounds about right.

Stolen property

[Anonymous Coward]

If you download this list is it considered possession of stolen property?

Also can anyone check if the name Ed Danner is on there? Asking for a friend.

Re:Stolen property

[Anonymous Coward]

If you download this list is it considered possession of stolen property?

Also can anyone check if the name Ed Danner is on there? Asking for a friend.

And can you look up "Bill Clinton" too. Just for a fiend.

Get what they deserve

[Barny]

Cheaters really should just suck it up. I mean, yeah it is their own stupid fault in cheating.

Next lets go for the bot boxers, their servers should get hacked next, bring down all forms of gaming cheating!

Wait, what do you mean this has nothing to do with computer games? Da fuq?

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

[DNS-and-BIND]

Wow...what a dick move. You're sure he's your friend?

That's a sociopathic action for sure. You need to have a brain scan to confirm it. Do you do this sort of thing often?

Live by the sword die by the sword

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheaters play in the shadows because the thrill of "outsmarting" their partners breathes excitement in to their lives. It's a selfish form of thrill-seeking.

It's nothing more than a particularly cruel expression of kleptomania.

Speaking as a former thief: don't waste your tears on people who lose a game they initiated. "Might makes right" follows the same ethos/morality. It's equally satisfying watching karma catch up with cheaters as it is to watch a thug start a fight with the wrong victim.

These victims deserve privacy like shoplifters deserve a merciful store owner.

Tried the site years back

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm afraid most of the "available women" I met were barely concealed hookers. The site's a scam.

Re:Tried the site years back

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if pious women in ghillie suits are your thing, it might be a wrong site indeed.

Re:... 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 but we need to state it anyway because we don't want report of men beating their cheating wife going up over night. Help the poor women justify their actions, it for equality after all.

This is a hoax.

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone knows nobody remained married in the US after F*ckfacebook came out and everyone who ever had a peg in a hole of your significant other or visa cersa suddenly had method and means to chat them up for a sympathetic ear (booty call, every time) the minute you were out of the house for more than 8 hours. /sarc

CreditCardTransactions7z...

[Anonymous Coward]

I call BS because CC Transactions are _never_ stored in a .7z file.
It's just common sense.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

He's taking the fall for his buddy. Friends don't come much better than that.

Marry girls, not cunt women&Hans Reiser did ri

[Anonymous Coward]

Marry girl children.
Not "Ashley Madison"s

Can't believe cunts decide anything they do is wonderfun, including adultery.

Hans Reiser did nothing wrong.
He did the correct thing under the Law of the God of Deuteronomy.
I'm happy he killed Nina Reiser. She looked to cuck him, he wasn't having that. She is dead. I pray the cunts that support her meet a similar fate.

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

[trout007]

So was this site free? No CC info?

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

[wbr1]

However legit accounts may have other identifying info. CC numbers, profile pics and text with personal info. I think for many there will be enough data points to ID if not in a court of law then in a court of spouse.

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

[Feral Nerd]

well the second part of the prank was obviously to hack and publish the user database.

a pretty elaborate prank I must say, I salute!

This hacker/prankster should be easy to find, he probably reads Slashdot uses an Android phone and had a girlfriend (that last fact should shorten the suspect list considerably). Oh, and he probably only got angry enough to hack AshleyMadison.com because she cheated on him with an Apple iPhone using hipster.

let's not downplay this

[ihtoit]

"...people should remember that it was possible for anyone to create an account using the name and e-mail address of other individuals."

People should also remember it is very difficult to randomly generate a VALID credit card number.

Sites like this use credit card numbers to "confirm" the age of the individual signing up (I know, I know, having access to Daddies' CC isn't proof of age, etc.).

Re:let's not downplay this

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, it's trivially easy to generate a valid credit card number

Take the first twelve of any valid credit card number.

Add an additional 3 completely random digits

You are now left with a single check digit, which must be 0-9, and only one of these will work.

Now test all 10 (you likely won't have to test all 10 numbers, unless the check digit is a 9)

It's a simple mod-10 and here's the wiki on it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luhn_algorithm

You can even start with less numbers, but I believe the first 4-6 determine the issuer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_card_number

Re:let's not downplay this

[ihtoit]

now match it to a stolen name and verify it against the VISA database..

