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.”
People are applauding the “outing”of these men…but you need to realize no one on these sites uses their real name. They buy prepaid credit cards for their membership. Unless you have a photo loaded it’s not much of a threat.
Why do all the articles and comments single out the men? They aren’t cheating with each other, it takes a lot of cheating wives and loose single women to make this work.
Or Hookers……
Sources say with the shut down of craigslist, hookers use sites like AM and paid dating sites to find their Johns. I would venture to say a fairly large % of women on AM charge for their services.
Most men (and women) aren’t that smart with their info – they trusted the AM marketing machine. Most of them happily gave out actual cc’s names and addresses. As they did with other sites like Adult Friend Finder and prostitution sites. The men and women who used AM are not thinking clearly that it is extremely unwise to advertise your desire for an affair online.
Meh. What is it the mouth-breathers always throw out there when someone’s nude photo is leaked? “If you don’t want your nude photos published online, don’t take them”? Same deal here, people. If you don’t want to be exposed as using a website that caters to worthless, cheating a$$holes, don’t use it. It’s just common sense. The people using that website get absolutely no sympathy from me. In fact, I’m finding this hysterically funny. 😀
Do you have sympathy for the spouses and children? Unfortunately by exposing them there are going to be innocent collateral damage. Never like making public peoples dirty laundry because you remove the ability of the innocent parties to handle the situation the way they would have chosen. There are millions of children that are going to have an image of their mother or father shattered. These hackers will be just as complicit in that.
That is not on anyone else but the individual who made a choice and decision to do so. At some point, his/her actions will catch up to them, whether it’s with AM.com or some other form, karma, and the universe will catch up sooner or later.
So you don’t care about the children then. Not all situations are simple black and white….”this person is a cheater so they are evil”. You never know, maybe a spouse is in a loveless marriage with partner that pays no attention to them and they are staying together for the children. Maybe a spouse is abusive and finding this out will make them more abusive. The point is there are 37.5 million different situations. For all those so flippantly saying things like “Karma”….I’m sure that you are not perfect and would not want your shortcomings having a spot light shown on them.
If you can’t do the time don’t do the crime.
apparently you don’t respect the children enough to care if they have honest parents, and would rather them grow up under a barrage of lies. People don’t “need” sex, they want it, and if they put it above their children then they did that. Just like you do.
Actually sex IS considered a need. See Maslow’s Hierachy of Needs.
So you saying that that people who cheat and have children should be given a free pass if they get caught?
I don’t think there’s ever a justifiable reason for cheating on your partner. If you still love or care about your partner, tell them, explain that it is really important for you whatever is lacking in your relationship, think about how your partner or your children would feel if they ever find out. Doing it is just selfish or you are just not mature enough.
And really, if your marriage is dead, you aren’t doing a favor to the kids, living with parents who hate/don’t love each other is way worse, especially after knowing that they “stood together because of you”.
On the other hand, I’m sure a lot of partners who were cheated on wouldn’t like that everyone knew about it, because it is humiliating.
Go 5 years in a completely sexless marriage with the threat of being separated from my children and financially wiped-out, and even these uptight moralists might step-down from the pulpit to consider other people’s POV.
At best my marriage is “Friends Without Benefits”. I took a vow of marriage, not a vow of celibacy, and last I checked, I cannot “force” my wife to engage in sexual activity against her will.
J- I am so sorry, that’s terribly wrong of her, however you are also wrong. Your wife should be your first choice as you should be hers. Having a sexless marriage, she has to know you must be needing it from somewhere? It’s in your DNA. I’ve been married for 18 years, married at the young age of 17, now 36 and we still have an amazing intimate relationship. 7 days a week 6 of them are filled with nightly meetings, play it up a bit, women like role play even though they won’t freely admit it at first most do, I do! For the sake of your sanity and marriage I ask you to please consider speaking your feelings, if she doesn’t know you’ve cheated shes’ not very bright, I mean where else are you getting it from if she’s not putting out?
What a load of crap!!
Do you want love,tenderness intimacy?or just sex?
A good healthy relationship depends on mutual trust,caring,just from the little you wrote you did not even write the word love at all!
She isn’t there just to “service” you in case you didn’t know it.
