The funniest thing? If nobody ever mentioned a gender, the hacker would always be known as being a “he”, without anyone ever standing up to say “do we have proof the hacker is male? No, then why do we refer to him as male?”

I agree with you about stereotypes. As a matter of fact, I’ll take it a step further and say they have more than just “an inkling” of truth. It’s actually something I’ve brought up in conversations on multiple occasions. Steroetyples exist for a reason...because they are, more often than not, true. Or at least true…

Agreed. This is what FBI profilers do all the time. They look at the facts and determine what kind of demographic the perp belongs to: i.e. white male in his 40s from the midwest whose parents divorced in his teens

From a completely statistical and security point of view...he’s not wrong. On either count.

Of course, it is a preposterous assumption, everyone knows women don’t know how to use computers, let alone coordinate a “hack”.

Yep. Not only that, this is data on our government, not on individuals, and you can make a credible argument he made an attempt to use the information responsibly.

I think it’s also possible that a woman was involved with crafting the communication, but didn’t perform the actual work. Hard to say. I think he raises a few points that deserve a little further investigation.

So, if some one is in the military and has an open relationship they should be tried and go to prison for it? How is that any different than how they treated homosexuals? Given further that adultury is not illegal in most states, the fact it’s still on the UCMJ is an anacronysm. What I am saying, it’s a fucking stupid…

Who gives a shit about the wives? That actually has nothing to do with this at all. What the hackers did was wrong and illegal, it doesn’t matter what the people using the service was doing. It isn’t about keeping them from getting caught. Your most recent analogy is like saying that the woman who got raped deserved…

Now you’re dealing in false equivalences. Poisoning cats and dogs is illegal AND much more odious than cheating. For something to be odious it has to be exceptional - and cheating is anything but that (estimates are 30 - 60% of married couples, and if you include everyone who’s ever cheated on a boyfriend / girlfriend…

So you think these people wouldn’t have cheated without this site? We’re regressing because people are fucking outside of societal norms? You’re for illegal activity as long as it passes your highly scrutinized morality test? Are we in some sort of caliphate here?

“The website, for those of you who don’t know, helps married or otherwise “taken” men cheat with available women who are into that kind of thing.”

Does signing up for AM hurt anyone? Because in all likelihood that’s all the vast majority of these people did. Signing up for AM <> cheating.

Yes, I wonder what the reaction would be if, say, everyone’s porn history were released to the public - it’s something many find immoral after all. We’d be ok with that right?

Except the single people on Ashley Madison, the ones in open relationships, and a host of other people who doesn’t fit the “evil person trying to cheat on their spouse without their spouse knowing”, and who also have their confidential information published on the internet against their knowledge.

“This site is harming its users, therefore, unless they stop harming their users, we are going to harm their users to an exponentially greater extent” there is no logic here, the justification is terrible. The hackers are awful.

“I can’t think of a reason someone would want this so therefore there couldn’t possibly be a valid reason”. That’s you.

That’s like saying “Hey, if you don’t give me all your money, I’m going to shoot this guy!” and AM replies, “But...I don’t care about that guy” and then you shoot the guy, “There, that’ll teach you!”

Exactly. What these people do in their personal lives is none of your, or mine, or the hackers’ business. Is cheating wrong? I think so, but that doesn’t give me the right to out people because I feel morally superior to them.

It’s for married people looking for other married people, yes, but the other variables are unknown to us. It makes massive assumptions about an activity that is in fact not illegal. But hey, the internet is full of assumptions right? Who cares who gets hurt?