Wrong recipient?
Is it just me, or does it sound like the (anonymous!) journalist intended to send this to his or her partner, and accidentally published instead?
Why Nobody Should Ever Search The Ashley Madison Data
Some readers of the Register – or perhaps their spouses or significant others, or their bosses or colleagues or other people who may think they want to know if someone is "trustworthy" – may have heard that it is now possible to search online for evidence that a person may have been using the website Ashley Madison. Some users …
-
-
Wednesday 26th August 2015 08:12 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Wrong recipient?
it's interesting what the number of up and downvotes tells me about thoroughness of my fellow humans (including myself!), including the beings, allegedly made of better material, featuring in this forum. I think we should keep the balance of comments on the first opinion the way it is, makes the point even sharper. So upvote the first post, and you shall see!
Sad, sad times :)
-
Wednesday 26th August 2015 10:44 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Wrong recipient?
> it's interesting what the number of up and downvotes tells me [blah blah blah snip]
On the other hand I have absolutely no idea what you are trying to say.
I understood the article and appreciated the humour, even if it didn't hit the mark for everyone and I think the "wrong recipient" comment is from someone who did actually get it. What is bizarre is the number of people commenting who had nothing but "whoosh" even with the humungous flashing-neon flag of the writer's name disclaimer.
-
-
Wednesday 26th August 2015 08:34 GMT Jimboom
Re: Wrong recipient?
The line that made me chuckle was this
"But is it fair to selfishly deny a person sex? No. It is not, people have a right to have sex and if their spouses totally or somewhat-totally deny them that, they have every right to sleep with other people. "
So if I or my wife denied the other some nookie, if I or she felt that I was "selfishly denying" them sex, then that gave the other carte blanche to go play away?
Isn't times like those exactly what porn was made for anyway? Are these people saying that they are too good for porn?
All I took from this article really was that if you wanted to read the AM data then go find a torrent of it and download the whole thing yourself. Instead of being lazy and relying on someone else, out of the goodness of their own hearts and not for any malicious reasons honest guv, to put the data into a new UI for them.
-
Wednesday 26th August 2015 09:46 GMT Unicornpiss
Re: Wrong recipient?
Um... Porn is nice I suppose. But it's not the same as actually having physical contact with another warm, willing human being, regardless of how good your imagination is. I think (and hope) most would agree with me on this. IMHO, sex is certainly not the most important thing in life, but it is part of being human, and having the occasional romp versus never having physical intimacy is kind of like living versus existing. Or eating cold leftovers vs. fresh food. In the immortal words of George Carlin (I think it was), "There are far worse things than giving someone an orgasm."
-
-
Wednesday 26th August 2015 13:29 GMT Geoffrey W
Re: Wrong recipient?
@Unicornpiss RE:"and having the occasional romp versus never having physical intimacy is kind of like living versus existing."
I do agree with you that sex is not the most important thing in life and that real touching physical intimacy in all its forms can be a wonderful thing. I disagree with your suggestion that life without sex is not really living but merely existing. That thought ranks alongside those who say much the same about having children; that those without children are living a life without purpose and, again, merely existing. I like sex and adore intimacy with others but find the idea of having children totally hideous, and have studiously avoided the little horrors my entire life. I do not consider myself to be merely existing, nor do I consider those who genuinely have no desire for others to be incapable of living a worthwhile life.
Don't underestimate or denigrate others simply because they aren't like you. I suspect that, really, you don't.
-
Wednesday 26th August 2015 13:43 GMT Anonymous Coward
@ Geoffrey W
> I disagree with your suggestion that life without sex is not really living
I'm glad for your that your life is so perfect.
You've clearly never stood a 12th floor balcony contemplating whether to let go of the railing.
Unless you've starved you can't understand what it is like to be hungry.
-
Wednesday 26th August 2015 15:23 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: @ Geoffrey W
I'm sorry. But if a lack of sex has you wanting to take your own life then your life must be pretty pathetic in the first place!
There are people out there who, either by their own choice or just circumstance, don't have sex until they have passed their teens and well into their adult lives. You don't see them committing suicide because they can't get any.
If your life is not worth living because you can't bust a nut (not sure what the female equivalent of that particular phrase would be) , then you need to re-evaluate your life.
-
Wednesday 26th August 2015 15:38 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: @ Geoffrey W
But if a lack of sex has you wanting to take your own life then your life must be pretty pathetic in the first place!
Sex ain't just about bustin' a nut, and your comment is more judgmental trash next to the heap of moralfaggotry piling up on Ashley Madison users. People live and die according to their beliefs and circumstances. It's ez to hate on the depressed and suicidal, because they are different from you.
