On Tuesday night, a group of hackers called the Impact Team released data on the 37 million users of hookup website Ashley Madison. The hackers first infiltrated the site last month and said they would go public with their information if the site wasn’t taken down (spoiler alert: it wasn’t).
Computer security experts immediately got to work analyzing the data, and among their most disturbing discoveries was that 15,000 .mil or .gov email addresses were included in Ashley Madison’s archives.
The immediate impulse would be to engage in a kind of willful schadenfreude—high-profile cheaters deserve to have their misdeeds exposed, even if blackmail is the result. But several pundits, such as MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, warned that if hackers can get info on infidelity, bombshells about medical records or tax returns can’t be far behind.
This same dichotomy of laughs mixed with genuine worry played itself out among Twitter users. #AshleyMadisonHack was among the top trends Wednesday morning, and played host to a parade of mixed emotions.
Some tweeters used a joking tone, satirically predicting the results of the data breach for the politicians, performers and students who are hypothetically involved:
For reasons having nothing to do with #ashleymadisonhack, 97 congressmen, 17 senators, and 9 governors announce sudden resignations.
— Peter Bonilla (@pebonilla) August 19, 2015
Can someone just make a Cliff Notes version of the #ashleymadisonhack with all of the politicians? That would make things entertaining.
— Zophael Ray (@Zophael) August 19, 2015
Here are all the email addresses from the #AshleyMadisonHack:
RobinThicke@aol.com
RobinThicke@gmail.com
RobinThicke@hotmail.com
(cont.)— Eli Braden (@EliBraden) August 19, 2015
https://twitter.com/EliseBlackwell/status/633991975541297152
Others, however, looked into the crystal ball and saw the future implications of this hack, not just for Ashley Madison users but for the Internet and society as a whole:
https://twitter.com/jwildeboer/status/633965919715332096
The moral implications of people's reactions to this are not only telling, but distressing #ashleymadisonhack
— Eel O’neal ⚡️🐍 (@backupeel) August 19, 2015
Easy to gloat at #AshleyMadisonHack but what about the privacy implications? First they came for the cheaters, and I did not speak out…
— Genie the Gentlethem Pirate (they/them) (@Sprachstudentin) August 19, 2015
The funniest/saddest thing to me about #ashleymadisonhack isn't the infidelity, it's how stupid thinking anything is safe on the web is.
— BryanExMachina (@BryanExMachina) August 19, 2015
It’s easy to laugh at the Ashley Madison hack, but it proves that online privacy is no longer a given, even at the highest levels of security. The fact that the Impact Team can make A-list extramarital affairs public knowledge should make everyone who uses a computer wary about their “private” correspondence. Stay alert, Internet.
