People who cheat on their partners are always open to extortion by the parties involved. But when the personal details of millions of cheaters get posted online for anyone to download — as is the case with the recent hack of infidelity hookup site AshleyMadison.com — random blackmailers are bound to pounce on the opportunity.
An extortion email sent to an AshleyMadison user.
According to security firms and to a review of several emails shared with this author, extortionists already see easy pickings in the leaked AshleyMadison user database.
Earlier today I heard from Rick Romero, the information technology manager at VF IT Services, an email provider based in Milwaukee. Romero said he’s been building spam filters to block outgoing extortion attempts against others from rogue users of his email service. Here’s one that he blocked this morning (I added a link to the bitcoin address in the message, which shows nobody has paid into this particular wallet yet):
Hello,
Unfortunately, your data was leaked in the recent hacking of Ashley Madison and I now have your information.
If you would like to prevent me from finding and sharing this information with your significant other send exactly 1.0000001 Bitcoins (approx. value $225 USD) to the following address:
1B8eH7HR87vbVbMzX4gk9nYyus3KnXs4Ez [link added]
Sending the wrong amount means I won’t know it’s you who paid.
You have 7 days from receipt of this email to send the BTC [bitcoins]. If you need help locating a place to purchase BTC, you can start here…..
The individual who received that extortion attempt — an AshleyMadison user who agreed to speak about the attack on condition that only his first name be used — said he’s “loosely concerned” about future extortion attacks, but not especially this one in particular.
“If I put myself in [the extortionist’s] shoes, the likelihood of them disclosing stuff doesn’t increase their chance of getting money,” said Mac. “I just not going to respond.”
Mac says he’s more worried about targeted extortion attacks. A few years ago, he met a woman via AshleyMadison and connected both physically and emotionally with the woman, who is married and has children. A father of several children who’s been married for more than 10 years, Mac said his life would be “incredibly disrupted” if extortionists made good on their threats.
Mac said he used a prepaid card to pay for his subscription at AshleyMadison.com, but that the billing address for the prepaid ties back to his home address.
“So they have my home billing address and first and last name, so it would be relatively easy for them to get my home records and figure out who I am,” Mac said. “I’ll accept the consequences if this does get disclosed, but obviously I’d rather not have that happen because my wife and I are both very happy in our marriage.”
Unfortunately, the extortion attempts like the one against Mac are likely to increase in number, sophistication and targeting, says Tom Kellerman, chief cybersecurity officer at Trend Micro.
Kellerman is convinced we’ll see criminals leveraging the AshleyMadison data to conduct spear-phishing attacks aimed at delivering malicious software such as ransomware, a different type of extortion threat that locks the victim’s most treasured files with a secret encryption key unless and until the victim pays a ransom (also in Bitcoins).
“There is going to be a dramatic crime wave of these types of virtual shakedowns, and they’ll evolve into spear-phishing campaigns that leverage crypto malware,” Kellerman said. “The same criminals who enjoy deploying ransomware would love to use this data.”
The leaked AshleyMadison data could also be useful for extorting U.S. military personnel and potentially stealing U.S. government secrets, experts fear. Some 15,000 email addresses ending in dot-mil (the top-level domain for the U.S. military) were included in the leaked AshleyMadison database, and this has top military officials just a tad concerned.
According to The Hill, the U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said in his daily briefing Thursday that the DoD is investigating the leak.
“I’m aware of it, of course it’s an issue, because conduct is very important,” Carter told reporters at the briefing, The Hill reported. The publication notes that adultery in the military is a prosecuteable offense under Article 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Maximum punishment includes dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and confinement for one year. As such, Carter told reporters that service members found to have used adultery website Ashley Madison could face disciplinary action.
Kellerman said attacks against military personnel who used AshleyMadison may well target spouses of people whose information is included in the database — all in a bid to infect the spouse as a way to eventually steal information from the real target (the cheating military husband or wife).
“Something must already be going on for [the Secretary of Defense] to actually have a press conference on that,” Kellerman said. “We may actually see spear-phishing campaigns against spouses of individuals who are involved in this, attacks that say, ‘Hey, your wife or husband was involved in this site, do you want to see proof of that?’
And the proof, in this scenario, would be a a booby-trapped attachment that deploys spyware or malware.
Mac, who’s not a military man, says he doesn’t regret the affair he had via AshleyMadison; his only regret is not finding a way to keep his home address out of his records on the site.