-
Wednesday 26th August 2015 15:52 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: @ Geoffrey W
You sound like your name is on their AC and you are building your defense's for when the other half finds out.
Sex is actually all about bustin' a nut. Something "more" and you are talking about intimacy or Lovemaking if you prefer, which you are probably not going to find on a site like this. If someone is suicidal because they can't find love then they wouldn't be on a website for extra-marital affairs.
I ain't hating, but too often these days people rush into marriage or use it as a bandaid for their doomed relationship (or even worse get married purely because the girl is pregnant). Yes, granted sometimes situations come up that cause a rift, but a proper marriage built on trust, love, friendship and understanding... well that weathers most storms.
And if those people say "ohh poor me, I am in a loveless marriage, or boo hoo, my wife hasn't put out in weeks and so I need to go find some strange elsewhere", well then they are as pathetic as you are sounding right now.
Be a man, stand up for your mistakes. If you cheated then own that! If you are in a loveless marriage then leave! If you want to go play away because your other half doesn't tingle your dingle anymore, well either you work on it together (because chances are that they are as bored as you are), or you leave!
Anything less than you are just moaning about the very thing you refuse to change.
-
-
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 02:27 GMT Geoffrey W
Re: @ Geoffrey W
@ AC RE:"I'm glad for your that your life is so perfect"
Oh, but my life isn't so perfect. I've been lonely often and starved of what I crave which is companionship. What I am is lucky. Lucky that I managed to find someone who can tolerate a bit of an idiot like me long enough to find something worthwhile. Don't know if your post is real but if it is then I hope you don't jump off that balcony. You're still alive, you're not existing. Ashley Madison is a bit crap though.
-
This post has been deleted by its author
-
Monday 31st August 2015 15:31 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: @ Geoffrey W
> "I hope you don't jump off that balcony."
Thank you, I didn't and that was number of years ago. I would describe a period of my life as existing rather than living. I hope that is starting to come to and end and that there is life as well as light at the end of the tunnel. There has always been love, there hasn't always be fulfilment.
> "Ashley Madison is a bit crap though."
I'd agree, certainly as an implementation it's proved to be crap. As a business they've proved to be less than honourable. As a concept? well adultery is as old as the hills it happened before the Internet and it will happen after AM. Don't blame AM for the sins of others. In some ways I approve of the idea of an environment which allows people who will commit adultery to do so in relative safety, except it turned out not to provide that safety. But presumably most people who met through the site were under no illusions about what they were doing and who they were seeing.
My history could well have involved something like AM many years ago. I've been married twice, my first wife wanted to have sex with others, well at least one other. I sat there and held her hand as she made the beast with the 2 backs with the object of her desire and I was happy for her, since I knew that in her heart of hearts that was what she wanted and I wanted her to be happy. It wasn't exciting.
Later the tables were turned and I ended up with a lover, but my wife seemed to like me being with others and it got to the stage where she would proposition women on my behalf, which is highly embarrassing, especially when she was pissed and their husbands were in ear shot. Eventually the inevitable happened and she encourage me to become involved with another women who I promptly fell in love with. Hence the divorce. Now this was years before the Internet left academia and became accessible to public. If that had been now I might well have been one of AM's customers, I wouldn't have been cheating because I would have been working within the bazaar rules of that relationship and my wife would have known and would have known each and every time I was out "playing away". If I'd have been "outed" it could have caused problems, who wants the details of their lust lives made public. That my wife privately somehow got off on my being promiscuous doesn't mean that she would want the world to know. I was always totally open about my status, but the female friends I had, some "with benefits" and some "platonic" wouldn't deserve to have their character dragged through the mud.
-
Monday 31st August 2015 22:24 GMT Geoffrey W
Re: @ Geoffrey W
@ AC on the balcony
My saying Ashley Madison is crap is not meant as a moral, ethical, or any other kind of judgement. It was entirely aimed at the company itself and not what it represents or those that used it. Personally I tend to be monogamous but again that isn't a moral or ethical judgement either; Its just me. For anyone else then, whatever floats your boat, or lifts your skirt, or curls your toes; I luvs ya anyway...stay away from high places...
-
Monday 31st August 2015 22:48 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: @ Geoffrey W
I left a relationship where I was allowed to be, in fact encouraged to be, promiscuous for one where I knew I would be expected to be monogamous. I made that choice.
So many of the comments about this AM fiasco have been vindictive, but many innocent people will end being hurt as well as many sad and lonely ones, plus no doubt a number of total rats. But on the whole it will be the innocents that get hurt most.
