WHAT WE’VE LEARNT FROM THE ASHLEY MADISON HACK

When A-list celebrities have their phones hacked, the world was quick to jump online and see the nude photos.  With a lot of conservatives jumping up and down and claiming that these poor women had it coming.  If you don’t want your nude selfies plastered all over the internet, don’t take them.  That being the comment that was most uttered by unsympathetic individuals all over the world.

The ridiculousness of that statement is over whelming to me.  Firstly, these women were in long term committed relationships, they sent these pictures to their boyfriends/husbands.  They weren’t sending it to a tabloid magazine or some random they wanted to hook up with for the night.  It was a personal and private moment.

If the same were to happen to these moral elitists, with their deepest darkest secrets plastered over the internet for everyone to view, would they be so quick to tout the “I deserve it because I sent it in a text.”  I can tell you now, the answer is a resounding no.

The Ashley Madison leak has revealed many high profile hypocrites, with many of these people getting their comeuppance, and the world has enjoyed watching them get theirs.

Marriages and families will end because of this scandal, but the majority of people will go unnoticed.  Their profiles too small for anyone to really take note of, other than petty criminals trying to blackmail their way into a fortune.  Until that time when a website exists for the public to search for names/email addresses is made readily available.

But the truth is, in a world where our attention span is short, we will soon forget about the juiciness of this scandal and move on to the next.

The only thing which will come out of this is a massive law suit from users of Ashley Madison who had paid to have their information wiped clean, this was not done, and now, irreversible damage has been done to their reputation and family.  It’s a slam dunk of a case.

I know people who have used Ashley Madison, and as of right now, they are unaffected, their significant other has not found out that they were on the site. I also want to check for people I know whom I suspect of adultery.  Lucky for them, I am a Luddite and have no knowledge of the dark web.

Cheaters deserve to be caught, but, in this instance, I am unsure how I feel about that.  It’s one thing to see your friend’s husband/wife in the street getting cosy with someone they shouldn’t, it’s another to dig into an online database searching for it.  That’s probably just me.

Adulterers getting exposed isn’t something that will have everyone up in arms, some even think that they deserve it (a part of me is secretly glad, a small part), but it is a matter of evolution.  First, celebrity dirty pictures, which we’re all so glad to search for, because we think that we’re not violating them whenever we look at these pictures.  Let me tell you, we are.  Whenever we click and view a nude pic of someone who did not consent to it, we are violating them.  How would you like it if someone was able to see your nude pictures whenever they googled your name?  It’s mortifying to know that it will be there for all time.

Now, we have leaks of adulterers, people who society deem reprehensible for their behaviour.  We don’t feel sorry for these people as a collective.  These are scumbags a**holes and wh*res who deserve to get what’s coming to them.  They don’t, we don’t know the situation of these people and what led them to this point in their lives.

What next, Facebook?  Tinder?  Every other dating app out there?  No, it’s not on.  It’s not cool, and it’s a massive invasion of our privacy.

1. Don’t use your work email address;
2. Don’t use your real name;
3. Pay via Paypal or some other anonymous payment method;
4. Create an email especially for online dating, which your family and friends don’t use. Email accounts are free, so, just have one for your online persona;
5. Anyone and everyone is susceptible to being hacked and having all their information dumped;
6. Blackmailers and criminals will make use of your information straight away;
7. If you’ve used your credit card to make payments directly, cancel them with your bank straight away and get new ones issued;
8. Saying you were ‘researching the opposition’ gets you out of trouble;
9. It’s not so easy for laymen to find out your details in a mass data dump, it will be up to tech savvy individuals to tell the people you know what’s going on;
10. Nothing is ever truly deleted online;
11. Security and privacy is a major issue with your information. Nothing is actually hack proof.  And they don’t need your login and password to get your information;
12. Privacy should always be respected, and we shouldn’t jump on the band wagon to exploit someone’s unfortunate hacks for our own amusement or benefit.