“I regret using my home address and some of my personal information that AshleyMadison didn’t take as good care of as they should have,” he said. “But I really, I’m mad these hackers feel it’s so important to force the hand of people that have a different outlook on life.”
The AshleyMadison data is leaked on various sites, but the data itself is not easily searchable by folks who aren’t familiar with raw database files. However, several sites have since popped up that allow anyone to search by email address to find if that address had an account at AshleyMadison.com. True, AshleyMadison.com did not always verify email addresses, but some of these AshleyMadison search services coming online will indicate whether the associated email address also has a payment record — a marker which could be useful to extortionists.
Did I catch it correctly that the email adresses were actually nit verified, so somebody might also be an extortion victim because someone else signed up with that persons email?
For the guy in question: Using a prepaid card that ties back to your home address and your real ID is not exactly Cheating OpSec 101, is it?
This would imply that cheating scumbags have any intelligence.
Cheating, probably, scumbags, not proven.
I’ve never dallied extramaritally, but I don’t pretend to know or judge the lives of anyone who has. Let he who is without sin, and all that – real life can be complicated and isn’t binary
I predict some suicides and murders from this leak, all for the glory of narcissistic troll hackers. I signed up for AM because my wife emotionally and physically abandoned our marriage. No sex in 4 years will make a man do stupid things. Some may ask, why didn’t I leave the marriage? Well, I love my kids, they love their home life, and my wife and I make good roommates.
Even if Scumbag#1 gets paid the ransom, it’s not like the old days where you got the original incriminating evidence back to destroy after paying. What’s to stop the rest of the Scumbag clan from extorting you if the evidence is still on the web?
Absolutely nothing
“Scumbag#1″…I literally lol’d at the implication of the need for a numerical suffix for that term in this case.
I’m not certain what would be most embarrassing. Being outed as someone trying to have an affair or as someone who believes there’s a pool of women on a website lining up to have flings with married men.
Obviously the women are out there or AM would not have been successful.
How do you know they weren’t in it for a price?
Am I the only female who will admit that a) she was on Ashley Madison, b) actually met someone and had a mutually enjoyable affair, and c) received no compensation?
At the time I wasn’t married – I was freshly divorced and wanted to be sure I could find a man who did not want to get serious. I met someone in his 50s who didn’t want to divorce his aging wife, but she had zero interest in sex. It was a pleasant, two year affair.
What do these men do – dump the wife and look like a jerk, masturbate in front of their laptop every night, or find someone who wants what they want?
Bless your heart. You got it right.
Of course HER version of their sex life might have been very different. After all that’s the classic story cheater’s tell, I’m being forced into an affair because my wife isn’t interested in sex anymore. Maybe he’s just not that interesting in bed anymore or maybe …….here’s a shocker, the man that’s lying to his wife is LYING to you to.
Well, I’m a woman who has had a membership on different types of adult sites, although not Ashley Madison. Do I count?
I never hooked up with married guys though. I don’t care what their circumstances are. I just don’t like the karmic burden of intentionally becoming party to someone else’s dishonesty. Who knows what sort of consequences could arise from inserting myself into his marriage dynamic? Do I really want that blood on my hands? What if one of his kids discovers the affair and shows up at my house to confront me?
The way I figure, single and divorced men looking for casual sex are a dime a dozen. I don’t need to compromise my ethics and invite unnecessary drama into my life in order to find a partner.
I also have a more self-serving reason. If the man is being dishonest in his marriage and is comfortable with lying in order to get his needs met, why should I assume that he will be honest with me with respect to STD status, etc.? A casual disregard for integrity doesn’t bode well for how he may treat me should my boundaries somehow become inconvenient for him.
I think that exact scenario is alot more common than most people will ever admit.
I think that is why we have the stereotypical scene of a middle aged half bald boss chasing his secretary around the desk. It has become such a cliche.
I’m another woman who has experience with adult sites and have been trying to reply to Melina without success.
At first I thought that I forgot to submit my reply, so I reposted it. Once again, my response shows “awaiting moderation” then vanishes from the board.
If my post is somehow inappropriate, I would appreciate a note to that effect. Thanks.
It’s the illuminati they filter out what gets published to the world
Unfortunately, Ashley Madison did not really cater to your crowd.
I got so lost in my generalizations (and for that I am sorry) that I totally forgot about the 1% like you who are now associated and generalized with the other 99% of the AM customer base who we all look down upon.
I can only pray these god damn exploiters and crooks have the courtesy or at least data mining capabilities to analyze and carefully leave the innocent 1% out of this or better yet don’t do it at all.
