The numbers seems to be in dispute with estimates somewhere in the 30 million range, but the millions people who use AshleyMadison.com infidelity website should be very worried. On Tuesday, the hacker group, The Impact Team, made good on its promise to publish information regarding the “cheating dirtbags” who use the site to facilitate their affairs unless the site shutdown. The hackers also noted that AshleyMadison.com charged users $19.00 to fully wipe their information from the site but did not do a good job of it.
According to an article on Huffpost Business, AshleyMadison.com’s owner, Avid Life Media, a Canadian company, appears to be taking its own moral high ground, noting that its membership “engages in fully lawful online activities” and stating “The criminal, or criminals, involved in this act have appointed themselves as the moral judge, juror, and executioner, seeing fit to impose a personal notion of virtue on all of society. We will not sit idly by and allow these thieves to force their personal ideology on citizens around the world.” Now, the website CNNMoney and various other sources are reporting that there is a website with a simple search tool to explore the list of subscribers. There is even a custom Google Map with registered users’ addresses pinpointed all over the world.
As to be expected, attorneys are predicting an onslaught of spouses seeking assistance due to finding their partner’s name on the list. Even if the injured spouse does not go through with the divorce, he or she will likely be seeking legal guidance to determine his or her rights and how best to protect them.
In a less predictable turn, CNNMoney reports that thousands of the email addresses revealed in the hack can be traced to U. S. and Canadian government work emails, plus thousands of military emails. With adultery violating military law, it is a prosecutable offence which can lead to confinement and dishonorable discharge. Moreover, AsleyMadison.com allows for homosexual encounters. For homosexual users of the site in countries where homosexuality is illegal, the revelation of email addresses and credit card information which can be linked to them must be frightening.