The website – with its slogan “Life is short”. The $578-million class action targets Toronto-based Avid Life Media and Avid Dating Life, who operate the infamous adultery website.
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I hadn’t thought about my fake profiles in years until those darned hackers seized all the data and then put it online – including the accounts of yours truly.
More says his intention is not to “out anyone”, only to analyze data that can teach clients how password tendencies and weak security measures are exposed.
The tech website said it was given a contact email address for the hackers, who call themselves the Impact Team, by an intermediary.
Data from the hack has even been mapped, revealing the popularity of the site in different towns and cities across the world. He believes it will actually make cases more contentious. “If such activity is found, the state personnel department and affected agency will take action as appropriate”.
Many federal customers appeared to use nongovernment email addresses with handles such as “sexlessmarriage”, “soontobesingle” or “latinlovers”.
“DND employees and CAF members must ensure they maintain the highest ethical standards and values in all uses of the Internet, the defence intranet, computers and other IT systems”, says the internal directive.
Two Ontario law firms have got the ball rolling, acting on behalf of Canadian members of the site whose personal details were exposed in the attack.
And at least one cheating spouse is owning up to having affairs after being accused of using the site.
Mr Charney said: “They are outraged that AshleyMadison.com failed to protect its users’ information”. He signed up to the website after his wife of 30 years died of cancer, but didn’t stay on it for very long and claims never to have met anyone from the site – which, considering the high sex imbalance of users (women made up 14 per cent of accounts), isn’t too surprising.
Scott Vernick, partner and head of the data security and privacy practice at the law firm Fox Rothschild LLP, says consumers have the right to expect a certain level of online security, depending on the industry standards of the company they’re dealing with. “We have portions downloaded and its confirmed legitimate thus far.”
She told the Financial Times: “It would not surprise me if people came forward to bring claims against Ashley Madison“.
But one Jacksonville couple says they can work it out.
The dump of data on Wednesday cames after hacking group The Impact Team threatened in July to release information on users of Ashley Madison unless its publisher took the site down.
“The vast majority of the people in there were not smart about it at all”, Salter said.
“I’m aware of it”, Carter said.
The data release could have severe consequences for US service members.
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Roughly 15,000 accounts were traced back to government and military email addresses.
