Ashley dating site hack

Ashley Madison true story: Explaining the real-life controversy depicted in new documentary series

It has been nearly a decade since hackers dumped huge amounts of personal data from Ashley Madison, the infamous dating site which, back in , catered mostly to men who wanted to cheat on their wives. Now, that story is back in the media, partly because of a recent Netflix documentary about it. You can see me in that series, a nerdy talking head in clips from various TV news shows from , because I was one of the journalists breaking the story. But neither the Netflix series nor the handful of other documentaries still in the works get at what was truly revolutionary — and chilling — about the Ashley Madison affair. People have been trying to have affairs with strangers for thousands of years. Ashley Madison was never really about that. Its site became a prototype for what social media platforms such as Facebook are becoming: places so packed with AI-generated nonsense that they feel like spam cages, or information prisons where the only messages that get through are auto-generated ads. After a rebrand, Ashley Madison is now owned by Ruby Life and bills itself as a spicy dating site for married people.

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It was launched in and marketed to people who are married or people in relationships who are looking for affairs. Have an affair. Ashley Madison has been criticised for being a "business built on the back of broken hearts", and use of guerrilla marketing for advertising. The breach also revealed that the company exaggerated the size of its userbase by "creating fake accounts, or not stopping others from creating fake accounts". Ashley Madison was founded in by Darren J. The name comes from two popular female names in North America , " Ashley " and " Madison ". On July 15, , hackers stole all of its customer data—including emails, names, home addresses, sexual fantasies, and credit card information—and threatened to post the data online if Ashley Madison and fellow Avid Life Media site Established Men were not permanently closed.

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Ashley Madison, the notorious dating website that reveled in its controversial image, had millions of people sweating in when it was revealed that its user list had been hacked. Told through interviews with former employees, customers, jilted spouses and journalists, the three-part documentary also delves into who was behind the hack and the real-life consequences for people who were outed when the so-called Ashley Madison list was leaked.

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What was the Ashley Madison scandal?

Ashley Madison is a dating site like no other, one with real shock factor - and it made major headlines when the contents of its database were hacked and leaked worldwide. The dating site, which is still up and running today, was designed for people seeking out affairs. But in , the site was hacked and millions of users' intimate data was exposed to the world. The three-parter explores the creation of the website and the hack that created a crisis, and speaks to those directly involved in the scandal, including one couple whose marriage became a talking point on major news sites.

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