Maybe she stopped desiring sex with you because of lack of affection or being treated like an object for your own pleasure?
It takes two for a marriage to work you seem to have checked out a long time ago with no work to fix it.
J: Now there you do have a point.
Oh, so that’s how you justify it. Well, I may as well cheat…and I’ll justify continuing that behavior because if the truth comes out it’ll “harm the children”. Boy you have a twisted mind, just like most of America.
Typical, Steve. Putting words in people’s mouths to provoke an argument. Joel never said he was glad the kids or spouse will be hurt. Assinine.
He simply stated he had no sympathy FOR THE CHEATER. Nor do I.
“They may be in a loveless marriage”
So the F what? What does that matter? Their spouse can be abusive as well.
There is NO excuse for cheating. Simply work on the marriage with your mate. Cant do that, divorce. Real friggin simple steve. I feel sorry for your spouse if you are married, with an attitude like that.
You got time to stick your D into someone, or spread your legs, you got time to spend with your kids. If your spouse is horrible and marriage unsalvageable, be an adult – end the marriage and spend MORE time with your kids.
I feel sorry for the casualties, but as for those who actually committed the act in the first place – you make your bed, you lie in it.
Henry….You do realize the irony/hypocrisy of accusing me of putting words in peoples mouths by attributing comments to me that I never said.
Steve,
You sure seem quite concerned. Let the bastards and sluts rot if they have been cheating. It is better for all concerned children and spouses if these scum are outed and they can move on with healthy relationships. The only ones who are going to be harmed are the cheaters.
Are you one of the names about to be outed?
Al
Al,
As a child of a broken home I understand that the “Cheaters” are not the only people getting screwed in this. But people like you just want to see people get punished no matter who gets hurt in the process. I am more concerned about the greater good. Sometimes punishing the guilty is not the best option.
Really, maybe they should’ve thought about the consequences before acting. They obviously needed something more than their families, and irresponsibility is irresponsibility. We air dirty laundry 24/7 on television and mass media. Come-uppins a.k.a. karma is a Bitc#.
RE: innocent collateral damage… Perhaps any cheating spouse should have thought about that before making the choice to cheat. Perhaps, work on your marriage, or “legal separation”. Do I feel bad for the men/women “innocent spouses? Yes, but even if they had been “informed” thru friends/family or a chance encounter it would still be devastating. Put the blame on the person who caused it – the cheater. THEY CHOSE, a bad decision. . . And now will live w/ facing consequences.
Ok…What about the people that are not cheating, in open relationships but don’t want their parents, children, relatives, co-workers, etc knowing about their private sex lives.
Your OK with them getting exposed as well? Do they deserve it? Cause they are on that list as well.
Ya – collateral damage to a cheating SOB. Good thing the wife will know what a cheating loser her spouse it.
CHEERS to The Impact Team!!!!
Lori. Ok. Say the wife wanted to deal with it privately. Maybe she feels embarrassed now and didn’t want her family and friends to know. Maybe she want’s to forgive him and stay together, but now that her parents, friends, family and children also know her hand is forced. How can she ever go with him again to a family dinner or friends house.
I know it is easy to sit here and just condemn the “cheater”, but by exposing these things publicly you remove the power away from the victim to let them handle this on their own terms. Making it far worse for them.
I agree. I wish that my child had never learned of my ex’s infidelities. I wish that his indiscretions had not been put in the spotlight so that I had to deal with the comments and criticisms from friends and family. What I do wish is that he had told me before it became public knowledge… I bet the wives of the exposed AM men would agree.
The hackers are NOT the ones destroying or shattering a thing!!!!
The users of the site did it to thier own family when they sent the $$ and signed up!!!!
Don’ by shoot the messenger!!
How do you know they are worthless, or for that matter “a$$holes?”
If you’re stupid and horny enough to think that your cheating website can’t be compromised, you’re stupid and deserve to be exposed.
I love it when retards posing as successful people get their comeuppance.
It’s like when someone is merging without a turn signal in an expensive vehicle because they think the world is looking out for them and someone smashes into their gaudy, look-at-me-please car. I love it. I love it. I love it.
Degenerates getting what’s coming to them is all this is.
