The hackers who hacked into AshleyMadison.com are seemingly the ‘righteous’ who intend to punish the site’s owners and its users for their moral wrongdoings.
A group of hackers, which calls itself the Impact Team, has claimed responsibility for the hack and in an announcement revealed that they hacked into the site to bring to light the website’s alleged fraudulent business practices of the site’s owners Avid Life Media (ALM) and the immoral practices it encouraged and enabled. The team has released 10GB worth of data containing details of subscribers – an evidence that it actually wants to punish these people through moral policing.
Dawning the role of vigilantes the hackers have set out to punish the site’s owners and 37 million people who have allegedly violated sexual morality. However, there is no way to prove, expect for full-blown court trails or confession at any of these 37 million subscribers actually went out committing moral crimes.
Our stand on such sites is neutral as it is down to the individuals and their moral values on the acts they perform. But, just because they registered on the site doesn’t really prove that they did something that was morally wrong. Also, sexual infidelity in most countries isn’t a legal crime and policing such ‘alleged’ moral crimes through acts that may put so many people at risk of black mail, depression or even suicide doesn’t seem to be right.
Hackers have conveniently absolved themselves of any responsibility as far as the impact of this disclosure is concerned. The team said:
“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. Embarrassing now, but you’ll get over it.” If mere embarrassment was the only outcome then this would be a reasonable claim, but suspicion or proof of infidelity is likely to have impacts far beyond mere embarrassment.”
There are proponents of such moral policing and many would say that the users are themselves to blame for their acts – registering on the site and possibly getting involved in morally wrongdoings. They may even absolve the hackers for releasing the information as it is the users’ moral failings that have been brought to light and they are the real criminals.
Then there is the case of punishing the site’s owners – ALM. According to hackers, the owners were involved in fraud and deceit with thousands of female profiles being fake. This may get ALM into trouble through fake profile lawsuit. This is something that law enforcement agencies would require to look into.
Further, it has also been brought to light that 90-95 per cent of actual users are male, but that’s not the owner’s fault as what they have done could be labelled as morally dubious at best.
The question: Does disclosure of information of 37 million people who ‘may have been’ involved in moral wrongdoings justify hackers’ ultimate intention of bringing to light and punishing morally dubious acts of site’s owners?
