Large caches of data stolen from online cheating site AshleyMadison.com have been posted online by an individual or group that claims to have completely compromised the company’s user databases, financial records and other proprietary information. The still-unfolding leak could be quite damaging to some 37 million users of the hookup service, whose slogan is “Life is short. Have an affair.”
The data released by the hacker or hackers — which self-identify as The Impact Team — includes sensitive internal data stolen from Avid Life Media (ALM), the Toronto-based firm that owns AshleyMadison as well as related hookup sites Cougar Life and Established Men.
Reached by KrebsOnSecurity late Sunday evening, ALM Chief Executive Noel Biderman confirmed the hack, and said the company was “working diligently and feverishly” to take down ALM’s intellectual property. Indeed, in the short span of 30 minutes between that brief interview and the publication of this story, several of the Impact Team’s Web links were no longer responding.
“We’re not denying this happened,” Biderman said. “Like us or not, this is still a criminal act.”
Besides snippets of account data apparently sampled at random from among some 40 million users across ALM’s trio of properties, the hackers leaked maps of internal company servers, employee network account information, company bank account data and salary information.
The compromise comes less than two months after intruders stole and leaked online user data on millions of accounts from hookup site AdultFriendFinder.
In a long manifesto posted alongside the stolen ALM data, The Impact Team said it decided to publish the information in response to alleged lies ALM told its customers about a service that allows members to completely erase their profile information for a $19 fee.
According to the hackers, although the “full delete” feature that Ashley Madison advertises promises “removal of site usage history and personally identifiable information from the site,” users’ purchase details — including real name and address — aren’t actually scrubbed.
“Full Delete netted ALM $1.7mm in revenue in 2014. It’s also a complete lie,” the hacking group wrote. “Users almost always pay with credit card; their purchase details are not removed as promised, and include real name and address, which is of course the most important information the users want removed.”
Their demands continue:
“Avid Life Media has been instructed to take Ashley Madison and Established Men offline permanently in all forms, or we will release all customer records, including profiles with all the customers’ secret sexual fantasies and matching credit card transactions, real names and addresses, and employee documents and emails. The other websites may stay online.”
A snippet of the message left behind by the Impact Team.
It’s unclear how much of the AshleyMadison user account data has been posted online. For now, it appears the hackers have published a relatively small percentage of AshleyMadison user account data and are planning to publish more for each day the company stays online.
“Too bad for those men, they’re cheating dirtbags and deserve no such discretion,” the hackers continued. “Too bad for ALM, you promised secrecy but didn’t deliver. We’ve got the complete set of profiles in our DB dumps, and we’ll release them soon if Ashley Madison stays online. And with over 37 million members, mostly from the US and Canada, a significant percentage of the population is about to have a very bad day, including many rich and powerful people.”
ALM CEO Biderman declined to discuss specifics of the company’s investigation, which he characterized as ongoing and fast-moving. But he did suggest that the incident may have been the work of someone who at least at one time had legitimate, inside access to the company’s networks — perhaps a former employee or contractor.
“We’re on the doorstep of [confirming] who we believe is the culprit, and unfortunately that may have triggered this mass publication,” Biderman said. “I’ve got their profile right in front of me, all their work credentials. It was definitely a person here that was not an employee but certainly had touched our technical services.”
As if to support this theory, the message left behind by the attackers gives something of a shout out to ALM’s director of security.
“Our one apology is to Mark Steele (Director of Security),” the manifesto reads. “You did everything you could, but nothing you could have done could have stopped this.”
Several of the leaked internal documents indicate ALM was hyper aware of the risks of a data breach. In a Microsoft Excel document that apparently served as a questionnaire for employees about challenges and risks facing the company, employees were asked “In what area would you hate to see something go wrong?”
Trevor Stokes, ALM’s chief technology officer, put his worst fears on the table: “Security,” he wrote. “I would hate to see our systems hacked and/or the leak of personal information.”