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Only it's done in a country which has felonies and misdemeanors. The post didn't specify.

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

[ihtoit]

sociopath is a term deprecated back in 1968 (when it was coined as part of the Bell defence which FAILED because it was BULLSHIT), no legitimate psychologist or psychiatrist uses the term.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, evidence is not required for a court of spouse. You get accused of something outrageous you couldn't possibly have done and you're guilty anyway.

I do wonder though how many people are going to be on those lists who never signed up for the site, whether because of 'pranks' like someone else said or just because the thief may have put fake data in the files our just made up the files. Anything is possible but that won't matter in the court of spouse.

To me, just another reason to never use social media, dating sites, or anything else like that. It's one thing, and also inexcusable, for any company to lose a customer list ever, but sites that are actually supposed to make your info available to others are just extra risk waiting to happen.

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

[Fweeky]

My gmail address gets used as a throwaway rather a lot, and you'd be surprised at the number of sites that don't bother at all.

This message was sent to you ($foo@gmail.com) because you are a valued NBA fan registered with us and we wanted to wish you a happy birthday!

Hi meleonaz,

  www.skype.com
Registered email successfully updated
Your email address for the account meleonaz has been successfully updated to $foo@gmail.com

Hi @notme345,
We got a request to reset your Instagram password.

Thanks so much for joining Pandora! We're very happy to have you on board, and we look forward to providing you with endless hours of great music listening and discovery.

Many more sites will still create the account and let you use it without me validating the email, and many more provide no means of saying this *isn't* their email.

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

[dcw3]

I guess these Ph.Ds need to stop using the term then.

https://www.psychologytoday.co...
http://psychcentral.com/blog/a...
http://www.webmd.com/mental-he...

Oh, and they need to remove it from the DSM
http://dsm.psychiatryonline.or...

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?

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

[dcw3]

Exactly this. I get crap mail from Best Buy, Enterprise Rental Car, and several others, because they're too damn lazy to do their jobs.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a piss poor attempt to give the significant other a lame excuse...

"But darling... it was possible for anyone to create an account using the name and e-mail address of other individuals.".

Yeah right :)

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

[ihtoit]

I said legitimate.

Thanks for proving my point.

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

[wvmarle]

That for starters depends on the laws of your locality.

Secondly, person registering the account can very well argue they used a pseudonym. Many a pseudonym is a realistic name, and as such can very well happen to match the name of someone else. People that happen to have identical names are a similar case.

It would definitely be identity theft if the person not only uses another person's name, but tries to completely impersonate another individual. Just registering using a name that's not your own is not identity theft, imho.

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

[dcw3]

No, you just proved that you're an idiot. If you don't know what the DSM is, you shouldn't be commenting on this.

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

[Imrik]

Using someone else's email for it pretty much shoots down the argument that it was a pseudonym.

Called out as fake

[Martin Spamer]

This dump has already been called out as fake

http://krebsonsecurity.com/201...

Re:Called out as fake

[bluefoxlucid]

I’ve now spoken with three vouched sources who all have reported finding their information and last four digits of their credit card numbers in the leaked database. Also, it occurs to me that it’s been almost exactly 30 days since the original hack. Finally, all of the accounts created at Bugmenot.com for Ashleymadison.com prior to the original breach appear to be in the leaked data set as well. I’m sure there are millions of AshleyMadison users who wish it weren’t so, but there is every indication this dump is the real deal.

"Called out as fake! Here's a link showing it's real!"

Re:Called out as fake

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the update. They say its real based on no less than three records.

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

[ihtoit]

I know what the DSM is, it's that volume which claims that simply disagreeing with authority is a mental illness and that anger is something that can be drugged out.

Bring legitimate examples to the table and leave the ad hominems at the fucking door.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you never get upset at stories like "school replacing wood chips with bubble wrap", because you are the reason everything escalates legally so much in this country.

