Perhaps it's wrong to gloat, but I'm going to anyway because the very existence of this site has always bugged the shit out of me, standing as a glaring, in-your-face example of how our society is in complete and utter
moral free-fall.
And now that there's been a second, even more massive dump of data from the shadowy, elusive 'Impact Team' -one that includes the CEO's own emails, even source code for all his websites/mobile apps, etc- this is a hack even a righteous man can love...
Credit card info, email/billing addresses, and other data released by the hackers has already been crunched by the AP to reveal Ashley Madison cheaters who were chasing-tail from numerous corporate entities, Wall Street banks, the United Nations, state universities, the US military, various federal agencies, even a White House advisor. Ashley Madison people have told law enforcement they suspect an 'inside job'.
Alas, IP addresses betrayed the ones who thought they were anonymous hiding behind a cutesie avatar, using pre-paid phone cards, and/or outside email accounts... and those who paid Ashley Madison $19 for a 'Full Delete' feature of their account/site activity will more than a little bit disappointed to hear that this accomplished NOTHING from the hacker's p.o.v., as all their information -including messages, fetishes, even stated sexual fantasies- remained on the company's server, in-full.
Expect lawsuits from humiliated, furious, and recently-divorced/bankrupted plaintiffs to come by the busload. In a statement (he now surely regrets), Ashley Madison founder and CEO Noel Biderman once described his company's computer servers as 'kind of untouchable'. A group of Canadians has already filed a $760M class-action suit against the company, and it's only the beginning.
The site's (Canadian) parent company -Avid Life Media- was planning on issuing an IPO, but that's off now in the wake of the devastating hacks and their aftermath. They thought they were worth about a billion dollars, but that could get wiped out pretty quick. The company is trying to keep their chin up -'brand awareness is through the roof'- but you'd have to be pretty horny 
-and stupid- to hand your info to an outfit like this anymore.
Some nuggets extrapolated from the 2nd nifty tranche of data
(dumped yesterday):
(dumped yesterday):
- 15,000 email addresses were on government/military domains
- Ashley Madison accounts are linked to
'at least' two assistant U.S. attorneys
- There's also an IT administrator at the White House, along with workers at more than two dozen Obama administration agencies, including the departments of State, Defense, Justice, Energy, Treasury, Transportation and Homeland Security.
- Accounts were found for division chief, an investigator and a
trial attorney in the Justice Department
- No US elected officials have been found yet, but
plenty of Ashley Madison accounts came from House and Senate computer networks, so stay tuned. - Names have come up for British, Australian, and other members of parliament overseas- hard to imagine all our congress-critters coming out of this one clean.
- Defense chief Ashton Carter said the Pentagon was investigating the dump, as such info can be utilized for blackmail, .mil addresses were found in quantity, and marital infidelity violates the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
- a French leak monitoring firm counted 1,200 email addresses from Ashley Madison accounts with the .sa suffix (Saudi Arabia) where adultery is punishable by death.
As for Republicans getting caught up in this mess, there's not all that many
I really give a hoot about anyway, would rather have them exposed/purged than covered-up and excused-for... you're not going to find Ted Cruz' name
in there, anyway.
I really give a hoot about anyway, would rather have them exposed/purged than covered-up and excused-for... you're not going to find Ted Cruz' name
in there, anyway.
