But it is unclear how many were genuinely used by the email address holders and how many are still paying customers.
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Josh Duggar, an already scandal-ridden reality show performer on TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting (canceled after family members accused him of abusing teenaged girls, including his sister), reportedly had a paid account on the site.
Over the past 24 hours, several different social media accounts have opened – and some have been suspended – with the objective of outing Kentucky residents whose emails have been used on the hacked online cheating site Ashley Madison.
Unknown hackers compromised Ashley Madison’s security in July, and promised that they would expose the sensitive information to the world. This one is twice the size of the trove released Tuesday, and appears to contain emails belonging to the CEO of Avid Life Media, which owns the website, and the code behind the site itself. If those emails are found to belong to priests, they could be ex-communicated from the Catholic Church.
“Hey Noel, you can admit it’s real now,” reads a message accompanying the files, in reference to the company’s refusal to acknowledge the authenticity of the leaks.
Ashley Madison, the cheating website includes subscriptions for about 37 million users.
The bulk are from Defence, NSW education department and the Victorian education department. “Nothing conclusive at this point, but we’re doing some investigation into it. Obliviously, it would be a misuse of government property”.
Dr Henry Chang, information technology adviser at the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data, said yesterday the watchdog was aware of the privacy concern over the website. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was deeply embarrassed and not authorised by the government to speak to reporters using his name.
Also on Thursday, it emerged The Pentagon is looking into the hacks.
The hackers who took credit for the break-in had accused the website’s owners of deceit and incompetence, and said the company refused to bow to their demands to close the site.
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In a country such as Saudi Arabia, where homosexuality carries significant punishment, one Reddit user said he is “from a country where homosexuality carries the death penalty,” and he asked the hackers to use discretion in name dumps.
