Ashley Madison (cheating / affair website) hacked

[Fighting Banana Slug]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

I don't get it... so with millions of men and only thousands of women was AM simply a sexchat site? Men paid for that? I'm having an affair by sexchating oooooooooh. Did anyone actually meet?

At least on regular dating sites people are real and meet up. I'm sure there are bots too but it can't be 90%.

From the other articles on that site, statistically no one actually met. I think this is the most interesting aspect of this whole story. Super naughty website advertising and promoting infidelity, but basically no one ever hooked up. The lawsuits will be interesting. Will there be any money left?

[peter12]

So why are we seeing articles, and anecdotes about alleged Ashley Madison affairs? There was a drop-in poster awhile back in this thread that claimed, illiterately, to have had three such relationships. I am guess that he talked to a bot each time.

Anyway, are these anecdotes real? Or are they subsequent shadow stories to meet a titillated public's curiousity?

Interesting how much this has stoked the public imagination.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Plot twist: Ashley Madison is actually a massive front for a gay dating website.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by Fighting Banana Slug

From the other articles on that site, statistically no one actually met. I think this is the most interesting aspect of this whole story. Super naughty website advertising and promoting infidelity, but basically no one ever hooked up. The lawsuits will be interesting. Will there be any money left?

yeah that's weird. How did men pay month after month to not meet anyone? Was it just to sexchat? Sure AM could have tricked people once and make money on initial signup fees but I would think that only goes so far.

[CaptainCrunch]

I keep going back to that simpsons episode where a bunch of the men called one of those 1-900 dating lines that advertised hot woman in their local area and it ended up being a bunch of men asking if there were any hot woman on the line.

And there wasn't.

Someone might as well set up a virtual pimp website that gets guys together with prostitutes for one low low monthly cost.

Oh wait I think that's backpages.

[swo2k1]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I keep going back to that simpsons episode where a bunch of the men called one of those 1-900 dating lines that advertised hot woman in their local area and it ended up being a bunch of men asking if there were any hot woman on the line.

And there wasn't.

Someone might as well set up a virtual pimp website that gets guys together with prostitutes for one low low monthly cost.

Oh wait I think that's backpages.

[PostandIn]

Another suicide related to the hack.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/09/08/tech...ide/index.html

I wonder what thoughts drift through the minds of the hackers when they close their eyes at night.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by PostandIn

Another suicide related to the hack.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/09/08/tech...ide/index.html

I wonder what thoughts drift through the minds of the hackers when they close their eyes at night.

Nothing?

They didn't force the guy to try and have an affair.

[Poe969]

The guy didn't commit suicide because he had an affair, he did it because he got caught.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by Poe969

The guy didn't commit suicide because he had an affair, he did it because he got caught.

So if he would have gotten caught in more traditional means he would have killed himself. He made the choice to be unfaithful. It's not the hacker's fault that he felt that killing himself and taking himself out of the lives of his wife and children completely was a reasonable response to being caught cheating.

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by nik-

So if he would have gotten caught in more traditional means he would have killed himself. He made the choice to be unfaithful. It's not the hacker's fault that he felt that killing himself and taking himself out of the lives of his wife and children completely was a reasonable response to being caught cheating.

In traditional means, the whole world typically doesn't find out about it. Someones private affairs are just that, private. But when made public, especially to the extent that is found these days, that can certainly change how that effects someone. It's no longer just a divorce, but it's a public shaming that can mean your entire life is done as you know it.

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by nik-

Nothing?

They didn't force the guy to try and have an affair.

Do you really believe that or are you just being provocative? What if I hacked the camera on your computer and posted pictures of you pleasuring yourself to pornography. I personally believe there is no real harm in that but maybe your wife has a very different opinion. So your marriage is ruined and your life is devastated.

Hey no big deal to me. I didn't make you do that.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

Do you really believe that or are you just being provocative? What if I hacked the camera on your computer and posted pictures of you pleasuring yourself to pornography. I personally believe there is no real harm in that but maybe your wife has a very different opinion. So your marriage is ruined and your life is devastated.

Hey no big deal to me. I didn't make you do that.

No, I really believe that. It's obviously horrible that this dude killed himself, but blaming the hackers is a load of bull####. He set out to deceive his wife and got caught doing so. How it was done is frankly irrelevant imo.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by nik-

Nothing?

They didn't force the guy to try and have an affair.

Did he actually have an affair though? Most of the people on the website never actually connected with anyone. The story is pretty vague.

One of the common side-effects of depression is taking lifestyle risks. For some people, it means drug abuse. For others, it is often sexual promiscuity. Or sometimes both. Not everyone who has an affair does so just because they are horny and want sex. Sometimes there are deep rooted psychological issues at play. Outing people through a hack is probably not the right way of making sure people are caught when dealing psychologically fragile people.

[Strange Brew]

So you have no problem making moral judgments on the state of someone's marriage. But you see no issue with invading someone's privacy?

I'm not defending adulterers. I am defending people's right to privacy.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by nik-

No, I really believe that. It's obviously horrible that this dude killed himself, but blaming the hackers is a load of bull####. He set out to deceive his wife and got caught doing so. How it was done is frankly irrelevant imo.

Really? Even if done illegally? How about how it is distributed? There's a difference between telling your spouse, or having a mutual friend tell them, or her going through your emails to find out, and having the whole world (possibly your parents, kids, friends, colleagues) all discover it at the same time, in brutal detail. Not to mention all of your personal and credit card information exposed for anyone to use.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

So you have no problem making moral judgments on the state of someone's marriage. But you see no issue with invading someone's privacy?

I'm not defending adulterers. I am defending people's right to privacy.

I'm not making moral judgements on anyone. Everyone should have a right to privacy and hacking and releasing this info is a ####ty thing to do.

What I'm saying is that it's not the hacker's fault that he killed himself. It was his choice to cheat (or try and cheat) and it was his choice to resolve this issue by killing himself.

[Krovikan]

Originally Posted by peter12

So why are we seeing articles, and anecdotes about alleged Ashley Madison affairs? There was a drop-in poster awhile back in this thread that claimed, illiterately, to have had three such relationships. I am guess that he talked to a bot each time..

Still here, posted several times since then. I mostly read though and don't post that often. Not sure the need for the insult, but you seem to have a propensity to insult people when I read your post.

As for the Gizmodo analysts I stated in my last post that their analysis was deeply flawed and made really bad assumptions based on extremely flawed data. With the history of quality of Gizmodo's articles though it would not surprise me if they haven't ever looked at the data.

As for my relationships, believe what you want my purpose was more to dissuade the believe this was purely a cheating site as advertised vs. a casual dating site. As there seemed to be a lot of, if you had an account you are a bad person being discussed in the thread early on.

[Poe969]

The issue with what you're saying is that he killed himself because he had an affair. So in your eyes, everyone who's ever cheated has killed themselves? Odds are he wouldn't have been caught and if he was caught, it likely would have been on a personal note not made public. The guy cheated and that's immorally wrong but the hacker released private info which is illegal.

Again, the guy didn't didn't kill himself because he had an affair or because his info was hacked, he killed himself because the hacker made this guys dirty little secrets public knowledge. If his info wasn't made public, he wouldn't have killed himself.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Poe969

Again, maybe the guy didn't didn't kill himself because he had an affair or because his info was hacked, maybe he killed himself because the hacker made this guys dirty little secrets public knowledge. If his info wasn't made public, maybe he wouldn't have killed himself.

I agree with you but added some maybes. We have no idea what the actual trigger for the person's suicide was. Likely it goes deeper than either the issue of cheating or his public information being released.