It was posted on github, but was removed with a dcma takedown.
The Impact Team = ISIS Western Version
Think like I think or you will be destroyed.
Wow Andrew, ISIS? Really? No. Sorry, these awesome hackers that are exposing these cheating losers are not in the same evil league as the folks cutting people’s heads off. Speaking of heads, pull yours outta your you-know-what.
Awesome hackers? Let’s be clear… some guy with an agenda happened to have a job that happened to give them access to the internal files, this guy took a sql dump, and then just stole it during the course of business. In what world is that ‘awesome hacking’? That’s just… stealing, at best… :laugh:
So.. I think there is no team, just a guy, with a grudge or agenda, looking to make a name and seem impressive. When in reality, all we’ve got is some two bit thief with a keyboard and a massive porn collection. And hey, Jake, if that guy is you… I’d run, and I’d run fast. What was it they said on Office Space… Federal “pound you in the @ss” prison?
cheers~
Okay, stealing at best? Then go hack something and post the results, big shot.
It’s easy to spot those commenters that have spent their lives lying and cheating.
Thanks for chiming in, Mr Biderman!
Great work by the Impact Team. People who don’t understand the concept of morality will bellyache about the “hypocrisy” of these hackers, but the truth is there is nothing immoral about this. ALM profits off of the facilitation of prostitution and destroying families. There is no “wrong way” to take these evil b*stards down.
My husband and I are both on the website, with each other’s knowledge. It would only embarrass our parents and kids if we were exposed. Since women do not have to pay to be on there, there is really no way to “out” the women, just the men. All a woman needs is an email address and if she is smart, she creates one just for AM.
It did’ nt occur to you this could happen?
The hackers are not embarrassing you in front of your parents or kids YOU embarrased yourself when you signed up!
Have you not ever been told that you don’t put ANYTHING online anywhere that could possibly come back and bite you in the ass?
BTW they should also list ALL women as well, so thier partners will find out too.
What this sort of thing exposes is the utter failing of law enforcement to deal with the folks that think this sort of illegal data collection is OK. We are building a society where most people believe it is a function of the Internet to allow really crafty people to ‘hack in” to anything with no consequences. Every time a teenager compromises a web site and gets away with it – even when the ISP has logs showing what account did it – they reinforce this belief.
It is highly likely that no one will ever be prosecuted for this. Since the company (AM) is in Canada, unless the members of “Impact Team” are in Canada they would be looking at a very expensive and difficult cross-border prosecution. It is entirely possible that the US would not be all that cooperative with such a prosecution as well. A civil suit is probably pointless as “Impact Team” folks are probably judgment-proof.
So Jake, let’s see the type of expressions you use:
‘awesome hackers’
‘cheating losers’
‘concept of morality’
‘evil b*stards’
Judgmental much? I rest my case.
Uh, the last one wasn’t me, buddy. Also, as others have pointed out, clearly you are one of these cheaters. You have no sense of morality. As you said, I rest my case…not that you had a case to begin with.
How’s the air up there from your lofty perch? I’d love to examine your life minute by minute to see that you always made the completely morally sound choices.
The air up here is great!!! If not cheating puts me on a lofty perch I will stay there on not in the gutter with you Sue. Lmao
As usual, the lifelong cheaters and liars and deceivers show up to comment on a story like this and denounce “moralizing” and say they don’t care if people cheat. Typical.
I think this article struck a nerve or two.
Hopefully, this won’t result in anyone getting physically assaulted, children’s lives getting ruined, or innocent spouses being humiliated by the information being made public.
Irony: Maintaining your anonymity in the comment section while applauding the outing of others.
My name is Jim Mohan and I live in Sarasota, Florida. There, happy now? Now tell us your info.
Anymore, there should be zero to minimal expectation of privacy on the internet. There have been so many breaches that its just a matter of when your personal information gets breached and possibly leaked.
Not sad to see AM go down but that said the breach is unfortunate because the info getting leaked is a record of bad choices people have made to cheat and commit adultery. As was mentioned earlier, not all were using the site for those purposes, but that is AM’s target market and express purpose. Adultery and cheating destroy trust in relationships or furthers the erosion of it. Meaningful, healthy relationships are built on trust. When divorce is the result it is generally very destructive to kids, family, and society.