In the wake of the AdultFriendFinder breach, many wondered whether AshleyMadison would be next. As the Wall Street Journal noted in a May 2015 brief titled “Risky Business for AshleyMadison.com,” the company had voiced plans for an initial public offering in London later this year with the hope of raising as much as $200 million.
“Given the breach at AdultFriendFinder, investors will have to think of hack attacks as a risk factor,” the WSJ wrote. “And given its business’s reliance on confidentiality, prospective AshleyMadison investors should hope it has sufficiently, er, girded its loins.”
Update, 8:58 a.m. ET: ALM has released the following statement about this attack:
“We were recently made aware of an attempt by an unauthorized party to gain access to our systems. We immediately launched a thorough investigation utilizing leading forensics experts and other security professionals to determine the origin, nature, and scope of this incident.”
“We apologize for this unprovoked and criminal intrusion into our customers’ information. The current business world has proven to be one in which no company’s online assets are safe from cyber-vandalism, with Avid Life Media being only the latest among many companies to have been attacked, despite investing in the latest privacy and security technologies.”
“We have always had the confidentiality of our customers’ information foremost in our minds, and have had stringent security measures in place, including working with leading IT vendors from around the world. As other companies have experienced, these security measures have unfortunately not prevented this attack to our system.”
“At this time, we have been able to secure our sites, and close the unauthorized access points. We are working with law enforcement agencies, which are investigating this criminal act. Any and all parties responsible for this act of cyber–terrorism will be held responsible.”
“Avid Life Media has the utmost confidence in its business, and with the support of leading experts in IT security, including Joel Eriksson, CTO, Cycura, we will continue to be a leader in the services we provide. “I have worked with leading companies around the world to secure their businesses. I have no doubt, based on the work I and my company are doing, Avid Life Media will continue to be a strong, secure business,” Eriksson said.”
When your having immoral affair, don’t be surprised to see them crashing down.
I love how it’s only “human trafficking” when the customers are men.
Find one where rich women are paying for men and it’s the same. Humans paying for humans is still “human trafficking” regardless of gender. It’s immoral no matter what.
One of them was mentioned directly in the article—Established Men, run by the same people who run Ashley Madison—did you actually read the article?
Oops, my bad. Established Men is where you go to find rich men. The Cougar site is where you go to find rich women. Still, my basic point stands—there are TOTALLY places to go “buy” young men.
Oops, my bad; you say it’s “wrong” for either gender. I still don’t really agree with you, but my “point” was wrong…
That’s BS. What gives you or anyone else the right to make moral judgments? Let these guys cheat on their wives, why is it our business? Who cares? What is this, 1952?
The Ashleymadison owners are running a perfectly legitimate business, filling a need the market clearly wants, with one marked exception– the “full delete” service. If the hackers truly wanted the high ground, they would tell the site owners to refund 100% of fees from the full delete service and admit their wrongdoing. That would be the right thing to do.
Instead, they told them to kill the site (or else). This is a purely destructive and malicious act. They just want to burn that house down.
Cheating is morally wrong in nearly all circumstances. Pretty sure the wives would like to know that their husbands are cheating, would they not?
There are plenty of wives on the site as well, I would wager, since it wasn’t specifically a homosexual hookup site.
Your morals John.
Funny thing about morals though… Your morals are not universal.
Don’t believe me?
Ask a New Guinean head hunter a moral question… better yet, let him ask you one.
You are moralizing by your very attempt to suggest universal morality.
There is no such thing.
Ah yes, so why don’t we allow murder? After all, morals aren’t universal and laws are based on morals.
Morals are universal, they have to be. People who go against them do terrible things.
We don’t allow murder because it is impractical to run a society at this size with people murdering each other. Now tell me how does this imply that we need absolute morals.
You just clearly explained why we need absolute morals. It’s a necessary component of creating a stable society. Pretty straightforward, actually.