Sadly I’ve never heard of any situations where “thief” and “honor” go hand in hand.
I also highly criticize the AM site for sentencing your personal info into their data jsil for life with no bail. I think that’s one of the flaws that hit people the most with this hack.
I mean what the heck were they thinking with that stunt? Were they so lazy to create a normalized data structure to manage your account id’s separate from the customer data?
Can someone on here shed some more light on the root cause?
And you are getting this 99% from where exactly. Oh pulled it out of your…
Soooooo…you think it should be 100%?
“Sadly I’ve never heard of any situations where “thief” and “honor” go hand in hand.”
Just one example/situation = ROBIN HOOD
This should be a wakeup call for people. Stop posting your personal information on the internet! It doesn’t make a difference if it is to a company or these stupid social media sites like facebook, twitter, etc.
Love the fact that the dude in the article claims he and his wife are happily married, yet he cheats on her and doesn’t want her to find out. He gets no sympathy from me.
I can appreciate that this article doesn’t give you enough detail about this “dude” to sympathize with his personal situation because the article is about the hacking and extortion of his personal information. I certainly hope you can sympathize with that being troubling
Thanks Melina for speaking up for some of the women that were and still are on Ashley Madison. I’m one of those 50+ year old men with a wife that thinks sex is dirty and immoral, but had no intention of breaking up my family, with my kids still in the critical teenage years. So I turned to AM and met some wonderful women who’ve become close friends and oh-by-the-way, we have mind-blowing sex. Am I proud of what I did? Certainly not, but I don’t feel a twinge of guilt. I’ve managed to keep the family intact with a wife who has no interest in sex, and I’ve met some great ladies in the process, most of which I keep in contact with on a regular basis.
Soooooo Melina….do you have a KIK account? Wink-wink. HA!
I’m in the same boat. I feel like I met some great people who really understood the position I was in. I didn’t sleep with any of them as it turned out but I made some amazing friendships with a total absence of judgment.
All it takes for AM to build a revenue stream is offer the ~illusion~ of an opportunity to connect with women in search of an extramarital affair. Once the guy purchases a membership, AM has got his money. AM need not ever deliver anything but a website filled with profiles that he can browse and contact for chat.
The profile text and the accompanying photos could be harvested from anywhere. Has anyone done a text or image search to see where else they turn up?
For all the man knows, there could be a small group of individuals who are paid to interact with him whenever he messages a woman’s profile. Just like the Nigerian 419 schemes, any one individual could be posing as literally hundreds of AM profiles, swapping back and forth on demand. Who knows if all the AM ladies are even ladies.
I’m sure there are some real women who sign up for AM. But the high numbers suggested on the site? Nah, I just don’t buy it. As someone else mentioned earlier, who really believes there’s a huge pool of women on a website lining up to have flings with married men? In your dreams, buddy. In your dreams.
The company to which the IP of the sender belongs, if it’s not spoofed, has an office inside the US. Might they be helpful in reporting to law enforcement payment card info, and all additional activities from the customer’s IP?
Bitcoin doesn’t seem to be used for anything good.
I use bitcoin for buying odds and ends from vendors who support it. Sure beats using cash or payment cards, and occasionally, the value appreciates.
Or the “value” of the bitcoins craters through the floor, as has happened several times already.
It is a joke to call it a currency alternative.
Would you work for someone who paid with a $100 check and you found that it was only worth $80 when you cashed it or tried to use it?
I know if my 401k was in bitcoin I would never consider retirement!
They would have been great to pay for Ashley Madison
“my wife and I are both very happy in our marriage”
I just don’t know what to say to that.
Probably not much longer. 😉
Being in love with your spouse does not kill off the circuits in the brain which cause romantic attraction.
No but the latter certainly kills off any chances for the offspring to have both a mom AND a dad.
Food for thought.
The circuits I mostly see getting killed off here are those related to self-control and making sound decisions that don’t f-ck up your life and those of your loved ones.
It means, he’s happy he pulled it off and she doesn’t know…
Ha. Scumbags extorting scumbags. Sympathy level: ZERO. Karma score: OVER 9000.
Jim: “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”
It’s been my experience that people who quote the bible in these situations are usually trying to justify their own scumbaggery.
Haha, okay buddy. What I can tell you is that I’m not a scumbag cheater, so go ahead and quote children’s fairy-tales all you want. Oh, didn’t your high and mighty Dugger man get caught up in this mess, too? Spare me your delusions, religious zealot.