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

[ceoyoyo]

Yeah, me too. AT&T, some casual labour placement place in Phoenix, I even get alarm armed/disarmed/etc. notifications from some woman's house in the NE US. Not to mention the elementary school class parents' mailing list that sent me name, phone number, address, parents' names for all the kids, plus schedules for upcoming events.

People and companies should be more careful.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it absolutely hilarious when slashdot plays lawyer. Stick to tech brother

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Please provide examples of legitimate psychologists or psychiatrists or organizations. I'm genuinely curious.

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

[wvmarle]

Agreed, if you would indeed (have to) use that other person's e-mail, and supposedly gained access to that person's inbox, it'd clearly be identity theft.

However in this case, that's not necessary to register an account.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

If they are Civilian GS, SES, etc., probably few or none; if they are contractors, they are screwed. Whoever has the AM list and the stolen SF-86 list has a gold mine for extortion.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks.

I'm totally using this excuse when my wife finds my name on that list.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah the "everything's a felony" crowd has shown up.

Pull your head out asshole.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to confuse legitimate with "agreeing with me".

DSM may not be a perfect tool. But if something is in there it will be considered legit untill there is a campaign to show that it is controversial.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, I'm just a random person on the internet, I was reading this and I couldn't help notice you we're being a massive douchebag, and I decided to just drop by and give you some notice of your inane fuckery. So that happened.
(and way to be an asshole "oh no legitimate way *get's pointed to a fuckton of legitimate uses* "oh no I mean 'legitimate' use" provides no idea what his idea of "legitimate" could possibly be"
P.S.:Also, those of us who took criminal psychology courses were still taught the term psychopath and sociopath and their very specific meanings you massive tool.

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

[DroolTwist]

how many people are going to be on those lists who never signed up for the site

All of them.

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

[bluefoxlucid]

So the authoritative text of a field is not legitimate? Are you next going to tell me the Oxford English Dictionary is not a legitimate source of definitions of words in the English language?

No legitimate climate scientist believes in climate change.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

No one in the medical community uses this term. It has no real meaning and testing. Calling some a sociopath is akin to saying nanny nanny bo bo

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks. I'm going to use that as my excuse. I just have to convince a friend to say so.

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

[kelemvor4]

No, it's a prank. Now that this hack has happened it's also hilarious. Don't be an old stick in the mud.

Yeah, that's what I tried to explain to my wife

[NotDrWho]

people should remember that it was possible for anyone to create an account using the name and e-mail address of other individuals

See honey, even Slashdot acknowledges it! It was a hack. It could have been anyone using my email and credit card. They probably just got lucky on the penis length thing.

Re:Yeah, that's what I tried to explain to my wife

[Anonymous Coward]

See honey, even Slashdot acknowledges it! It was a hack. It could have been anyone using my email and credit card. They probably just got lucky on the penis length thing.

Yeah, my story is that it couldn't possibly be me, the penis size stated in the profile is way too big.

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

[wardrich86]

I created an account yesterday just to see what it was all about...

I literally smacked my hand off the keyboard to create a username and password (it never even asked me to confirm the password), and the username and domain of an email address. Randomly selected items from drop-downs (managed to set myself up as a 90lb Indian male - couldn't be much more wrong).

Once everything was filled in, the account was instantly created and it was asking me to upload a picture of myself (naturally, I tossed in a dickbutt picture) and added a fun mask to it (compliments of the site's software for "masking" your face).

Then it let me straight into the site, no more questions asked. No verification needed. Nothing.

Yeah right

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

"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."

Yeah, honey, see some other guy with my name and email address made the account on AshleyMadison, it wasn't me!!

I'm sure that'll work, it sounds so plausible.

ex wife used my email address during divorce

[Anonymous Coward]

My ex-wife signed me up to this site and tried to use it as evidence of me cheating in an attempt to try to extract alimony out of me. What a bitch.

Snack Cakes

[slipped_bit]

And all I wanted to do was order some snack cakes. I thought it was odd that they asked for so much personal information. Then I realized I was on the Ashley Madison web site and not the Dolly Madison web site.

LINK?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is the link to the db?

Huh?...

[FingerDemon]

Funny how many guys there are named Ron Mexico.

