I like to say I was just curious, or perhaps even a bit bored. Others might call it depraved, but I couldn’t help it. Last week I found myself looking up a small handful of email addresses on the leaked Ashley Madison list. Mostly I entered the addresses of ex-boyfriends who are now married. Then I sighed with relief that I wasn’t the one married to them. It’s safe to say, I dodged at least a couple bullets.
By now you’ve probably heard about the massive hack of Ashley Madison, a website designed to help married people meet other married people and have affairs. The names, email addresses, home addresses, sexual fantasies and credit card information of the site’s customer database was hacked and the information was posted online last week.
The site claimed to have had about 37 million users from over 50 countries and used the tagline, “Life is short, have an affair.” Which might very well now be changed to, “Life is short, hire a good divorce lawyer.”
Massive website breaches usually do make the news, but they don’t usually stay in the news the way this one has. Hacks aren’t usually joked about by late night comics. They aren’t discussed endlessly at the office water cooler. The breach is reported, and then the story mostly goes away. EBay, Home Depot, even Sony’s hacks have long since been forgotten. But this one doesn’t seem to be losing its place on the front page. Perhaps that’s because it has far more personal consequences than your shopping preferences.
In the past, website hacks have been aimed mostly at companies and credit cards. A couple years ago, Target’s database was hacked. The breach cost the company close to $200 million. But it probably didn’t end any marriages or destroy lives. I can’t imagine anyone filing for divorce over throw pillows and vanilla-scented candles. In many ways, the Ashley Madison hack is the first really personal hack. Think about it — if you were a member of the site, your boss, your coworkers, your friends and of course your spouse can now look up your sexual fantasies. Which is a lot more revealing and embarrassing than anyone learning when you bought a new comforter.
It didn’t take long for the gossip blog, Gawker, to unveil one of the most satisfying names on the list. Josh Duggar, former executive director of the Family Research Council, a Christian group dedicated to lobbying against the rights of gay and lesbian couples to marry. So basically Duggar spent much of his professional career fighting for the “sanctity of marriage” while actively trying to cheat on his wife. And he was apparently pretty intent on doing so because he reportedly paid a $250 refundable “affair guarantee” that said he’d get his money back if he didn’t successfully cheat within three months. You’d think someone so obsessed with traditional marriage and traditional family values would be more of a traditional cheater and just try to cheat the traditional way — like meeting women in the lobby of a hotel bar or something.
Another eye opener from this leaked data hits a bit closer to home, with Utah making the top ten list for users of the site. We came in at number eight out of 50 states for subscriptions. And, according to The Salt Lake Tribune, at least 20 hopeful cheaters work for the state government, because they used their work emails to sign up for accounts. So there are at least 20 state employees who will likely not be nominated for employee of the month in August.
Of course, there’s nothing funny about being cheated on. It sucks to say the least. But there is something slightly gratifying in knowing those who did cheat (or just tried to), placed their trust in a website only to have it betrayed.
As I type this, the identity of the hackers is still a mystery and the FBI is investigating. I sure hope they have a poetic justice department.
Amy Roberts is a longtime Park City resident, freelance writer and the proud owner of two ill-behaved rescue dogs, Boston and Stanley.