What is necessary for a stable society is a set of laws that are enforced. This is by no means the same as having absolute morals. I
By the way, the current set of laws does not make cheating illegal, so equating laws with morality “proves” that cheating is indeed moral.
No. Many laws are based on morals- or should be ideally at least.
You are severely retarded if you think the only reason you should not murder someone is that it is “impractical”.
Like it or not we have absolute morals. You want to see a society which doesn’t obey by them? Go join ISIS.
Our morals are, and must be absolute.
No, actually ISIS believe extremely vehemently in absolute morality.
Absolute morals obviously don’t exist, or we’d all agree on them incontrovertibly.
ISIS is wrong as are you.
Ironically, it is ISIS who live by much stricter “absolute” morals, albeit their own.
Actually Law originated in morals. Therefore, the entire fabric of today’s society is based on morals. Even the laws which govern commercial affairs (I fail to see the moral implications regarding commodity trading regulations for example in it of itself, disregarding any unfair competition law etc.). In other words, THERE IS A LEGAL SANCTION FOR MARITAL INFIDELITY YOU IGNORANT IGNORAT PRICKS. A man or woman may do as he or she pleases, freedom above anything else.
However, cheating is not freedom, it’s more about dishonesty and the legal consequences thereof than anything else.
To conclude on this topic, I really hope the hackers stick to their statement and publish the data, and I hope the site gets taken down permanently and charges are pressed against their administration and associates for building a business which facilitates something that is actually illegal (if we’re talking about marriage) or simply weakening society as a whole through lies and dishonesty (I might be old fashioned believing that family is the nucleus of society, but it has been proven to be the pillar of our society time and time again).
Ah but we (assuming by your use of English that you are a first-world westerner) do allow murder in many cases, such as self-defense, castle doctrine, or capital punishment.
Not quite so absolute, is it?
You’re confusing homicide with murder.
And yet here you are making universal statements about there being no universal morality.
Irony.
please let my name be on that list for a stupid site I didn’t pay for because it was “free” so I can get in on the lawsiut
Guess I should start joining all these type of sites in hope of them being hacked! I would love to get in on a lawsuit of such a large dimension. In fact I would donate 10% of such proceeds to any hacker that hacked the site!
Not ironic, just logical.
The claim the morality is not universal is a controversial philosophical position. It is not obviously true. Your attempt to argue so by pontificating would also be moralizing under your perspective. It is your moral position and not others. Hypocrisy has made you look foolish. The vast majority of ethicist do not believe that morality is subjective. Every subjective theory ever offered is deeply logically flawed to the point of incoherence. Just think about this: you are saying you are morally right and he is wrong, isn’t this a call to a universal standard? Or are you merely saying you are right in your head and no where else? If so, why bother commenting?
Just because some people act in an immoral fashion doesn’t mean morality is non-existent. Ever notice that moral societies tend to experience greater levels of prosperity? Seems to be pretty universal to me.
Absolute moral relativism, Ben? Really? Look, I get that you want to play philosophy with the big boys, but try not to trot out stuff that was demolished thousands of years ago.
“Cheating is morally wrong in nearly all circumstances…”
Tell me more about these “morals” that you’ve invented for the rest of us. I’m listening.
/munches popcorn/
Oh yes, morals! Ugh, they’re so terrible. Without them murder would be fine, but that’s irrelevant.
Hey, if there’s nothing wrong with what you’re doing, why not just tell your partner? Why use a site like this to hide? If your partner’s so bad you need to cheat on them, get out of the relationship.
Unless it’s an abusive relationship, there’s no reason to cheat and it’s a scumbag move.
Those are your personal morals speaking. I hope you live by them, but your apparent latent desire to murder other people wantonly indicates you remain “moral” only because of societal consensus.
Anyway, your personal morals, while they sure seem pretty nice (as long as they remain unchallenged), do not apply to others.
In my experience, those folks who talk the loudest and most often about “morals” are the folks who tend to apply morals far less strictly to themselves than they apply morals to others.