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

[dmomo]

But not all sites. And supposedly not this site.

do write anything you dont want mom to see

[peter303]

Except for the rare super-cryptographic sites, nearly every sit is vulnerable.

This goes for activity in public too, with a billion smartphone video cams out there.

The DB marks if they were confirmed or not...

[Anonymous Coward]

At least according to the search tool someone released, there's a flag in there as to whether the email was verified or not.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

No TRUE Scotsman would use that term!

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

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA.. They did NOT validate email addresses.

Come on, Slashdot, let's get nerdy about this!

[Anonymous Coward]

I wanna hear about who succeeded in getting this thing to import nicely into a database, and how they did it. How did you manage the parsing? I wanna run some nice search functions on it, say by zip code of the credit card addresses, or by various university .edu domains. I wanna see the creepy messages that my creepy professors send when they're horny. I have a feeling that this is going to be a lot of fun! Also, I'm quite sure that sociologists could find some very interesting patterns in this data, which will teach us a lot about human nature. Weee! (Sorry about my apparent glee - I know that many lives will be ruined by this hack.)

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone did that with my email too.
I deleted their accounts, they were fraudulent anyways.

Leakers Prayers

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy or girl posting this information better pray their identity is never discovered. There will be a line a mile long of people looking to kill them in the most brutal ways possible.

Re:Leakers Prayers

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy or girl posting this information better pray their identity is never discovered. There will be a line a mile long of people looking to kill them in the most brutal ways possible.

I'm guessing that those who would want to kill the leaker will be too busy looking over their shoulders for an angry spouse who is going to want to "kill that cheating bastard/bitch!!!" At the very least, the cheaters are going to be rather busy for the forseeable future with other legal entanglements that they won't have time to create any potential new legal problems for themselves. Just sayin'.

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

[Krojack]

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

HA, No they don't. Someone started using my gmail address years ago (thinking it was theirs) to create accounts. I have access to so many accounts it's borderline wrong. This person even let their kid sign-up to EA's origin.com and bought a game. I did an account password reset seeing as the email address is mine and now the game belongs to me and they can't play it anymore.

Once I even got digital plane ticket's emailed to me from an Australian airline. I was able to do a password reset and get into the account and do whatever I wanted.

Companies seem to be relying on the "type your email 2 times" method and not the ending an email to verify. It's pretty sad.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

To a Scientologist, none are legitimate ...

My wife cheated on me...do I download this?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, my wife cheated on me awhile back, and we are in counselling and trying to patch things up after I unceremoniously threw her out of the house.

Do I download this data and search it for identifying info that could lead to my wife? I'm not sure I trust her enough not to be in that data, but I'm not sure I'd really want to know.

Thoughts?

Re:My wife cheated on me...do I download this?

[Lord Kano]

"Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat tails." - Clarence Darrow

If she cheated and you're working on things, she has no right to be offended if you don't trust her. Check that shit.

I'll be looking to download it just on general principles.

LK

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that you, Tom Cruise?

I just have one thing to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

HA HA HA HA... ahhhhhh HAAAAA HA HAAAA HEE HEE hee haa hee hee whew... ahh that felt good.

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

[phantomfive]

Sociopath is not a disorder listed in the DSM. Even a cursory glance at Wikipedia will inform you of this.

By Neruos

[Anonymous Coward]

Good for them,

Dislike all this "Attack on Morals, God is Dead, Government Give me Checks" crap.

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

[Khyber]

"So the authoritative text of a field is not legitimate?"

Given how illegitimate and unreproducible most psychology 'experiments' are, they have zero scientific credibility and thus the entire field is illegitimate.

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

[Charliemopps]

But they did allow you to verify and encouraged it. There's an account verification field with Y/N in it. Most of the accounts are verified. Nice try though!

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

[Charliemopps]

Most of the accounts were verified. People are already going through the data. You didn't HAVE to verify the email, but most people did anyway.

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

[bluefoxlucid]

You can say that about physics, medicine, or climate science as well.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

That depends on your intentions and what you do with it. If you meet sleep with women and then get them to demand child support from him, certainly. If you jut post a joke picture not so much. If you tell his wife that you did it for him as a joke, and that helps him cover up his real account, it may even count as a service.