Take care, and yes I tend to stay away from high places.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Wednesday 26th August 2015 12:21 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Wrong recipient?
> So if I or my wife denied the other some nookie, if I or she felt that I was "selfishly denying" them sex, then that gave the other carte blanche to go play away?
No, but if you are "selfishly denying" them a fundamental feature of married life then you should have the courage to ask your partner for a divorce because you have already decided to leave the marriage. Doing so without openly telling you partner is as bad, if not worse, than playing away behind their back.
-
Wednesday 26th August 2015 20:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Wrong recipient?
"No, but if you are "selfishly denying" them a fundamental feature of married life then you should have the courage to ask your partner for a divorce because you have already decided to leave the marriage."
Do consider the idea that marriage might be a bit more complex than simply making whoopie - there are numerous other relational, financial and lifestyle facets to consider. These are the reasons gays want same sex marriage, they've already got sex down pretty good from what I've heard. In any event, whatever any couple does to solve (or create) a boinking conundrum is something I am happy to *not* know.
-
Monday 31st August 2015 14:25 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Wrong recipient?
> Do consider the idea that marriage might be a bit more complex than simply making whoopie
Of course marriage is more complex than just having a physical relationship, but having a physical relationship is an intrinsic part of being married. If the marriage is not consummated then it can be annulled rather than going through a divorce.
For a marriage to work then the couple need to meet on so many different levels.
Why is sex is big issue?
Well why would you be upset with your spouse if they had sex with someone else when you would not be upset if they played, say, tennis, with them?
This society treats sex differently, we are not expected to have sex with someone other than our partner.
I have friends that I love but I don't have sex with. I have a spouse that I love and do have sex with. I love my parents and I love my kids, I sure as hell don't want to have a physical relationship with them.
There was an interesting article, I think in the Daily Fail, recently by a regular on R4's thought for today where she was saying that her and her husband (both clergy) had been asked at a dinner party why they'd married each other and they'd shocked the other people there by saying SEX, "We married each other so we could have sex together" they both believed that sex should only exist inside a marriage and so they could have all other aspects of a relationship without being married but they wanted to be intimate together, they wanted to make love to each other, they wanted sex, so they wanted to get married.
Whether you like it or not, the two, marriage and sex, are as intimately linked as a happily married couple should be.
-
-
-
Wednesday 26th August 2015 12:43 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Wrong recipient?
"So if I or my wife denied the other some nookie, if I or she felt that I was "selfishly denying" them sex, then that gave the other carte blanche to go play away?"
Not at all, so long as you can selfishly deny her money.
Of course you can't, and in fact the state actively works to ensure she has more rights to it than you, so anything a man does in marriage is alright by me.
In fact, our best friends' next door neighbour but one, is on it, and he's probably (I say probably because someone in 4 houses either side of hers is on it, but aren't paying, and they're female, but they're linked in) jumping another woman I know in our estate (who I've known for years,) and I'm not going to tell anyone.
-
-
Wednesday 26th August 2015 12:32 GMT Bleu
Re: Wrong recipient?
Nice comment northern coder, though I am quite convinced by the 'most female members were prostitutes and most of the rest were fake profiles' theory.
It has been run to death in other media outlets.
There must be a safe way to look at the database.
Not that I care, I sure would never sign up for a site with a logo suggestive of soft porn.
Many of the sleazy people who did sign up (subscriptions take money) did so with the intention of cheating.
Sure, a minority, as the article says, had the misfortune to be 'in lurve' with someone who hates sexual contact, the majority would have been just morons taken in by the imagery.
If, as is reported, almost all of the women outside the fake accounts were prostitutes, I think AM would be subject to more than a civil suit, AFAIK, laws against pimping remain on the books there.
-
Wednesday 26th August 2015 14:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Wrong recipient?
> though I am quite convinced by the 'most female members were prostitutes and most of the rest were fake profiles' theory.
Half the interviews I've heard of victims of this outing have been female. I suspect that they are more likely to come forward, women in un-fulfilling relationships expect sympathy whereas men in the same boat expect castigation.
-
-
Wednesday 26th August 2015 13:16 GMT PleebSmash
NOT a Joke or Troll
From my read it isn't a spoof or troll.
1. High profile events lead to poisoned torrents and scams everywhere. You may be a techie, but if you don't do your research and just grab 10 GB or hit shady domains, don't be surprised when it comes true.