The issue of morality is VERY simple—do you needlessly cause harm to another?
The so called “Golden Rule” has nothing to do with religion or culture, only humanity.
Profiting from some people’s selfish disregard for the pain inflicted on other people is wrong, full stop.
Why don’t you tell us more about your beloved atheism and how it drove you to nihilistic tendencies? Tell us all about how morality is pointless and there’s no meaning to life. Tell us about how morality is for losers.
People like you are the reason civilizations die out. You’re nothing but a parasitic degenerate.
Equating atheism with nihilism, or with a lack of morals, is a belief learned from those with every interest in you keeping your mind closed to other influences.
Hurray. Someone has a sense of justice and a sense of humor.
The real obscenity is false promises of confidentiality and what banks, immoral corporate legal and executive departments of financial institutions and corporations that do such widespread harm to customers by exposing their information through poor security, and what other merchants do by not paying up for real security, putting all the risk on consumers, the way they do with the money risks, and otherwise similarly treating loyal customers as the enemy and milk cows. Can’t wait to see who got “exposed.”
As the joke goes about exploiting customers and harming them when honest harmless good business would do just fine, “you don’t want to eat that pig all at once.” Poetic justice for a change; just wish it could be done to the bankers who came up with Lifelock, the same bankers who take sensitive information and expose it, creatively coming up with offering for a big fee to help protect the information they themselves were given to do honest commerce and instead they exploit and damage. Giving the criminals your sensitive information and a good fee to help defend against…why, their very peers, and maybe even some of them as well.
Disagree. Every promise of confidentiality is false, when it comes to someone kicking the door in and stealing the data.
The only true problem with AshleyMadison, as I see it, is that they sold a service claiming to physically _delete_ your data, and that service didn’t actually do anything. That isn’t right. They should bleed for that.
Destroying the entire site isn’t just compensation, though.
The problem with saying “the cheaters are getting their comeuppance” is that we do not proof positive know that every account was a person who was being unfaithful in a relationship. It is quite possible that an account was used by someone who was in an open relationship. This is still an honest relationship and isn’t cheating. The fact that someone is in such a relationship doesn’t have to be made public. It could be a private agreement between the couple. This action by the hackers tramples on this possibly unconventional, but nonetheless honest relationship.
The Ashleymadison owners are running a perfectly stupid business, if apparently they can’t keep it secret.
I predict a lot of blackmailing will ensue. lol
Cheating is almost certainly immoral in every known human culture. It’s how we create societies.
It is also immoral in our culture. Everyone knows it’s immoral, because when we cheat we work very hard to hide our cheating. The hack on this site is a threat because cheating is immoral in our culture. That’s the long and short of it.
No, it has nothing whatsoever to do with religion or the sanctity of marriage. It’s all about a promise to remain sexually faithful to a particular person. If you like, on that promise hinge a number of commitments, ranging from economics to health risks. Even a libertarian should be able to understand that.
Marriage is a SOCIAL contract, a PUBLIC one. It signals to others that two individuals are obligated to one another, and these individuals are (usually) responsible for a common set of children. There are a variety of business, employee, and gov’t benefits that go to people who are married, benefits that unmarried individuals do not get.
Those who break the vows of marriage deserve to be outed as liars and thieves of public largesse. They are cheating the PUBLIC, not just their spouses. More importantly, when these sham marriages inevitably break up, the public safety net should be pulled out from under them. Let the cheating spouse live in a shack after s/he has been taken for all s/he’s got.
If cheating is not wrong, then hacking isn’t either!
What doesn’t give people the right to make moral judgements? You can act like despicable turd all you want, and I can most certainly judge you for it.
The line is crossed when one breaks the law.
BTW, broken marriages affect more than just those married. It also can and often does drastically affects children, psychologically. Cheating on your spouse is not a victimless act.
Ok who cheated with the hacker’s wife..?
I actually really hope that the guy(s) behind this don’t get caught.
Cheating’s really low, and running a site like this is too.