Is there much difference between fairy tales and the bible?
Ok you need to read the Bible for yourself. It is inspired by the Holy Spirit. It is a living document! You will only understand what I am saying when you read it! Take any part of the bible and read the same passage three times. See what happens! God is Real! You believe in electricity and you can’t see it.
That doesn’t happen when you read a fairy tale.
“If you seek me with all of your heart you will find me”.
You have nothing to lose and everything to gain! 🙂
Anyone that fond of exclamation points has got to be a loon.
What is the motivation to pay one extortionist when the data will still be available for every other extortionist on the planet to use against you? And this guy is concerned that his data might be disclosed? Umm.. it’s ALREADY disclosed.
What is the value when it’s information that’s freely available to the world? But then, who’s to say that the spouse doesn’t already know at this point and is just pretending to be ignorant to see what the person will do? I mean, such a big deal has been made of this thing already.
Wouldn’t it be something if both the man and the woman were dealing with this and just not saying anything to eachother? While the savings account goes dry for some unknown reason?
Yea know…..unless you’re a high profile individual, it would be easy to just blow this all off as spam…..and that’s if it doesn’t get filtered out by spam filtering software.
I wonder when the jilted spouses start extorting their spouses. If they’re afraid that husband would start hiding money if divorce is mentioned, pretend to not know about AM, e-mail the cheater pretending to be an extorter, and keep bugging the cheater for cash to keep the “extorter” quiet. Evil psychological and financial torment.
Perhaps, but that assumes that the target’s wife or husband knows to look for their wife or husband in the information, or even knows how to do that. Searching by email on one of several sites offering this as a feature is fine, but any sane person would have used a throwaway email. Then what? No hit, okay great. They’re not cheating. Most people don’t know how or won’t be bothered to download a 10gb file and parse through an SQL dump.
But how long before someone builds a slick, webbased, indexed frontend?
Days? Hours?
Am I the only one who thinks this is fair game ? 🙂
Ah..the comments section…the defacto “cherry-on-top” for any such online blog/article.
I was actually waiting for someone to call this out…while it’s nice to see a comment board where true techies focus on the facts rather than get carried away with the drama….sometimes the drama can be factual too.
As much as I appreciate the attempts to advocate morals and values and expose the mediums for corruption in our world…hacking is not the answer. Actually it quite literally defeats the purpose of that cause.
What’s interesting (and awkward) to observe in this whole hacking scenario as opposed to other high profile media-thriving hacks that have happened, is that one feels more sorry for the family of the victim than the victim alone.
It would be a shame if this person got exposed and his kids got the short end of the stick in life. But on the other hand if he truly appreciates his marriage and family why would he go on and admit “he doesn’t regret the affair”; those words alone can make any man’s family fall apart faster than a Jenga tower.
Listen — I would love to see companies like Ashley Madison go away. It’s just terrible…but maybe I’m old school. However, I started thinking about protection of data. What if someone breaks into to the health care system…then publicly promote your addition issues, STD history, etc.
Why isn’t anyone talking about legal protection of our personal information — Facebook, banks, local cable email providers, etc. Again, I “DO NOT” agree with the the Ashley Madison biz model, but we’re at a cross roads here. What’s next???
Even though you will never be able to control everything, this is the reason to have some understanding of what these computers do and how they do what they do. Your best bet is to take the reins and do things yourself. In this technological world, users can no longer just sit back and let everything be handled by someone else.
And therein lies the unfortunate paradox of catch-22 situations
Yeah, and not only “addition issues”… what if they publicly “promoted” your grammar issues or spelling issues or reading issues… ?
Yeah, and not only “addition issues”… what if they publicly “promoted” your grammar issues or spelling issues or reading issues… ? It could get pretty serious!
It doesn’t seem useful to pay off extortionists in this situation. The information is now publicly available and as websites sprout up helping people search the data it becomes easier for people to find names (or addresses in Mac’s case). If the information was only known by the extortionist then maybe, just maybe, paying them money would be of some help.
In the AM case, you’re already caught you just haven’t been notified. Your only options are keep quiet and hope your spouse isn’t the kind to search for the information or come clean and bring it up yourself.
I feel neither sorrow nor bizarre glee at their situation.
Yeah, while I agree that a lot of the data will not be useful, in this case it is. Mac may be happily married, but would his wife feel the same way had she known she was deceived? As others have noted it’s virtually public information so he is probably best coming clean before either the data is revealed or someone does target his wife with a spearfishing attack. It can also get worse, even if he comes clean with his wife would he shrug off an email claiming that they have email addresses for family or coworkers with your account information? Boy you think the in-laws don’t like you now, just wait till they find out.
