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Ashley Madison Blackmail Letter Revealed (grahamcluley.com)

Posted by timothy on from the our-people-will-call-your-people dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Security researcher Graham Cluley says he has been forwarded a blackmail letter, sent to a member of the controversial Ashley Madison adultery website. In the letter the blackmailer says that unless $2,000 worth of bitcoin is paid within 10 days, the recipient's wife, friends and colleagues will be informed of his misdemeanors. In a threatening twist, the letter goes on to give personal details of another victim who refused to pay the blackmailers, and how his personal life and work were targeted as a result. Cluley's advice to recipients is not to pay the blackmailers, but to tell the U.S. Postal Inspectors Service.

10 of 228 comments (clear)

  1. You want to cheat on your wife? by DewDude · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is what you get.

    This is one of the few cases where I don't support the activities of any party involved; the hackers for what they did, the website for providing/promoting such blatant infidelity, nor the people who use the site.

    However, in this case, the people I support the least are the people who took their marriage vows so lightly they're using a website to cheat. It's absolutely disgusting. You get what you deserve. What to avoid the collateral damage; don't cheat. But, since you're past that point; you might as well fess up to it; and make sure you tell your family you're only coming clean about it due to a threat of blackmail. It'll make them see your character for what it really is.

    Quite frankly, screw everyone all around in this ordeal. It's disgusting we're still talking about this.

    1. Re:You want to cheat on your wife? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Most of the membership was closet gay people who didn't want to be outed. Especially since being gay is punishable by death in some countries and cultures.

      So maybe you can get off your high horse and actually try to understand the different sides of the issue for once.

    2. Re:You want to cheat on your wife? by Penguinisto · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I have zero sympathy for a cheater who gets one of these letters. If you betray your spouse, then you can suck on the consequences.

      On the other hand, extortion is still an illegal act, no matter how righteous it may look when you do it.

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    3. Re:You want to cheat on your wife? by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is one of the few cases where I don't support the activities of any party involved; the hackers for what they did, the website for providing/promoting such blatant infidelity, nor the people who use the site.

      Meh, people have been screwing around on one another for as long as they've had one another.

      Putting aside the underlying puritanical bullshit, who broke the law here? Yes, that's right, the hackers and the extortionists. Wah wah wah, people have affairs and they'e evil people .. such moralizing bullshit. Neither Ashley Madison nor the people using the site broke any laws.

      And I've long since stopped thinking the opinion of a bunch of hand-wringing church ladies is of any consequence. It's just people acting like they have authority over what others do. People who think infidelity will stop due to their own loud self-righteousness ... well, just as often those assholes find themselves getting caught doing the same fucking thing.

      Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, otherwise shut the fuck up. It's disgusting that you feel your opinion about what people you don't know is worth a damn, or that it has anything to do with you.

      Oh, wait, is your entire morality based on retribution against strangers because you feel they deserve it? That's not a fucking morality, that's being a self-righteous ass.

      What next, wanting us stoned for idolatry? Go stone yourself.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    4. Re: You want to cheat on your wife? by DarkOx · · Score: 2, Insightful

      At least here in Virgina adultery is still in fact a crime, though rarely prosecuted unfortunately. As it should be, because I does in fact harm society at large and the party who is cheated on is essentially being defrauded with regard to their marriage contract.

      Personally I would like to see the state go after some of the AM users whose actual cheating can otherwise be corroborated. I think it would send a good message, and the fine is $250 bucks so its not ruin anyone. Sadly it wont happen since the lefties captured the governors office.

      --
      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    5. Re:You want to cheat on your wife? by Wycliffe · · Score: 3, Insightful

      especially if you do it only because of the blackmail money - cheapskate

      Not paying up for blackmail is not being a cheapskate. It makes zero sense to pay blackmail money. So you pay the $2k today, what did that actually gain you? What's to stop them from coming back tomorrow and demanding another $2k or the week after and demanding $40k? What's to stop someone else from demanding $2k? Paying to keep information secret is a game you can't win. Old movies would try to pretend that you are paying for the originals or that they destroy all the other copies but in today's world it's impossible to prove that so it makes zero sense to ever pay blackmail. The only place it might make a little sense is if you get in a situation where it's either a continue flow of money and/or the identity of the blackmailer is known and has something to lose if they are found out as well. This occasionally happens where some politician pays support money for an illegitimate child or something like that but even this is a fool's game as the blackmailer can always increase the amount of money required at any time. Any time you're in a situation where there is one sided leverage then your best and only option is to figure out how to remove that leverage from being used.

    6. Re: You want to cheat on your wife? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Breach of contract is not a crime, nor should it be. Your position is contradictory, as on the one hand you say that marriage is a contract, and on the other hand you say that breaching it should be prosecuted as a crime (which makes no sense if it is a contract).

      You sound like a moral puritan, though, so you probably don't care about law or justice as much as you care about forcing others to live according to your moral values.

      People are driven (by hormones and social forces) to marry when they are still far too young to have a clue about what they actually need in a livelong domestic partner. Some of them luck out, but many of them wind up feeling like they have just been victimized by a bait-and-switch. Their reactions to this trap are not always wise or noble, but they are common.

      I, for one, am very glad I don't live in Virginia.

    7. Re: You want to cheat on your wife? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You can have all that. Simply don't get married, instead offer your partner a contract, or just agree to live together and share stuff as long as it suits you.

      Marriage is just a pre-packaged contract between two people, with standard terms. They are popular because they are cheaper than getting a custom contract drawn up, and if there is a dispute it's generally cheaper and easier to resolve because the courts are well versed in the terms. It's better for people who are not lawyers too, because the terms are well advertised and understood, unlike a contract full of legalese.

      Unfortunately for you, many people are not willing to accept custom relationship contracts. Marriage is perceived as basically fair, and in most developed nations it more or less objectively is, so any desire to avoid those terms is seen as a desire for one side to benefit at the expense of the other.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  2. Don't Pay by Infiniti2000 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They will continue to blackmail you. Why wouldn't they when so successful the first time? It's not like they're trustworthy or anything. If you're stupid enough to get involved with Ashley Madison in the first place, then just fess up to your wife and family and deal with the consequences. But, in the end, most of us will have no sympathy for either the scumbags who use Ashley Madison or those who blackmail them.

  3. Sounds like he's bluffing to me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's interesting that in the letter, the blackmailer provides no information about the recipient apart from his name and address. He lists all of the information about his prior victim, but my guess is that it's all part of his ruse. I suspect that the websites are fake and the phone number is a line straight to the blackmailer, who will corroborate the story whenever any of the many recipients of his letters call.

    This requires more money to set up than an email, but the blackmailer knows that ``The wicked flee when no man pursueth."