Good for whoever did this.
Not good somebody real sucks at Opsec
Morals of making a moral judgement aside, clearly the security team did NOT do all they could, or this would not be happening.
Unless Mr Krebs has made a rare error of clarity and all payment data and PII was properly encrypted and thus release at least delayed, if not prevented.
Now waiting for one of the fetish related sites to get taken for a ride and watch the ensuing fallout as names are named. At least then we might get some sense into our related laws once half of the developed worlds’ governments realise they’re actually all wierdoes together.
Pfffft. Any site can be hacked. Doing the right thing just makes it more challenging.
Not that I’m saying the AM admins were competent, I have no opinion on that either way, just that a site being hacked is not immediate evidence of admin incompetence.
Encryption doesn’t help if your network is compromised. Normally, you don’t just store data – you want to do something with it, like process it for reports. And then you have to decrypt it somehow. That’s where the attackers come in and either learn your encryption algorithm/keys/whatever or simply pull out the data after it was decrypted.
Generally: yes, a network beyond minimal complexity can always be hacked. One can protect the network all they want but as long as there are humans working with that network they can usually be compromised. If a company has thousands of employees, training all of them to understand the threats is just unrealistic. And once somebody got a foot in the network, it’s always possible to move on and compromise further (more important) computers. Network compromise not a “possible or not” question but rather “how much effort.”
dis gun b fun
I could see buyers for this data…just saying..
Why do people continue to conduct their most sordid activities online?
Same reason why everybody gets porn online. It’s easier, less embarrassing, less personal exposure (if you’re careful).
Another poster mentioned opsec. The average man/woman on the street has no clue what that is. You go on these sites and you see people posting pics straight out of facebook. Reverse image search on google or tineye and you get their name, which gives you their facebook (which is inevitably open), twitter, instagram, and so on.
Most people expose their entire lives online, and have no clue how to protect themselves from the bright light of day.
But (and this is key) that doesn’t mean it’s OK to screw those people over. If your neighbor leaves his keys in the car, that doesn’t make it OK to steal that car. Just because something is easy, and the person doing it is unsophisticated or a jerk, that doesn’t make it right to kick them straight in the nuts just because you can.
But I thought you were against absolutist judgments? Why shouldn’t I steal his car? I thought you were all in favor of “hey, screw morals!”.
The guy isn’t going and murdering all those people on the list. If the names get out, they have to deal with the consequences of their actions in the relationship. That’s it.
This is the problem with fundamentalists like you. Just because it’s obviously a dick move to steal someone’s car doesn’t mean that imaginary sky daddy is going to send us to an eternal lake of fire for stealing cars.
There are circumstances which, imaginably, could make stealing a car justifiable. People saving the world in action movies do it all the time, right?
It’d be interesting to hear what you think the source of absolute morality is.
This is hilarious. Good for them. If cheating was no big deal, or morally ambiguous, then these men and women would simply declare an open relationship and keep it out in the open. Since they obviously didn’t, instead choosing to sneak around through some website, I can’t say I pity them when their names are published and their spouses find out. If it’s not a big deal morally, then this should also be fine… right?
Except the hackers are publishing private data. Is that “morally” ok with you when they are exposing something you consider immoral? Would it suddenly be NOT ok if they published your medical records and bank account info and private emails and texts? Or is that OK to because maybe you made some “moral” blunders and should be publicly humiliated. Maybe I should hack you and be sure you haven’t “sinned”.
Knock yourself out, mysterious internet stranger. It’s a throwaway account with a fake name. However, whatever “sins” I’ve committed are common knowledge to those who know me anyway. I don’t lie to my loved ones. Life’s too short for this sort of ridiculous behavior. If your marriage is unhappy, end it and move on. Man (or woman) up! Don’t sneak around like a douchebag.
Nice redirect, scared of the question so toss out a smokescreen and run away. Coward.
You are clearly some who is about to be exposed from this hack. You do protest too much. A crying shame, really.