I think it would be effective to send an email claiming to have proof that a spouse was in the database; regardless of whether that is true.
I meant to imply that the email claiming that a spouse was in the database would have malware. Many people I know would run that just to be sure and infect themselves.
Exactly what I was thinking. It makes little difference whether the recipient’s spouse’s info was in the AM dump or not.
It would be refreshing if someone who dislikes the choices made by the “cheater” could set that aside and comment on the issue of hacking a legally operating commercial web service and disclosing the confidential information for the purpose of causing financial and reputation losses to the website and its users. Additionally, making available information which puts many law abiding users in a situation to be leveraged by other unethical parties. I’m glad you didn’t sign up for the service but I don’t think people should get Brazilian waxes and colonics, or mail order S&M paraphernalia, or watch porn; should that personal information be disclosed and offered to your employers if you don’t pay me?
Hacking is a federal crime punishable by law.
—————
Keep you footlocker locked
Well to be fair to the OP’s point
Both “hackers” and “cheaters” operate “above the law”
Having an affair is not against the law.
You’re right let me amend my statement to this
“Hackers” and “cheaters” here operate “above US national law”
1.) What country do you think most hackers or extortionists for that matter operate in? An abandoned carnival in NJ? No probably somewhere outside of US where the general concensus is one in which US is seen in a negative light and the law there turns a blind eye towards these activities against US.
2.) US doesn’t have an official law against cheating but the military does, and even if it isn’t a domestic law what do you think most lawyers end up getting paid for…the law is always involved.
Operating “above the law” in this case though simply means doing something, somewhere or somehow such that the law does not or cannot directly pursue the act without taking painstaking measures such as a lawsuit or in this case probably cooperation with the ICC, (which BTW last I heard the US was not officially part of).
Neither is being a dishonest scumbag. Just because something is technically ‘legal’ doesn’t mean one should do it.
And as others have mentioned, having an affair may not be as legal as you believe.
Google the UCMJ penalties for adultery for military personnel. A conviction can ruin a soldier’s career, lead to dishonorable discharge, and sometimes even imprisonment. Good luck getting a good job in the civilian world with a dishonorable discharge in your employment record. To an employer, it’s no better than being a convicted felon.
In the civilian world, a divorce settlement can also advantage the betrayed spouse if their attorney is able to prove infidelity took place. For the cheater, it could make the difference in being able to keep their house.
Why yes love for many the future…
http://othersideofthemirror.blox.pl/resource/IH/background3.jpg
is completely fubared.
You can bet that hostile foreign governments are also checking out those lists. What a great way to, well, you name it.
Americans, of course, can take great pride in their government having ALREADY known everything in the AM database and much, much more. Thanks, NSA!
Did you read what Impact Team said about the hack on Motherboard?
What was their security like?
“Bad. Nobody was watching. No security. Only thing was segmented network. You could use Pass1234 from the internet to VPN to root on all servers. ”
I think IT security as we know it must change very, very soon. This makes the case for fingerprint recognition systems.
I hope you don’t literally mean actual fingerprints as in the prints made with your finger… cuz that’s terrible security.
2 or 3 sites have surfaced where you can enter an email address to see if it belongs to an ashley madison account.
Why do you think no sites have surface yet where you could actually enter the name of the person with its postal code?
People need to understand that they are screwed. One person extorts you, you pay, another comes to extort you.
Anyways, I built a site where can vote for the funniest, nastiest, grossest profile bios from cheaters that have used Ashley Madison.
cheaterbios.com
The comment from Mac about how he has “a different outlook on life”. Just… wow. My own outlook includes not ruining my life, my children’s lives and terribly hurting my partner. Ya know, that outlook.
I get the privacy aspect. Really. But *%€^*! that guy and the rest of those guys. When we talk about medical or government records then we can all have a privacy talk. You signing up voluntarily to a gross website solely to get your jollies and ruin lives? You had no right to expect privacy at all.
Just because it’s sex people sometimes don’t take the dishonesty aspect seriously.
But take the phrase, “a different outlook on life”, and apply it to other forms of dishonesty. It’s not so amusing then, is it?
Many of us (including some who have affairs) wouldn’t hesitate to pass judgment on dishonest dealings in other circumstances. We often have no hesitation about calling these people out.
