Coincidentally, my kid started getting email last week from Macy’s, because somebody signed up whose name is very similar to that of my kid’s random account.
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In that case, I’d say that they deserve it. In a democracy, state secrecy equals treason.
And that’s why I’m on Ashley Madison, dad.
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I wasn’t referring to their security - i.e., preventing hackers from getting their data. I was referring to charging people to delete data and then not deleting it, which is more like just scamming people out of money. Though, maybe it’s just a question of them “deleting” it but not really understanding how their system works and so it was still sitting in whatever underlying table the hackers got. Stupidity rather than malice.
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True malice is rare in comparison with the amount of stupidity. (And lack of testing, which is a specific kind of stupidity.)
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I don’t know, People get married and have kids in almost automated ways a lot of the time. Heck religious people get married just so they can have some sex. Not that people shouldn’t take some responsibility for their commitments but we have a culture that says marriage is a virtue and that divorce is a sin. That leads to a lot of stupid relationships that people work really hard to save when they never really had enough chemistry to make it past a one night stand.
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@onshi @waetherman It’s shocking to me how stupid and careless people are with stuff like this. In some cases I think people purposely put in generic e-mail addresses as a dummy (johndoe@gmail.com) so they can get access to something without giving out their real address. But I have at least two friends who have fairly generic gmail addresses who frequently get stuff for other people that was clearly accidental, including serious financial stuff. One of my friends figured out the correct gmail address for someone who frequently used his, and started forwarding things on to the correct address, and the other guy chewed my friend out for trying to steal his identity. Sigh.
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[quote=“wrecksdart, post:11, topic:64073”]For one thing, being a member of a dating site, even a somewhat seedy one like Ashley Madison, is no evidence that you have cheated on your partner.
[/quote]
I’ll bet there are a good number of users who signed up just because they were curious to poke around the site, but never had any serious intention of having an actual affair. It would be kind of like going to a brothel just to flirt with the workers.
There’s a reason why Utah leads states in antidepressant usage 
On a totally urelated note- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84u5k4bboU4
Even for the genuine cheaters in there, is this really any of our business? Seems like a private matter between the couple involved, maybe close friends or family as well depending on the situation.
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National Enquirer readers want to know!
And why you can’t keep mile marker 420 in place.
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So I pulled down the torrent last night to leaf through what’s there, out of pure curiosity.
It’s going to take a while to decrypt 10gb of data, but the smallest archive contained a huge amount of details not about users necessarily, but about the business itself. The org charts, the bank account numbers used for operations, operational paypal account details, lists of machines on their domains, floor plans of their offices, and so on.
This is analogous to harpooning a shark, and then the other sharks smell the blood and close in for the kill.
The blood is in the water now.
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In that case, I’d say that they deserve it. In a democracy, state secrecy equals treason.
It’s not treason when you’re a secret agent acting on behalf of your government against foreign country *. The leaked OPM fingerprints are of no use to the defense of civil rights in the US. But they’ll be enormously useful to counter-intelligence officials in China, Russia and elsewhere.
- At least not directly. Indirectly:
American government officials make it crystal clear that they consider non-Americans - including citizens of allied countries - to have no right to privacy. (Nor do Americans who communicate with them.) (Received any spam from China or Nigeria lately?) Sure, everyone does it. But foreign governments would only go so far, fearing the fall-out of they got caught. That fear is gone now, given the scale of American spying. Turnabout is fair play.
Likewise, since 9/11 the US had kidnapped over 100 people from EU soil alone, and jailed them without trial. Many were tortured. Citizens from other allied countries were also kidnapped and tortured, including a couple from Canada. It’s since become clear that many were kidnapped and tortured NOT because they were terrorists, but to test vague suspicions that they might have some connection to terrorists.
Again, turnabout is fair play. Other countries including allies may now kidnap and rendition away anyone they consider a threat, off American streets. Including American citizens. No due process. No extradition hearing. Because while it was an unthinkable risk before, now they can simply point out that it mirrors American policy.
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I may be using this soon. 
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Can you do a quick grep for turd.ferguson@jeopardy.com… Cause, ya know, gotta see which email I–EERRRRRR-- a friend of mine signed up with.
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Oh how working in IT support has lowered my expectations of humanity… There are days when I am really surprised we have not gone extinct yet.
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Have you tried turning it off and on again?
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"But sir, I didn’t steal this identity, you gifted it to me when you used my email address to sign up for your retirement fund management portal…
…
[sinister whisper] …and now I’m inside you."
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In some cases kidnapping and torturing a guy with same name as the person they wanted. Then putting every roadblock in the way of investigations.
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