Ok I want to run some ideas past you to see if you can understand why your position is flawed.
1: You are assuming that any person signed up has definitely cheated on their partner. Maybe they were coming to the end of a relationship and preferred to look there where there was a degree of anonymity instead of going on Tinder where everyone would see them, maybe they were looking for a third person with the consent of their spouse.
2. You are assuming that they will only get in trouble with their spouses. Maybe they have already ended the relationship, nonetheless their credit card data will be publicised and certainly stolen. Also, friends and colleagues might find out.
3. They may no longer be on the service. As mentioned in the article, account data was not deleted. Even someone who came clean to their spouse, reconciled, requested that the account be deleted, and is leading a happy life is about to have their credit card data splashed across the internet. Combine this with friends and colleagues finding out to see a happy couple get publicly humiliated.
Yeah cheaters are scum, but what you are advocating will even burn people who are reformed, who were simply curious, or who were using the service with the consent of their spouse.
Sure, a lot of bad people will get screwed over, but so will some good people, do you think that is worth it?
The “reformed” good people will be able to explain this away by saying the data is old. The poor seekers with understanding spouses have nothing to hide. Your job can’t fire you for this unless it’s something forbidden by your job, in which case you deserve what you get. No pity. None. This site spells out that the intent is to hook people up for affairs, so even if you’re single and trolling for the unhappily married, you’re scum.
“coward?”
I don’t see your real name here…
This post is going to give krebs the biggest click volume in this site’s history
combine sex, internet and exposure and it’s a recipe for disaster… and hits.
It would be acceptable to publish his private financial information if he was funding a terrorist organization- which he is not- so no, it wouldn’t be.
Your comments make you sound like a physchopath.
Choice words from the guy who keeps saying the only reason he isn’t running around killing people is because he believes in absolute morality (nobody tell him about Santa Claus).
Here’s another pointer to an insider:
The Impact Team registered an account on the software collaboration site Launchpad.net on Sunday. The project is entitled “Ashley Madison Source” and the user identity for the “TheImpactTeam” is listed as “brian-offenheim.”
No code or files have been uploaded to the project as of yet.
There is a Brian Offenheim on LinkedIn who is a web designer associated with Avid Life Media. I highly doubt that he is involved, rather it looks like an ” up yours” from someone (once) on the inside to him or others who work there.
Link: launchpad(dot)net/ashley
Heh — that page was memory-holed in the last thirty seconds or so.
This tweet from 2014 seems to involve him too
https://twitter.com/McConan/status/464861251148214273
“Existing case# 1737739. I did not authorize $19 to cancel my Ashley Madison Account! I have been unable to resolve this. @boffenheim”
This is hilarious! Anyone cheating on their alleged partner really should be prepared for the consequences, if and when they get found out. Making moral judgements has sod-all to do with it. Don’t want to be outed as a cheat? Then don’t stray… Your choice.
There may be no universal absolutes, but fidelity in marriage comes pretty close the whole world ’round….
Those claiming no moral absolutes are wanna be wishful thinkers. Faithfulness in marriage is pretty much the main aspect of marriage.
I hope this hacker eludes capture.
I’m really surprised by the absolutist moral judgement shown in these comments. I thought we were past that sort of thing.
Marriage is a commitment to monogamy, yes. Cheating breaks that commitment. But why is it our place to judge execute a sentence on those people? If you knew a random stranger was cheating on his wife, would you tell her? Is that your business? Would you be right to do so?
But you’re not sentencing them to anything. You’re not going up to them and punching them, you’re not sending them to prison, you’re merely telling someone. What happens after is a result of that.
If someone was cheating on you, would you like to know?
I don’t know about “all people” but personally I have no idea – maybe I would have preferred not knowing anything. What I definitely know, I wouldn’t want to learn that from some stranger. And I definitely wouldn’t want the whole world to know my wife is cheating on me.