But when these very same cheaters get called out for being a scumbag, suddenly they get all righteous about their privacy and begin citing extenuating circumstances.
Have you gone down on your husband lately?
You don’t want to talk about security then let’s talk about sex.
There is a reason why this site is so popular. It’s because this country is generally prudish (especially the women) where even an ass crack is blurred out on TV.
hey, sophie, let me get this straight: people are cheating because their wife will not perform like a trained seal and indulge all perverted fantasies? Do you understand what it means to be in a relationship? If you think your partner is there to service you, you are not a decent person. Ashley Madison attempted to normalize adultery which is a criminal offense in the military judicial system. This morally bankrupt culture is simply reeping what it has sown.
Very much female. Just not American, so not completely prudish.
Also …. If you think going down on someone is simply servicing them then I suggest you go and find out of your wife is having an affair. Prostitution is a service, sex in any form when it is between a man and women in a healthy relationship is never a service. Your attitude towards it (and sex in general) is what is wrong with society. Sex is not a religious rite, it is simply nature. Most women (myself included) get bored with their spouse. Men are generally boring in bed, so we lose interest in you and sex… and a guy’s brain is 90% sex, that’s why the world is at war all the time. Sex and power, all men think about… So when they aren’t delivering their boring sex prowess to “service” their wife they either look at porn or another woman. Those who are truly boring in bed don’t have sex and rant at people on a comment thread about the morality of others
Oh, I don’t know about the merits of your alleged connection between commenting and being dull in bed.
Some of us libertines just have a lot of energy, as we don’t need as much sleep. So we can do double-duty as prolific commenters *and* still get good reviews in bed.
We also don’t need to settle for cheating married men as we have so many other options. Those good reviews get around, you know.
Perhaps we just need fewer zzzz’s because we practice what we preach. That allows us to sleep at night and look ourselves in the mirror each morning and like what we see.
Exactly my thoughts. I couldn’t have said it better.
2 or 3 sites have surfaced where you can enter an email address to see if it belongs to an ashley madison account.
Why do you think no sites have surface yet where you could actually enter the name of the person with its postal code?
Don’t link to blockchain.info, use an alternative blockchain explorer – https://blockexplorer.com/address/1B8eH7HR87vbVbMzX4gk9nYyus3KnXs4Ez
To all the Bible bangers, judging….if I did a search on your computer or hand held device, then you know I would find porn. Best part.. You can delete, but not erase :). Oh, and we all know you jerk off, but your Virgin ears can’t hear it. I am happy to knock on your doors and tell them.
Lemmings. Oh, but you are robots and too stupid to even know what a lemming is. (look it up-oh, it means you can’t think for yourself) You are a hypocrites and you are not Man enough to own up, but you judge everyone else. So vote Ted Cruz and we are back to the prohibition days (not realizing history and what happened after) keep reading the Bible but there are more Muslims, Hindus, Buddist, Atheists, et. Out there. Stop forcing your life on us you gun loving fascists!
-Signed A Catholic
For me it was “relationship porn”. I had a few opportunities to carry out an affair but passed each time. It was the thrill of knowing that someone was (perhaps) interested in you. You felt wanted.
It sounds pathetic and maybe it is….but that’s what happens when a guy marries a woman who has cheated on him more than once. A woman who is a chronic alcoholic and is currently in her 3rd rehab facility in 3 months. No love. No affection. Why do I choose to stay with her? Love and the hope of her getting healthy…and for my kids…who still love her dearly but need me more more than they’ll ever know.
The masses who circle about labeling each and every AM member with a big scarlet letter should pause and consider that each person has a story.
I hate how everyone is getting all holier than thou and judgemental.. when like myself and the 1 woman I had an affair with… that many people on ashelymadison are actually the victims of a bad marriage… I fear for the life of my mistress now as her husband is a violent person. I fear for my children ending up with an uncaring and alcohol addicted mother after a divorce… the real scumbag cheaters don’t need ashelymadison, they have secretaries and are alpha-personality types.
The users of Ashley Madison are now going to be triple victimized.. they maintain loveless marriages out of the goodness of their hearts thinking they can change the person they are with, and keep a family together for the kids… they get outed and potentially victimized by criminals, and to top it all off they get the public scorn of a bunch of internet assholes…
akash writes ‘many people on ashelymadison are actually the victims of a bad marriage’ so your solution for a bad marriage is to go and have sex with a total stranger? Exactly how did you believe this was going to help your situation? You actually have the audacity to claim that you are the victim. Your lack of a moral and ethical compass has created the insanity that is your life. You get no sympathy from me. There are consequences for your actions. Man up and own the train wreck that is your life. For me, I’m going to go watch the sunset with my wife on the back deck of my summer home while my children sleep safely and peacefully in a happy home.
