Honestly, I'm more concerned about how easy it would be for the hackers to inject virtually anybody they wanted into the middle of this data to publicly smear them. With the public in a general froth over the whole episode, dropping in a celebrity, politician, preacher, etc would be child's play.
I don't like anything about that site and I have a really hard time feeling sorry for people getting "outed" by it, but you're absolutely right. Allowing the illegal when it's convenient for you is not okay, even though much of the public is totally fine with violating people's privacy as long as it fits their world view.
We already saw the response when a newspaper in NY published a map of registered gun owners a few years back.
With medical records digitized, what the public response be to publicly disclosing abortion data? We've already seen the general response to planned parenthood videos.
Your data privacy is either important or it's not. There can't be this "I think these people deserve it so it's okay now" convenience case.
But as somebody else said, when they're emotionally invested they don't care.
> Honestly, I'm more concerned about how easy it would be for the hackers to inject virtually anybody they wanted into the middle of this data to publicly smear them. With the public in a general froth over the whole episode, dropping in a celebrity, politician, preacher, etc would be child's play.
This is the new scary. I'm not even sure how you would defend yourself. Its not like the normal lies are easy to defend, now people are taking this database dump as holy writ without consideration of the source or skepticism of its contents.
>Honestly, I'm more concerned about how easy it would be for the hackers to inject virtually anybody they wanted into the middle of this data to publicly smear them. With the public in a general froth over the whole episode, dropping in a celebrity, politician, preacher, etc would be child's play.
This is similar to my view on the death penalty. While most people debate over the morality (Is it right to murder a murderer? Is it right to out a cheater?), I am more concerned about the "facts" (Was a person wrongfully convicted? Is the data correct?).
In the case of the Ashley Madison data dump, there are at least a few points where it could be manipulated. It could have been done to the original data dump, copies of said dump floating around (since the average person wouldn't know which one is the original), and sites that have popped up allowing searching of email addresses (since really, the average person wouldn't know how to download and search the data dump).
Even if all those weren't manipulated, someone's email address could appear because someone else used it. I randomly searched for case@aol.com and obama@whitehouse.gov on one of the email search sites and both showed as hits.
I can easily see someone inserting fake data just for the lulz or for ideological reasons.
I don't like anything about that site and I have a really hard time feeling sorry for people getting "outed" by it, but you're absolutely right. Allowing the illegal when it's convenient for you is not okay, even though much of the public is totally fine with violating people's privacy as long as it fits their world view.
We already saw the response when a newspaper in NY published a map of registered gun owners a few years back.
With medical records digitized, what the public response be to publicly disclosing abortion data? We've already seen the general response to planned parenthood videos.
Your data privacy is either important or it's not. There can't be this "I think these people deserve it so it's okay now" convenience case.
But as somebody else said, when they're emotionally invested they don't care.