The reaction to The Fappening was likewise equal parts glee and disgust.
Almost nobody would blink an eye at revealing a doxxing dump from a terrorist sympathizer or CP forum.
Ethics are a subjective thing, and lines are hard to place.
Let's say the hackers in this situation wanted to prove that Avid Life Media was acting unethically -- that they had lied about wiping old customer data. They could have worked with journalists to demonstrate that without actually leaking personal information to the world at large.
Snowden's critics have claimed that he's put people in danger, but they've never been able to back that claim up with actual examples. And honestly, since they've lied about every aspect of that situation over and over again, while Snowden has always told the truth, it's hard to believe them.
In this case, it seems very likely that people are going to get divorced, and that kids are going to go through the shredder over this.
Maybe you have to be middle aged to know this, but you hit a stage in life when people start having these incredibly hostile divorces, with really intense hatred on both sides. And that is terrible for kids. This is going to create that situation in lots of families. It's not cool. It's punching down, it's hurting people who had nothing to do with anything in order to get at some people who seem to be genuinely slimy (Avid Life).
I'm not sure how you see staying together blissfully unawares as the better option but then again I don't like children.
I agree, but that's not for us to act upon.
That's really only the bare minimum. He also exposed a bunch of obviously legal programs that just made the US look bad to allies or outted intelligence programs designed to attack future potential enemies. He did this because he believed those actions were morally wrong.
I don't see how that is different from outting cheaters on a website. Both are punishing people for violations of your moral code.
The difference is that exposing someone having extramarital sex doesn't violate the US Constitution and the rights of 300M of its citizens.
The NSA is a government agency, so what it does is in the public interest. A guy planning to bomb something is also by definition affecting the public so exposing that is also in the public interest.
This hack, the fappening and similar are completely personal and private so they are of no concern to anyone but the people involved in it.
It stops being a private matter when it trespasses into other people's life.
Or they could be cheaters who are lying to their SOs.
Regardless, we the general public have no horse in this race. We haven't been asked by the person's SO to find this out, the people in question are not public figures, and we have no knowledge of the specifics of their situation.
Or person A is in a sexless but loving marriage with person B. They have kids, and don't want to get divorced because they love each other, but person B is just done with sex. Is it worse for person A to cheat on person B than it is for the two to get divorced, upending the family structure and ruining them financially?
We could debate that endlessly, but the fact remains is its none of our business what's going on with the Ashley Madison people, nor is it our place to decide what's best for the partners of Ashley Madison customers.
Would you say it "comes with the territory" when someone's drug habit is leaked on the Internet? Or their private emails?
I sympathize with couples who have a consensual kink however and are now caught in the middle of it. Though I doubt it's anywhere near a major portion of the userbase, they are very unfortunate collateral here. Kind of U.S. govt informers who were revealed by Assange's cablegate (which majority here is positive about), but sans grave threat to their life.
I don't have sympathy for people who make their SOs an unconsenting part of three-way sexual relationship, and yes they are never an excuse short. All people are positive about their self image, and rationalizations of abhorrent actions are a natural consequence.
Do you have sympathy for people whose three-way sexual relationships are unconsentingly made public?
It's amazingly easy to label people 'collateral damage' when those people are not you.
In any case, this leak makes no distinction between people who are doing wrong and people who aren't, and it hurts all of them. Since when was it ok to smear a million people who weren't doing anything wrong, just to blow up the lives of other people who were?
There is also, as the top-level parent comment suggests, the point that adultery is more or less celebrated in much of popular culture. The mixture of hypocrisy and schadenfreude is obnoxious.
The case that isn't being made is that you should be able to tell Jane about Joe in a private way. That's called discretion. And besides being the better part of valor, it is part of being a wise person.
The people who are OK with this leak should ask themselves if someone should be able to tell a wife about her cheating husband without worrying about hacking and leaks. Or even government dragnets (maybe it's a drug problem, which could be illegal).
If we make people think twice about talking to each other, there are many cases where we make them think twice about helping each other.
Sure, but one could also argue the same about per-marital sex, divorce and homosexuals.
A family's structure and agreements is not public, nor should they be. Unless said family choose to disclose that fact by their own volition.
S/he is just like all the other people who engage in electing law makers that create laws that control how we live. Part of being in a democracy like government is that everyone gets a little say in how we all live our lives with a majority rule. Things like constitutions might mean a super majority is needed for some things instead of a simple majority, but the right to have a say is still there.
You're forcing your point-of-view upon others.
Churches have no ability to enforce promises with violence or confiscation. And they shouldn't. So it's important for governments to establish some sort of lowest common denominator and hold people legally accountable.
I understand the impulse to be non-judgmental, but when both laws and the rest of society get out of the business of enforcing marriage contracts, you actually take choices away from people that want a stronger marriage contract. They can no longer enter an enforceable contract that requires monogamy.
We're not adding more choice for everyone that way. We're just choosing (as a society) a different lifestyle.
Isn't that what prenups are for? (modulo the fact that it is sometimes difficult to enforce prenups).
Let's say you like the marriage rules pre-1970 (no no-fault divorce). You can't write up a prenup that resembles that and have it be enforced by the government (reject applications for divorce and applications to marry someone else).
More options and freedom weren't added when each state adopted no-fault divorce. One option was taken away (pre-1970 marriage contracts) and another was picked (no-fault divorce).
Someone might not like with pre-1970 marriage contracts, but who are they to judge someone else's culture and preferences?
If anything I would argue the problem lies then on how the estate sees marriage, not the other way around. The agreement I have with my wife is between us, no one needs to judge what we do with our private lives.
The point is, we have to deal with how things are actually now, and not only with how they may/should be.
They don't define a family as one male adult, one female adult, and some children by birth. So, personally, I use a broad definition of family that includes homosexuals and fostering and polyamory, while rejecting stuff like forced marriage or child marriage.
I think the burden of proof goes the other way, considering marriage laws (including those that punish infidelity) have been part of common law for hundreds of years.
That family is a fundamental unit in human societies is a pretty much self-evident thing at this point. The burden of proof lies squarely on those who disagree with observable reality.
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Eh. So you think the people exposing husbands and wives cheating on each other are the ones breaking families, not the ones actually cheating?
Don't shoot the messenger, comes to mind (okay, maybe imprison the messenger if he obtained the data in an illegal way, but I don't think he should be imprisoned or worse for "breaking families", when he wasn't the one committing the act that ends up breaking the family apart).
Isn't that kind of how private eyes work, too? Should they be punished for "breaking families"?
I am definitely not arguing for shooting the messenger (I apologize if my comment was not clear enough about that) - what I want to say is that I may agree the boundary between "ok hack" and "not ok hack" may lie on the public concerns/private concerns line, but IMO one could argue that Ashley Madison lies on the "public interest" side.
The difference is that these two promote physical harm while cheating doesn't