Ashley Madison user data is online and could make cheating partners a Canadian election issue

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      Canada’s federal election may have just got more interesting.

      Multiple tech news outlets are reporting that hackers have finally posted user data they stole last month from the hook-up website Ashley Madison.

      This is a big deal because, for those who don’t know, Ashley Madison specializes in connecting married people with other married people so that everybody can cheat on their spouses.

      A report by Wired explains the scope of the breach, which concerns more than 32 million users worldwide.

      “The data released by the hackers includes names, addresses and phone numbers submitted by users of the site, though it’s unclear if members provided legitimate details,” it reads. “A sampling of the data indicates that users likely provided random numbers and addresses, but files containing credit card transactions will yield real names and addresses, unless members of the site used anonymous pre-paid cards.”

      This is an especially big deal for Canada because the website reportedly has an almost impossibly large number of users who live in our nation’s capital, Ottawa. According to CBC News, there are 189,810 Ashley Madison members who list Ottawa as their home city. That’s a number approaching one in four of all Ottawa residents old enough to have sex.

      Which gets us back to Canada's federal election scheduled for this October 19.

      With nearly 200,000 Ottawa users, it’s not farfetched to wonder if more than a few of those cheaters hold a seat in parliament or the senate, or perhaps work high enough up in a government ministry to matter to somebody who does.

      The specific user data that hackers have posted online isn’t available through anything as simple as a quick Google search. “A data dump, 9.7 gigabytes in size, was posted on Tuesday to the dark web using an Onion address accessible only through the Tor browser,” Wired explains.

      So at least for now, it remains essentially unavailable to anybody who’s not at least moderately comfortable with the lesser-known places of the Internet. But it likely won’t be longer than a couple of hours before the data is available via channels at least as simple as torrents.

      And Canada is in an election cycle. The names on that list are out there. And even if a suspicious parliamentarian’s husband or wife doesn’t know how to access it, I wonder how long it will be before Conservative supporters go looking for Liberal and NDP politicians, Liberal supporters go looking for NDP and Conservative politicians, and NDP supporters go looking for Conservative and Liberal politicians. Maybe a few people will even go after the Greens.

      Wired has provided an example of how salacious things could soon get (coincidentally using an Ottawa user as its example):

      “The data also includes descriptions of what members were seeking,” it reports. “’I’m looking for someone who isn’t happy at home or just bored and looking for some excitement,’ wrote one member who provided an address in Ottawa and the name and phone number of someone who works for the Customs and Immigration Union in Canada. ‘I love it when I’m called and told I have 15 minutes to get to someplace where I’ll be greeted at the door with a surprise—maybe lingerie, nakedness. I like to ravish and be ravished … I like lots of foreplay and stamina, fun, discretion, oral, even willingness to experiment—*smile*’”

      Canada might be about to learn how much it cares about its politicians' infidelities.

      Comments

      6 Comments

      tiny little Canadian NeoCon bots

      Aug 18, 2015 at 7:56pm

      Love to see which NeoCon bots and party political people are on it.

      Just so we can see one again how hypocritical they are.

      MarkFornataro

      Aug 18, 2015 at 8:13pm

      what if someone arranges a blind date four-some that turns out to comprise a Con, Lib, NDP and Green MP?

      brg

      Aug 19, 2015 at 12:40am

      Was another Trudeau so ahead of his time when he said
      the state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation?

      ursa minor

      Aug 19, 2015 at 1:34pm

      @MarkFonataro - Whatever you try to multiply by Zero, the result will remain Zero.

      Navdeep Chhina

      Aug 19, 2015 at 6:03pm

      You can now search to see if your sexual preferences and other information was exposed on Ashley Madison. All you need is their email address!

      http://www.trustify.info/check

      Lewis S

      Aug 19, 2015 at 11:12pm

      The hypocrisy regarding a statement to the effect of having sex with that woman when proven faults by DNA and a semen stained dress did not change the way people voted in the US. On the other hand having sex with a prostitute and a spy did have effect an electoral results a few years earlier in Canada .