So – I can dislike such websites and I can dislike people using them. But they are still legal and hacking them, publishing private data of people who didn’t do anything illegal – it’s still wrong.
You know, I would generally condemn illegal hacking of any site… except in this case. That Ashley Madison site TOTALLY DESERVES to be shut down and its cheaters exposed. If the hacker demands don’t shut it down, I’m sure the lawsuits from its users will. Haha. Good riddance!
The real question is where can we find the dump?
moral of the story is: careful who you trust with your secrets.
Somebody is very angry and is taking things very personally. One thing about personal information being stolen and held while demands are being made is that the information has still been stolen. It’s not coming back. Paying the ransom does not necessarily remove the risk. It is still in the hands of someone who seems to have a very passionate grudge.
Cheaters don’t win. Winners don’t cheat.
I’ve been cheated on but I’ve not cheated on anyone in my life. I don’t think these hackers can think of themselves as morally decent people, 2 wrongs do not make a right.
If people cheat on their partner that is something they have to look inside themselves of to decide whether it is right or wrong, not for others to force upon them. Regarding being faithful, relationships should be built on trust and respect not fear of being caught. If the only thing keeping my wife faithful was the fear of being caught cheating, I don’t want her to be my wife.
Also if the names are revealed innocent people are going to get hurt, that isn’t worth exposing the guilty for.
I don’t understand the demand for the sites to be shutdown. Sure they may shut the site down but many new sites will emerge over time. This sounds personal to me.
It is.
Honestly, I think I want to see them release the information just to see what will happen. There’s undoubtedly a lot of politicians, lawyers, CEOs and other rich personas in the database. The backlash alone from these people alone would be fascinating. Also, it’ll give the tabloids a much needed boost. 37 million people is a lot of peoples, and a lot of juicy gossip to be made.
I love (actually, I hate) reading people ITT try to have a conversation about moral subjectivism while having no knowledge of moral theory beyond what they’ve read on Wikipedia. Especially the people trying to summarise things with ‘Most moral theorists agree that…’
Here’s an actual summary from someone qualified to give one:
There are strong arguments on both sides, but the one thing that moral theorists universally agree on is that moral theorising is something that requires years of training and research and not just smoking a joint and wondering if it’s really OK to be a cannibal.
No one mentions the physical danger (STD or HIV) of cheating. We have ALL seen news reports of murders involving cheaters and their lovers. Just this last week the mistress shot the wife of a former NFL player. So it’s a moral issue because these cheaters could be endangering the lives of their spouses. And that’s why it is wrong.
Hackers are criminals, period.
And nobody here probably has any reason to judge anybody on anything. Hypocrites all, no doubt.
I ENJOY READING THE COMMENTS 🙂
Any proof of this yet? The dump was supposedly at gitlab but it was empty.
What’s worse for the site than the credibility hit is they will have billions to settle in lawsuits from the 100k that were victims of the Full Delete fraud. They will claim huge numbers in damages and there will be direct correlation to the company accepting payment to guarantee such a leak of their info could not happen (permanent purge of their records) and not fulfilling.
So… essentially people deserve to be ruined, in various ways stretching from professionally to financially because they happened to sign up to a website that facilitated cheating? Is that what we are saying here? All that proves is desire or intent – it does not prove the occurrence of adultery or cheating or anything else. I’d be interested in knowing what percentage of signups actually end with such an act. Clearly, according to many comments on here, it’s 100%.
Seems to be pretty shaky moral high ground to me.
For once I am going to enjoy keeping my mouth shut.
It is not the morality of the site which bother me. It is the total scam of this $19 fee to erase data. Not only they are making money from a complete placebo service, but they still keep that data for unclear purposes… I would bet that they find a way to monetize that data later, for instance by selling it to advertisers.
Facebook, it deletes your data for free, it just doesn’t delete it actually. What do you expect in return for a free service? Deleted my history 3 years ago, and still getting those mails “do you remember him/her”, most of them are the ex-friends”. Coincidence?