MADISON AVENUE

Ashley Madison hack could lead down road to serious trouble for important people.

Perhaps you haven’t been following the story, but the marital infidelity website Ashley Madison suffered a security breach in July by a hacktivist group called Impact Team in which all its account records were stolen. At first Ashley Madison’s parent corporation Avid Life Media tried to claim its data remained secure, but it later emerged that Ashley Madison’s client database was completely compromised. For the uninitiated, Ashley Madison hooks up marrieds who want to have affairs, and while most sensible people would think that’s a terrible idea, the site had generated millions of clients. Impact Team demanded the site be shut down or all the user records would be published, and yesterday the group made good on that threat and posted 9.7 gigs of records from as many as 32 million users in 46 countries.

Generally, we’re in favor of digital civil disobedience, but this latest raid seems a bit out of character for the various anonymous hacker collectives. At least until you dig a little deeper. Impact Team’s proclamation says in part, “Keep in mind the site is a scam with thousands of fake female profiles. See Ashley Madison fake profile lawsuit; 90-95% of actual users are male.” Exposing mass fraud seems more in line with the usual hacktivist modus operandi, but there’s more. Approximately 15,000 Ashley Madison accounts carry a .gov or .mil web address. Yes, you read that right—more than 15,000 of the accounts go directly back to U.S. military or government IPs. Some even carry a White House home address.

Thus, the moral posturing about sexual infidelity (Impact Team writes, “Find yourself in here? It was ALM that failed you and lied to you. Prosecute them and claim damages. Then move on with your life. Learn your lesson and make amends.”) feels a bit like a smokescreen. In reality, this hack has very likely put a major scare into the political class. Some of the addresses are probably fake (the White House ones are good candidates, because we doubt any White House employees are that

dumb, whereas people who hate the government would be more than willing to spend the time and effort to set up fake profiles). But then some of the addresses most definitely aren’t fake.

The account information is only available so far on the dark web, but we’re very curious to see if anyone follows up on the details of those .gov addresses. There’s no telling who’s at the other end, and we can hardly wait for the denials to start. It’s just delicious to think that, after passing all sorts of intrusive laws designed to corral and track internet users, the same politicians could end up being the foxes to a bunch of curious citizens’ hounds. Could it actually happen? We have no idea, but we can dream can’t we? Stay tuned.

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

May 13

1960—Gary Cooper Dies

American film actor Gary Cooper, who harnessed an understated, often stoic style in numerous adventure films and westerns, including Sergeant York, For Whom the Bell Tolls, High Noon, and Alias Jesse James, dies of prostate, intestinal, lung and bone cancer. For his contributions to American cinema Cooper received a plaque on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and is considered one of top movie stars of all time.

May 12

1957—Von Stroheim Dies

German film director and actor Erich von Stroheim, who as an actor was noted for his arrogant Teutonic character parts which led him to become a renowned cinematic villain with the nickname “The Man You Love to Hate”, dies in Maurepas, France at the age of 71.

May 11

1960—Adolf Eichmann Is Captured

In Buenos Aires, Argentina, four Israeli Mossad agents abduct fugitive Nazi Adolf Eichmann, who had been living under the assumed name and working for Mercedes-Benz. Eichman is taken to Israel to face trial on 15 criminal charges, including crimes against humanity and war crimes. He is found guilty and executed by hanging in 1962, and is the only person to have been executed in Israel on conviction by a civilian court.

May 11

2010—Last Ziegfeld Follies Girl Dies

Doris Eaton Travis, who was the last surviving Ziegfeld Follies chorus girl, dies at age 106. The Ziegfeld Follies were a series of elaborate theatrical productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 through 1931. Inspired by the Folies Bergères of Paris, they enjoyed a successful run on Broadway, became a radio program in 1932 and 1936, and were adapted into a musical motion picture in 1946 starring Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Lucille Ball, and Lena Horne.

May 10

1924—Hoover Becomes FBI Director

In the U.S., J. Edgar Hoover is appointed director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a position he retains until his death in 1972. Hoover is credited with building the FBI into a large and efficient crime-fighting agency, and with instituting a number of modern innovations to police technology, such as a centralized fingerprint file and forensic laboratories. But he also used the agency to grind a number of personal axes and far exceeded its legal mandate to amass secret files on political and civil rights leaders. Because of his abuses, FBI directors are now limited to 10-year terms.

May 10

1977—Joan Crawford Dies

American actress Joan Crawford, who began her show business career as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies, but soon became one of Hollywood’s most prominent movie stars and one of the highest paid women in the United States, dies of a heart attack at her New York City apartment while ill with pancreatic cancer.