Totally agree. Do I dare say that having an affair via Ashley Madison helped my sexless lack of romance, on the brink of divorce marriage? I can see the tunnel visioned preachers of their own agenda picking up stones as they read this. “Oh, you shouldn’t cheat on your spouse as you are going to hell”…well, guess what, I am not religious and if she paid attention to me and took care of herself, then I wouldn’t have done it. “Well you should leave if you are unhappy”. It isn’t that easy nor viable when there are children involved. I have no regrets, and back to my comment about this site actually improving my marriage, well it did and over a year later from that affair, we couldn’t be happier.
People that complain about the site without trying it and as well don’t have actual facts should keep their opinions to themselves.
Anybody playing the role of judge and prosecutor can get bent.
If you were on the site and couldn’t get a date then you were either out of shape / not attractive or do not know how to be respectful enough to grab the attention of the opposite sex. I met some really interesting people on Ashley Madison, had fun, and can put to rest the claims from yahoo’s that their weren’t any women on the site. The women I met were atttactive, in shape, smart, educated, white collar (making six figures) professionals (one was even a police officer) who all had good reasons for seeking companionship outside of (like mine) their sexless lack of romance marriages.
With that said, Ashley Madison is to blame for not securing their customers data better and as well, I for one cannot wait to see the list of names and addresses of the “hackers” get exposed, as they always do. This is very personal for some and like me, we will be lining up for blocks to get payback.
Has nothing to do with religion buddy
A good portion of those “holier than thou” guys here are either legit married guys who are just trying to express their concerns and opinions
And the rest are simply single bachelor’s who are appalled and annoyed at the fact that there are guys who have someone already but have the audacity to treat them like a figurehead for their “perfect family” when in fact these guys are going behind their wives and children’s backs and doing something g that could completely ruin their lives.
The bachelor’s who have yet to experience a woman can’t believe that they would ever do this to whoever they decide to spend their life with.
Maybe the silver lining in all of this is better security protocols for one (shout out to the point of this site lol) and also a lesson by example to those who have yet to tie the knot; don’t be stupid and dishonest with your girl lol.
Some of us who call out the cheaters are atheists. And women. I’m both.
I’m in an open relationship and have many opportunities for sex partners. I’m attractive and fit too.
I just have no respect for whiny dishonest cheaters who think they are the victims.
How sad. How tragic. It just happens that both your wife and your mistress’ husband are violent alcoholics and irresponsible parents, while you and your married mistress are idealistic lovers, like the Romeo and Juliet of Ashley Madison, a website for adulterers.
It cracks me up how suddenly all AM users are in heart-wrenching situations, victims of abusive, heartless partners. What happens, the old excuse “my spouse doesn’t appreciate me” is not enough, and they have to invent tragic adultery stories resembling Anna Karenina?
Cheating is like prostitution, it’ll never go away no matter how much you vilify the participants. So start putting this into a security context rather than a moral one. And hand up who, in this comment thread, has had sex in the last 48 hours?
In the last 24, in fact.
Might have done better had this discussion not been so entertaining.
There are people right now facing death sentences in certain countries because of this leak so all this “scumbag have it coming” holier than thou crap is really not impressing me at all.
In fact it kind sounds exactly what the Arabs picking up stones sound like right now.
rider writes ‘is really not impressing me at all’ this is not about impressing you. Any moron who decided to incorporate adultery into their life and did not expect there to be any consequences is getting a very rude awakening. What these hackers are doing is forcing a morally bankrupt culture to examine their vapid and petty lives. For those of you who cheated and are now suffering the consequences don’t cry to the vast majority who would not even consider viewing Ashley Madison much less signing up and turning over personal information in exchange for a little titillation and hedonistic delight. The hell with you all. The hell with you all.
I can’t help but think these moral crusaders (and their supporters such as you) would be more valuable if they spent their energy uncovering and exposing kiddie fiddling perverts who inhabit their own ‘darkweb’…
…but of course, that is not quite as worthy as exposing people who had a sordid meeting in a hotel on a rainy Wednesday afternoon , or people who signed up but didn’t partake.
And before you say “that is the job of the law enforcement agencies” – I think we both know that they are always one step behind the experts out there – just like financial fraud etc.
