The Ashley Madison hack
 

Would you promote Ashley Madison site now?

Would people even join it now?

Will this affect people joining other dating sites?

People have short memories. In a month AM is going to launch some new super duper privacy setting feature that nukes all your personal information, offer it free for a month, and their membership numbers will climb to where they are now - hell, maybe even more now that they got a bunch of free publicity. A lot of my mainstream friends never even heard of AM until the news broke out, and they thought it was a pretty clever idea. A couple new customers for AM.

They always say the safest time to fly is right after a crash. :2 cents:

I can't argue your points as there's a lot of truth to it, but the fear of getting caught will make the wise users do their research before signing up. When somebody actually wants to find an affair but sees an article about the hack, it'll def deter future signups.

Will it shut down the company? No, unlikely. But I can't see this turning into a good thing for them. Maybe it'll get swept under the rug in a few years...

A few years back, the credit card DB for home depot (Canada) was hacked and stolen. I used to have a card there so it absolutely made me reconsider ever taking another store card again.

Here's a good read about the AM hacked

AshleyMadison is so screwed. Here's why

Agree with everything on that article.

If they weren't protecting your information they should never be trusted again...

It should be the best to go with either DatingFactory.com or DatingGold.com. As far as I know, DatingBackend.com has not been accepting new affiliates for some time, so they may be having some issues, I am not sure.

Interesting read,the damage has been done

I wonder if members will start receiving extortion emails. I'd bet money on it.

They are fucked.

You're in a rare group of people I like to call, "Informed Consumers". However, that is not the norm and just like the hack on AM, the hack on Home Depot did absolutely nothing to hurt Home Depot. As a matter of fact, they're headed for a record year with a projected revenue of $83.18B in 2015 (the hack occurred in 2014). Consumer confidence is a finicky beast and as long as people are confident that fail-safes are being put into place, it will not affect their buying powers.

As I already stated, if anything, it will BOOST consumer confidence with AM because now they know the site was already attacked and the owners are doing what they can to prevent another occurrence. They feel all warm, fuzzy, and safe. Regardless of what articles say about how this is going to negatively affect AM - based on my previous experience, this is not the case. This will only serve to boost AM with new revenue and a more confident consumer base. :2 cents:

Like how a sex tape being leaked is an immediate embarrassment for someone in the public eye, however, it will eventually boost their career. It's been said millions of times; there's no such thing as bad publicity. It's really that simple.

Good point.

Bet you that list is gold to some scumbags.

It is Karma in action.

In this case AM is fucked. It's one thing about bad publicity sometimes harnessing it to become good publicity

This is not one of those cases. Their clientele are MARRIED men who now stand to lose
1. Up to 50% of their assets in a divorce
2. Their kids
3. Their marriage
4. Their career/job
5. Dealing with the shame from friends/family finding out
6. If they own a business, the loss of clients who some value morality as a virtue

The existing guys on the site are fucked. They can't do anything about and just have to brace for impact :)

New potential members are going to think 1-6 and will say Fuck This. It's not worth it to sign up to AM because the risk of this happening again. All the PR and free months Memberships will not bring people back.

AM potentially cost millions of dollars of losses to CEO, politicians, even joe husband, after their wives divide assets in a divorce.

Let me see if I understand this correctly.... You signed up to their cheating site and after you stopped using your account they contacted you to charge you to remove your account and information (but never removed it?).

Am I understanding this correctly?

Years ago Madonna was quoted as saying, "They may be talking negatively about me. But at least they're talking about me."

She's always been a master at marketing.

There is a huge difference between Home Depot (and Target and other retailers) getting hacked and AM getting hacked. No one was going to be sending Home Depot cc holders blackmail or extortion emails w/ threats of exposing them if they didn't pay up. This is the potential scenario for AM members. It's a sword of Damocles situation that will be hanging over members heads for years to come if/when the data from the hack is put to nefarious use.

I've yet to hear one reported case of a person being "outed" by the hackers. And let's be honest, how much personal information could they possibly have that is outside the realm of what a Target or Home Depot would have? Credit card number and billing address? Yeah, you had to fill out a profile, but if you didn't use dummy information then you deserve to be drug through the mud, and I'm sure you didn't care much about hiding the affair in the first place.

I'm quite sure most people are protected and there isn't going to be any AM extortion rings popping up overnight. Extortion is a serious crime and usually perpetrated against people who have a serious mistrust of authority figures - such as people here illegally or someone caught doing something illegal. Not people trying to hide infidelity from their spouses.

I bet the hackers got billing information and credit card numbers, and that's it. The type of site this was just made it all the more newsworthy. :2 cents:

Imagine being contacted from a guy in a different country, say India/Russia. He has your personal info, and emails from Ashley Madison. He's also spent 10 minutes online and has your Facebook/linkedin and those of your family, place of employment.

He tells you to send him 25 bit coins or the shit hits the fan ..... What do you do?


.

Not a shit lot, I'd say. Can't charge him with exortion in another country AFAIK.

Earlier today we had a east indian-sounding guy call our house claiming to be with the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) - and saying we owe outstanding taxes and he'd put a "lien on your taxes and send out an arrest warrant on us."

I suspected the asshole was a scammer as soon as I heard the voice, but then confirmed when he started issuing threats. I don't owe any taxes, anyways. But the guy initially sounded convincing - since we DO have a lot of east indian/punjab types working for the CRA here in Canada.

At that point, there's not a lot you can do. It's a slippery slope and why countries don't negotiate with terrorists. It's 25 bit coins today, 50 tomorrow, and so on and so on until you're broke and they still fuck you by sending the information over. You may as well sit down with your family and come clean. Or you can post all of your credit card information online and say you were a victim of identity theft. AND you can't believe the size of the balls on the asshole that stole your shit! He used all your info to sign up for that Ashley Madison site you just heard about on the news!

I had a similar one of those a little while back. Indian sounding guy telling me he was a federal investigator and that I was about to arrested for wire fraud, misappropriation of funds, and a variety of other charges. When I told him the problem in his scam was that i hadn't done this he tried to convince me that it didn't matter, they were going to arrest me anyway, but magically, for a fee, he could make it all go away.

When I was getting ready to hang up on him he yelled in a very high pitched voice, "If you hang up you will be arrested!" I laughed for five minutes over how it sounded.

Tell him thanks...you didn't have the balls to go through with the divorce but now he is helping you out big time.
Tell him you will buy him a beer than hang up.

I'm willing to bet some have already been contacted. This situation will start fro get real interesting.