2. There's no such thing as a free lunch, especially if you didn't do your research.
3. Also entirely true, although the theory that this anonymous journalist is covering his/her ass is a funny one. Given the tone, the Reg links, and the fact that it's published here, it's safe to assume it's a Reg hack who wrote this.
4. Bait/funny heading, but the point gets across. There were legitimate uses of the site, and users' stories have trickled out. This dump is a bit different in that some versions of the dataset are for simply checking hacked names and emails, sans credit card details.
"the respected expert and professional investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald" could be a bait line given some Reg disdain for him and "Snowden newsletter" The Intercept, despite the recent Reg-Intercept collab on Duncan Campbell and many recent examples of non-Snowden reporting. The two columns Greenwald has published about the Ashley Madison moralizing are worth a read (here's the other one).
That so many users rushed to call this a late April Fool's joke or fake/wrong is telling. It's clear from surveys that people really hate infidelity, but like most things people moralize about, the reactions are exaggerated, unnecessary, and damaging. Even those that cheated on their partner rather than get consent for using AM should be treated as victims of yet another data breach, rather than targets for online stoning.
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 08:30 GMT Nigel 11
Re: NOT a Joke or Troll
From my read it isn't a spoof or troll.
Me too. It's actually rather an interesting piece of writing. Not sure if the intent is propagandist, or to provoke thought, or to tangle one's thought processes. Maybe all of them.
BTW there is a safe way to investigate any website or source. It's called a virtual machine, preferably running atop a real machine which you can also painlessly re-format should something manage to escape from its virtual jail. Oh yes, and to be triple-sure you run it on a network comprising just the one computer and its VM and a router connected to some ISP other than the one you use for your home/business. That last bit is almost certainly overly paranoid.
But I tend to share the sentiment, "don't look", in this case.
-
-
Wednesday 26th August 2015 06:28 GMT Anonymous Coward
WTF?
Fully paid up adulterer are we Mr "A Journalist Who Just Happened To Find This Interesting"?
"1. Your Computer Will Almost Certainly Get Infected With A Virus If You Do" gave me more of a giggle than the rest of the scaremongering and moralising... did you even know what site that shit was to be published on?
----------
[edit]
OK It's not 1st April.. so I give up. What's the joke? What have I missed?
-
-
-
-
-
Wednesday 26th August 2015 10:50 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: WTF?
I think if you read it as a joke from the beginning it is quite funny.
It is very much in the "Brass Eye" style (esp their anti-Paedophile episode) where it could be almost believable but starts getting more and more absurd (although probably everything said has been said individually in a 'serious' news context). If you are in on the joke it is funny, if you aren't you feel defrauded and think it isn't funny (a la Neil Fox)
The people who find it funny the most are the staff at the Register sniggerring at the outraged comments - that's the joke. It plays on the superiority that some IT observers feel over technically illiterate commentators when they talk about current affairs.
-
-
-
-
Wednesday 26th August 2015 09:12 GMT Just Enough
Re: Is it a spoof?
It's a spoof, but in it's own ham-fisted way it does contain a few truths.
Finding someone's details in the AM data does mean nothing, because the website was run by a bunch of amateurs that didn't verify addresses.
Looking up the AM data (and submitting your email address for a search) is generally a stupid idea. The website hosting the data isn't to be trusted any more than AM was.
90% of the moral posturing and justifications for this invasion of privacy are vomit inducing, self-righteous bullshit.
-
-
Wednesday 26th August 2015 08:54 GMT lee harvey osmond
Re: WTF?
"cookies"? I missed that. It's important.
I was trying to guess the author.
I got to the end of page 1 without my falling asleep, so it's not Trevor Pott.
There was one massive clue that tells me it wasn't Andrew Orlowski.
I did consider Lewis Page, and Dom O'Connor, and Dabbsy.
The tendency to CAPITALIZE things the author thinks is important is a big clue I have yet to fully investigate.
But "cookies", in quotes? OK then, someone literate, but, not deep in the IT side of things that is this site's core interest. So ... no, I'm not going to reveal the name I have in mind.
-
-
-
-
-
Wednesday 26th August 2015 14:07 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: WTF?
"enjoy"??!??!?!?!?!?!???!?!!?!??!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!??!!!!!!!!one
HOW?
Let me EXPLAIN: enjoy the reaction of all the people, who took it for straight advise at some point realized they were had, and THEN comes the funny part, aka "oh, the indignity!, said Thomas" - as witnessed in the comments. And, guess what else is funny? That people still don't get why their indignant comments are funny.
-
-
-
-
This post has been deleted by its author
Biting the hand that feeds IT