Geez, all these comments today! I guess it’s really true, sex sells.
Not quite as big a turnout for the CVS photo hack.
SO what have learned today?
People like to comment about morality.
Bash on folks, it’s new hack every week.
Heard Brian on PBR this morning. Lots of stories all over the Web. It just goes to show what brings out the “””news””” folks, and that is SEX.
I can’t wait (?) to see how this all plays out in the next weeks or month or two, particularly if all the hacked info is released to the public.
We might have many a politician revealed as one of AM’s customers.
A heyday for credit card duplicators, and a whole lot more.
Voyeurs-R-us
It’s funny to see everyone up in arms over this site getting hacked. Everyone knows it was full of fake profiles and accounts. Very little actual cheating and adultery going on. They were just a repository of people’s credit card and personal information. The biggest loss of this site getting hacked is not “relationships destroyed” but people’s personal and financial information getting onto the black market. Some of these comments are so ridiculous it just displays your insecurities and hangups about sex. Grow the f up.
The main idea here was that the site charged members $19 for the promise of a “complete delete” of all personal and financial/credit card data – and it was a lie, the data remained. The moral judgement was in addition to this fact, but this fact was the main point. The warning to release ALL the data, not just the small snippit they released so far, is to indeed take down what they promised to take down. It is not only a moral issue being brought up, it is actually an business integrity issue. If I was a client/member, I would be PISSED and get that data myself and file a class action to stop companies like this from benifitting off me from lies if true security.
Agreed. The point here is not on the moral point, it’s on a service being sold, paid, and not delivered. The nature of this site created this requirement (probably from users) to “delete all my [personal or not] data” service. I’d like to have this service in all other sites, such as Amazon, Kijiji, Google, Apple, and so on! That would be a nice checkbox to have in all dealers: “After receiving your merchandise, please remove all data supplied by me from your systems… if I need to buy again, I don’t mind filling the forms one more time.”
This is the best idea on giving the user access to his data again.
Comments are welcome (please do not reply with moral / AM / EM / etc. points of view! I really don’t want to know your non-privacy nor your non-security point of view on this matter)
If one believes that the $19 for Full Delete is a ripoff story, one is taking the word of the criminals who illegally hacked the site.
Good point, I understand they claim that there are still traces of your information (last transaction to pay the service), and I don’t think after paid for it ALL databases will be updated to remove the user (easy to sync the disaster recover site transactions, but imagine the logistics to delete from the tapes used for backup and stored off site…). But if this requirement is up, I’d love to have it!
So probably, I’d add to the requirement another checkbox: “I don’t authorize your site to backup my personal information ”
This would be nice, don’t you think!
Agreed. This Reddit AMA is giving all sorts of good information, like the following:
“If you delete your profile, your profile is removed from the public site. Because of the nature of the business, we kept detailed records of customer accounts because sometimes law enforcement would ask for it. Plus, for our loyal customers it helps to be able to pull up information easily when they call/email in. Every site does it, I hate to break it to you. If you give them information, they may very well keep it.
“The Full Delete is mainly for the people who give the site their credit card info and therefore get overly paranoid about their spouses finding out and demanding we wipe them from our system. The thing is, it actually DOES wipe you entirely from the system, just as advertised. So if you’re that paranoid, it’s $19 well spent.
“And you don’t have to pay to delete your profile. You can do it for free anytime. But if you want to take your privacy to the next level, pay the $19 and all traces of you on the site are gone forever, including your credit card and name. Even if you wanted us to find your old profile, we wouldn’t be able to.
“For people who just do the regular delete, they can have their profiles reinstated if they want. Full Delete can’t. You’re dead to us. 🙂 “
What if someone made an account at 3 in the morning half a sleep casue they thought it would be hilarious if they found someone they knew on there?
“The main idea here was that the site charged members $19 for the promise of a “complete delete” of all personal and financial/credit card data – and it was a lie, the data remained. The moral judgement was in addition to this fact, but this fact was the main point.”