And as for your hellfire and brimstone? If that’s coming from a Christian sensibility, I respectfully suggest you examine recent events concerning historical child abuse in the church. Perhaps the hackers could help there?
Maybe instead of a rider
We need a Knight Rider
Who can champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, and the powerless from criminals who “operate above the law”
No?
If you live in a place where this kind of activity is likely to result in a death sentence, your better off staying away from it (common sense).
Ashley Madison was VERY publicly warned. They not only were flippant regarding their network and data security but also decided to ignore the warning. These facts should not be forgotten in all this discussion.
I will leave any question of morality between you, you’re heart, the person you’re with, and whatever god you may or may not believe in. I have big problems with this whole thing on a technical insecurity basis. I seriously question anyone who may feel comfort in the idea of using sites like this and at the same time, feel it worth while to complain about ID theft, malware, computer viruses, and hacking.
Oh stop saying these people deserved it, who are you to judge? Really who are any of you to judge. You’re wasting time on this comment thread for an article about security spouting moral and religious arguments and you’re not getting anywhere. You are just making your spouse bored (like they probably are every night you sit on the web and spout your moral bankruptcy arguments over all sorts of fascinating IT crap) and they are probably wishing they could find someone who would have sex with them instead. If you are back on here tonight commenting instead of having sex with your spouse, then AM will have a case to reopen their doors. Idiots
You may be confusing me with someone else.
This is all about technical security for me. I never said anyone deserves anything. I’m saying…..this is what it is, it is dangerous, stay away.
The morality of it is a discussion had by other people and for other sites.
Lying is wrong any way you look at it… But we all make mistakes, some bigger than others. Every action has it’s consequence.
I did not think that my info would be released, but it has been. I have no need to justify my curiosity to the public eye, and though I have not yet been identified by anyone I know (or at least I have not been told), I have lost sleep, I’m stressed over the fact that a mistake made a while ago out of curiosity (never an actual affair) could destroy the life I have worked so hard to build for myself and the man I love. In my case, it took deciding I did not want to be that person… The person that lies to the one they love, so I decided to stop checking my account, stop communicating with the men I had oh so carefully befriended and kept at a safe distance. I wished them all luck without judgement and focused on being the best wife I could be. It has / had worked for me and we were the happiest we have been in so long. I don’t know if he’ll be curious enough to look me up, or if he has already and just has been too afraid to ask, but I lose sleep thinking what this could do to him – to us… He who has needed me so much as of late to help him through these hard and emotional times.
I have fought the guilt of my curiosity for a long time, I have dedicated more of my being to my marriage than I ever had since I left AM and it could all be unraveled in a few seconds.
I do not wish for anyone the worry of being rightfully or falsely accused of being “found out” through this data dump. Perhaps this will shed some light on the other side of the coin for those of you who think everyone deserves what they get.
I don’t approve of infidelity, yet I was still touched by your post.
It sounds to me like you’ve done some serious reflection. I really hope that the AM leak doesn’t take you down with it.
Maybe time for coming clean to your partner? Sometimes proactive honesty can actually strengthen a relationship.
Everyone is focusing on ‘getting busted’ but no one is considering the longer-term consequences? You think HR won’t run an ‘Ashley Madison’ check? Your laundry just got aired BIG TIME… your angry wife is the least of your worries.
No legit company would dare have a check like that cross their servers. Monumentally foolish to have as “policy”….all it takes is one disgruntled HR clerk to blow the whole thing up.
The impact team obviously value their privacy as I don’t see their names anywhere but they sit in judgment on others. People will die because of this. Suicides have happened for less than the shame tied to this. Especially if you live in The Middle East and were using this for gay hookups.
Also, does anyone know if that malicious email was sent to an email account tied to AM or if they found a separate one?
What I can’t figure out is why the Ashley Madison Patebin info is not being removed when Pastebin’s policy states:
Please do NOT post: – email lists – login details – stolen source code – password lists – personal information / data – pornographic information / data – spam links (this includes promoting your own site)
If you do not comply with our Acceptable Use Policy we might ban your IP address from the website. Also, your IP address might be shared with authorities.
The top trending pastes include many of those things and have now been up for days. Why isn’t Pastebin looking at their own list of top trending pastes and removing the ones in violation of their policy?
I am new to all of this and didn’t even know about Pastebin before a few days ago, so please excuse my ignorance if the answer should be obvious.
Great point. There is a ton of stuff on Pastebin