One of the things my mother always told me as a child was that no matter how big or small your lie or deceit, eventually you will always get found out.
I thought at the time that she was just trying to scare me into confessing I ate all the cookies, but it ends up she was right. Then again, it鈥檚 easy to get found out when you have chocolate smeared all over your face.
However, I bet the folks who have been using online adultery matchmaking site Ashley Madison wish they had remembered mom鈥檚 sage advice now that the service has apparently been hacked and their very private information possibly compromised. You can鈥檛 have missed the story when it broke earlier this week, because every news outlet spent considerable time reporting on the site having been hacked. It鈥檚 amusing, because there have been several large-scale corporate hacks in recent months and years, but none have gotten the same traction as the recent Ashley Madison intrusion and data theft.
Why do you suppose that is?
Might it be because our giddily salacious nature is more interested in our neighbour鈥檚 sinful sexual exploits than if their credit card information is stolen from Sony鈥檚 Playstation Network? There certainly were a lot of smug-looking news anchors who delivered the story, too, raising their eyebrows accusingly and flashing a hint of a smile as they told viewers that the stolen data could contain user鈥檚 real names and their sexual preferences. A couple of the anchors looked nervous, too鈥� for some reason that I鈥檓 sure is unrelated.
It鈥檚 a pretty serious data theft, as it could potentially expose millions of 鈥� and let鈥檚 just call them what they are 鈥� married cheaters to the world. Divorce lawyers worldwide are rubbing their hands with glee, no doubt. The hackers say they performed the dirty deed not out of moral outrage, but to punish the folks at Ashely Madison for not deleting user accounts as promised for a fee. Apparently, and according to the hackers, the site still hangs on to some of your info even after you pay them to wipe it clean. So now they are demanding the site shut down because they have essentially been defrauding users na茂ve enough to think there is an 鈥渆rase鈥� button on the Internet.
But seriously, even though data breaches don鈥檛 get tons of media coverage, there have been enough high-profile stories out there that everyone should know that nothing is safe online and nothing is private. It鈥檚 not fun. It鈥檚 not right. But that is the reality and we all need to clue into that fact.
Remember only a few scant weeks ago, people were shocked to find their personal Instagram photos were being used by an artist mostly as-is, who was throwing the snapshots on canvas and then selling the stolen pics for thousands of dollars. And because he slightly altered some of the text on the post, it was perfectly legal, too.
Now, that鈥檚 just plain weird and disturbing but think about all the bank, school, big corporation and government sites that have all had massive data breaches in recent months. Basically anywhere online you stick your personal information or credit card information is potentially going to be hacked 鈥� and we鈥檝e been talking about this for years.
So yes, Ashley Madison and its parent company carry a big load of blame for allowing this serious data breach that could and possibly will end their business, and for not deleting the data as promised鈥� or promising something that was impossible in the first place. But let鈥檚 face it, the biggest blame is on the users themselves, and not for cheating or wanting to cheat on their spouses, rather for thinking their secrets and sins would be safe, private and anonymous online or anywhere else.
They should have just listened to mom.