Exactly. For failing to do as promised, resultant damages are the responsibility of the website that offered the assurance as a contract term and was compensated the money to do so, and then failed to meet the terms of the contract it offered and made and was paid for. All those people harmed, are owed, and will have to sue to recover. The moral question is just icing on the cake, but dishonesty is dishonesty and it feels good to see some of it repaid. You cheat, your deed, the consequences are yours, whine all you like.
Yes Andrew, I have no problem judging scumbags like ALM.
Someone must have found Ashley Madison’s back door. After it is plugged, the business is bound to go down. This pride of loins will have to find a different hunting preserve.
I thought I’d share this nice quote from the Washington Post.
“Data stolen by hackers from AshleyMadison.com, the online cheating site that claims 37 million users, has been posted online, according to Krebs on Security, the authoritative Web site that monitors hacking across the globe.”
To all the guys saying “These guys deserve it”…..
I think you should find the list and personally go and look into the eyes of the spouses and children and tell them what their husband/wife/father/mother is doing.
It’s very easy to hide behind a keyboard…but if you believe the hackers are so “righteous” I would love to see you guys actually look into the eyes and tell a child or spouse this information.
I wish that someone had done that to my family much sooner. My mother was cheated on by my father, with my aunt no less. A lot of people knew, but didn’t have the balls to tell us. My mother found out anyways, as these things tend to happen, and she ended the relationship. Our family was destroyed, but we’re better for it. We’re allowed to heal because we no longer have that user in our life and it’s just a shame that nobody told us sooner.
What you’re saying is exactly what I wanted. It hurts and it sucks, yes, but at least we can move on now. I’ll take anger, sadness, and the feeling of betrayal any day so long as the truth is known.
I hope none of you complaining about the “immorality” of ashleymadison.com, and laughing that these dudes and dudettes deserve trouble, are Bill Clinton fans. That would be quite hypocritical, no? I think we’ve come to the point in society where what a person does sexually really is that person’s business alone. You do realize there are many homosexual and even transgendered people out there in straight marriages and afraid to come out and be themselves. Should they all be outed? Perhaps they are pursing their lifestyle in secret? Perhaps they are full of shame? Perhaps they just don’t want to hurt other people? I get why conservatives might think this is great, though they are also hypocrites for supporting illegal hacking, aka breaking the law. No, “cheating” isn’t good. It isn’t the ideal thing to do. But you don’t lump everybody in one basket. Every human being has different circumstances in their life. Mind your own business. There are seedy types out there just waiting to exploit this type of hacked info, not for some great moral standard, but to make a quick buck on other peoples’ pain. Get it?
“I get why conservatives might think this is great…
” Quite a leap of logic isn’t it? Or are you saying that all Libs are slimy scumbags who are responsible for porn on the internet?
Makes sense to me, porn on young man, porn on…
The main idea here was that the site charged members $19 for the promise of a “complete delete” of all personal and financial/credit card data – and it was a lie, the data remained. The moral judgement was in addition to this fact, but this fact was the main point. The warning to release ALL the data, not just the small snippit they released so far, is to indeed take down what they promised to take down. It is not only a moral issue being brought up, it is actually an business integrity issue. If I was a client/member, I would be PISSED and get that data myself and file a class action to stop companies like this from benifitting off me from lies if true security.
http://pastebin.com/Kty5xBiv
If the users are high profile and high powered, I doubt that this will see the light of day. I could imagine a plausible argument that it is in the interests of national security to keep this off the net in a searchable form in case of blackmail etc etc. I can also imagine that AM will be paying outsourced security firms to be vigilant to identify it popping up as their whole business is doomed if it does
not a techy in any way, just my thoughts
If The Impact Team wants to make a difference, target child pornography sites or sites that traffic underage children or persons in bondage. Although Ashley Madison is viewed as despicable in so many people’s eyes, adultery will not end with exposing these men. I’m sure people will applaud that these guys are getting their “come-uppance”, but let’s be frank, men AND women have been committing adultery forever. At least with this website, the men are finding willing partners who fulfill the intimate needs (physical and/or emotional) that are probably not being met at home. I wish my cheating ex had turned to AM instead of paying for prostitutes. I was more upset that he spent money than I was at the infidelity. All marriages become rocky, and people screw up. Exposing these men won’t solve problems. It will only worsen them. And, honestly, what does the Impact Team gain from this hack? Notoriety? They are just pimping themselves out too.