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

[dcw3]

My apologies, you are technically correct, though the link I provided shows over 1700 relevant articles.

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

[phantomfive]

That is true too lol. There is no official diagnosis of sociopath, so the term is deprecated; though clearly psychologists still use it (and sometimes base their entire practice on it)

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

[dcw3]

I brought legitimate examples, which you've summarily dismissed. But, then you're smarter than all of the actual Ph.Ds in the field.

Have a nice day jackass.

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

[dcw3]

So, what indicates that it has "depreciated". If it's not decreasing in usage among professionals, that seems to indicate an incorrect usage to me.

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

[Khyber]

Medicine has plenty of verifiable experimental results. Climate science has verifiable geological records. Physics has plenty of proof that the Laws of Thermodynamics are inviolable.

Almost every psychology experiment with results simply cannot be reproduced at all.

to paraphrase Eddie Murphy

[OutOnARock]

Wife: Mr. Johnson, you have an account on Ashley Madison

Mr. Johnson: Ashley Madison? I'm not a cheater....

Wife: Sure you are not a cheater

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. I get GCHQ stuff and emails with photos from dudes at various locations because some random project manager over there has the same name as me and can't figure out gmail. Ps hope little Finn liked his Christmas present.

Josh Duggar one of the AM users

[Khyber]

Well, good. That should kill that little segment of 'reality tv' and clean up our airwaves a little bit.

I believe the list is real

[Anonymous Coward]

1) I have a secret e-mail account I use for slutting around, and it's in there.
2) my ex-girlfriend (who cheated on me quite a lot) her secret slut e-mail is in there too.
3) one of my good friends who is known to be a bit of a sex freak, his is in there too
4) the "normals" from my life are not in there.

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

[greenfruitsalad]

my favourite reaction to this incident is:
"2 years of paying $19 a month... Now I'm finally getting f**ked"

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

[gsslay]

Me too. Worst yet, they're usually websites that are so shit that they ignore their own "unsubscribe" processes.

I had this problem just last week. This bunch of clowns ignored my request to unsubscribe. So I went in, reset the password, and logged in. No option to delete account or opt out, so I changed my email address to the website's own enquiries inbox. Made no difference, still got a daily spam. So clearly their email spam-me list is separate from their account list and don't sync. Sigh. Just another address to add to my spam filter for the next 50 years.

Too many morons designing email subscription services.

how many of these are pseudonyms?

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't seen much commentary on the question of how many of the exposed records are real identities and how many are pseudonyms. Leaving aside the (lack of) ethics of betraying your life partner, let's take a moment to note how easy it is to make separate Gmail and Google Voice accounts, and pay cash for a Visa debit card. If you're using your real identity and your main email address -- especially if it's a work address (and especially a dot-gov or dot-mil one), then, sure, you're a bastard, but more to the point, you're a moron.

It would be difficult, if not impossible, to hide your actions from Google, let alone the NSA. But you wouldn't be outed by this hack.

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

[bluefoxlucid]

Yet psychology is a valuable field that underscores medicine, economics, business, stock prediction, poker, and so forth.

Reproducible results in psychology show that 4 months of cognitive therapy for the severely depressed produce results of 0 relapses in 24 months in 47% of cases, while continuous drug therapy for 24 months produces 0 relapses in 23% of patients, and a placebo for 24 months produces 8% success rate. The targeting of specific distorted thinking and the guided improvement of executive functions actually works twice as well as Xanax or Zoloft, which themselves only work about 3 times as well as simply suggesting to a patient that he has undergone treatment.

That indicates the psychological strategies have a large (5x) impact beyond the placebo effect--a conclusion we can reproduce simply enough by putting an experiment group on sugar pills and putting another on therapy, while keeping an untreated control group to monitor.

I'm sure you would argue that seeing the effect repeatedly, but not understanding the cause invoked by the specific experimental action, means no reproducible experimental results exist, since we can't say that each experimental action invokes the same physical responses and thus produces the same effect by the same cause. We can say that about chemistry by invoking quantum mechanics, too.