\Nearly a month has passed since Ashley Madison, a controversial dating site that facilitates extramarital affairs, was hacked by the anonymous hacker group known as Impact Team, exposing the identity and personal information of around 37 million users. The aftermath of the leak has been catastrophic for the users of the site, and a debate rages on over who to blame for the disastrous consequences it has wrought on the hack victims’ personal lives.From the onset, it has been a trend to blame, in the words of Impact Team, the “cheating dirt bags” for signing up on the site in the first palce. What goes around comes around, the saying goes. Popular consensus maintains that the users are singularly responsible for their personal ruin and deserve no empathy. But before we lose ourselves in a lofty discussion of moral principles, let’s not overlook some of the tangible outcomes of the hack. Though attempting to cheat on one’s spouse is usually not a sign of a healthy marriage, an extramarital affair alone does not necessarily destroy a marriage provided it can be kept secret. The hack has now endangered millions of marriages that could have otherwise endured. If ignorance is bliss, the hacking scandal has deprived those married to the unfaithful of their bliss. If we sift through the aftermath of the leak, however, we will find much more than just a divorce epidemic. Cheaters were not just exposed to their spouses; they were exposed to the world. Their children, extended family, friends, employers, and coworkers may find out. Thousands of military men, clergymen, and government officials were found to be enrolled on the site - all of whom may now reasonably expect professional ruin. The shame and ignominy of the incident has proven unbearable for some, such as pastor and seminary professor John Gibson who took his own life when faced with the imminent destruction of his family and career. A number of other suicides may also be linked to the leak. Naturally, the net impact of the scandal remains incalculable. Though I find it unsettling that a tech-savvy twenty-something sitting behind a computer screen can impose his subjective moral standards upon 37 million strangers, I cannot claim that the victims are completely blameless. Of course not. Their personal decision to sign up for the site clearly played a key role in their fate. This personal decision, nevertheless, is none of my business, none of your business, none of the hacker’s business, and none of the public’s business. It only concerns the cheaters who registered on Ashley Madison and those who were cheated on. We do not know their stories or circumstances, and nobody has the right to intervene in their personal affairs. You may find the Ashley Madison leak laughable, but the questions it raises about online security should not be taken lightly. Vigilante justice is a slippery slope. To condone this sort of hacktivism is to invite more of such intrusions, and next time it may be your information. We are all human, and, undoubtedly, we will all make decisions in our lives that we are not proud of. When that time comes, do we really want an anonymous stranger sitting behind a computer screen to play God and decide how to punish us?

Bibliographyhttp://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/07/online-cheating-site-ashleymadison-hacked/http://money.cnn.com/2015/09/08/technology/ashley-madison-suicide/http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/aug/19/ashley-madison-hack-outcomehttp://fusion.net/story/195787/whats-going-on-with-ashley-madison/

This article was written by Alexander Kario. Send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: Arshaun Darabnia