Christina VarvisLife is short, and hundreds of people at the University of Alberta are having affairs.
On Aug. 18 and 20, a hacker group known as The Impact Team released more than 25 gigabytes of stolen data from Ashley Madison, an adulterous dating and social networking website that promises “discreet encounters” between “cheating wives and cheating husbands.” An estimated 32 million Ashley Madison users had their names and personal information leaked, including 425 subscribers with the @ualberta.ca domain assigned to U of A staff and students, as reported by Global News.
Ian Kerr, the Canada Research Chair in Ethics, Law and Technology in Ottawa and U of A alumni and lecturer, said the Ashley Madison breach has reached notoriety not only because it involves a website that capitalizes on infidelity, but because of the ethical “tension” between the hackers, the users and the site itself.
“The moral issues are complex,” Kerr said. “The legal issues, less so.”
In July, The Impact Team threatened to expose the identities of Ashley Madison’s subscribers unless its parent company, Avid Life Media, shut down the site. Though The Impact Team labeled themselves as “hacktivists” whose actions were done for a politically or socially motivated purpose and are justified on moral grounds, Kerr questioned their motives.
“It is useful to remember that the data leak is a very powerful tool for online scammers,” he said. “The transaction data contains names, mail addresses (and) IP and GPS addresses.”
Following the data release on Aug. 18, the hackers issued a statement that recommended those affected “prosecute (Avid Life Media) and claim damages.” Kerr said it will be easy for affected U of A users to follow The Impact Team’s advice by joining one of two Canadian class action lawsuits which have filed $587 million in claims against Ashley Madison, though they will have to prove they were harmed by the breach.
“The firms have a reasonable chance of success (and) will likely appeal to various principles in contract, tort and privacy law, including damages for breach of contract (and) reputational harm,” Kerr said.
Kerr added that there is little Ashley Madison clients could have done to better protect themselves, as social networking security breaches occur daily.
“People have to become better at safeguarding their personal information … (but) it is hard to imagine what more one could do than pay money to have their personal information deleted, which many clients allege to have done,” Kerr said.
“(Ashley Madison) ignored security concerns and put their clients and those around them at risk, with an outcome of great personal loss not just for the user base but for others whose lives have now been thrown into turmoil.”
Matthew Johnson, assistant professor in human ecology at the U of A and former marriage therapist, said most couples who experience infidelity stay partnered, though the quality of that partnership degenerates considerably.
“For many couples, that infidelity remains a festering wound that continues to harm their relationship,” Johnson said.
“My advice (to the victims) would be … to take responsibility for their actions and seek professional help to help them move forward with their lives.”
When asked about the long-term implications of the scandal, Kerr quoted American judge Felix Frankfurter in saying, “It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in controversies involving not very nice people.”
“Privacy in our society is only as strong as that which is accorded to the lowest common denominator,” Kerr said. “Let’s hope we don’t all lose out on privacy protection because of the moral faults of the group whose data was breached.”