You were more upset about the money???
Thanks for your heartfelt testimony, Mr Biderman.
Not saying that the infidelity didn’t upset me, but I understood the reason behind it. When your marriage becomes sexless and lacks intimacy, then you have to be real and know that your partner is probably getting it from someone else. I didn’t understand paying for the sex. There’s too many women who are willing to give it up for free.
Jenny you make a lot of sense. What are you doing later?
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3dy732/i_worked_at_ashley_madison_from_20082013_ama/
A former employee is currently doing a Reddit AMA.
I wonder how many targets are going to get hit with this. How many fraudulent accounts have been created to discredit the target(s). Fake accounts made using real information. This smells of the “Fake But Innocent” to me.
The Reddit AMA person thinks it’s crazy wives! I guess that would be crazy wives with very advanced hacking skills….
The morality of cheating is not the argument. What if someone doesn’t like our banking system? Or doesn’t like/agree with any other company who possesses a large database of information? They can release the info just because? Then someone will say, well that’s not okay because the majority of us wouldn’t want that. What about that person that no one likes? Public appeal should allow their dirty laundry to be aired? They shouldn’t be cheating, but cyber terrorism isn’t the answer. Where is the freedom of expression? Or maybe people would like a room of people with “morals” to make these decisions. Very slippery slope.
I asked her about the Full Delete for $19, and here is her reply:
“This is the funniest part to me. The whole reason the Full Delete option was introduced is because simply deleting your profile didn’t remove your information from our back end. If someone purchases the Full Delete option, we had NO record of them in our system. It was literally like you never existed on the site or our back end. It’s actually a great service for customers but was annoying for us because suddenly information disappeared on us and we couldn’t get it back.
The problem is people are idiots and create multiple accounts under multiple emails. So it only deletes the profile you pay to delete.”
Perhaps unwise to just accept what The Action Team says about the $19 for Full Delete being a rip-off without proof. Could be the Ashley Madison former employee now on Reddit doesn’t know what she’s talking about — though she sure reads like she does.
How can someone be possibly pro websites like these? This goes to show how twisted society has become. Yes, a persons sexual actions are their business as long as it only affects them. If you are in a relationship it is because you chose to be. You can just as easily choose not to be in a relationship if monogamy and fidelity are just to hard for you to bare. What boggles me is that people seem to turn a blind eye to the dangers of cheating such as carrying STD’s home to their loving spouse. Some STDs can remain undetected and greatly affect a person’s reproductive capabilities. How is it “OK” if someone becomes sterile just because their partner couldn’t stay faithful? How is it fair that a faithful partner has to live with a deadly disease that their partner have given them? Wake up people and pull your head out of the sand. If you are in a relationship it is not about “just you” anymore. Your actions affect your partner as well whether they know it or not. So to all those who claim that a persons sexual life is their own I hope you are never in a relationship. People who think like that are too selfish to think about the well being of others and should remain single. That way they can enjoy a life of debauchery that affects them alone.
I don’t think anybody is arguing that society is okay with this, we just tolerate it because it’s addressing an ugly part of us. People are complicated, relationships are complicated, and so there are many complicated reasons people would use a site like this. One could easily imagine a scenario whereby someone is forced to stay in an abusive relationship by friends and family who worry a divorce will shame the family.
Also, it’s not illegal to lie in our society. If it was, we’d all be in jail! Most of us can’t go 10 minutes without lying (http://mentalfloss.com/article/30609/60-people-cant-go-10-minutes-without-lying).
Morality has nothing to do with legality. If you only do moral things because the opposite is illegal, man I am concerned for you. People are complicated, maybe that is true. But I believe that we complicate ourselves further with lies and deceit. I am a simple person and I try to speak the truth all the time. When I feel that the truth does not benefit the situation I stay quiet and think of a better way to bring forward the truth. Nothing complicates things more than lying and imagining things. Do you realize marriage is like a job. You work on it everyday! If someone is being forced to stay in a relationship I doubt cheating would make matters better…in the end you are still forced to be in a relationship. Problem not solved…