Comment by rubicon33 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rubicon33 | Hacker News Reader

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You've made some pretty significant assumptions, and in your childish rage, almost missed my point entirely. For starters, to say I don't give a damn about privacy, couldn't be more wrong.

My point is about who to blame, for the negative impact on family members, spouses, children, etc. We shouldn't miss the mark. Blame the correct party.

The "shame" that family members incur from this hack, is due to the NATURE OF THE WEBSITE. It's an AFFAIR website, not a gardening forum. If the public information of a garden information site was hacked, then nobody would be complaining about the harm to family members.

Do I think hacks like this, and exposing private information, is good? NO. I'm saying that the negative impact on the innocent people, is entirely due to the deplorable nature of the site, and the individuals who registered on it.

And frankly, I'm not even arguing whether or not I disagree with cheating/infidelity. I'm merely saying, IF someone feels shame/hurt that their spouse is cheating, they should BLAME THEIR SPOUSE FOR CHEATING.

If you found out your friend's spouse was cheating, you would understand if people were upset if your idea of telling them was to post their pictures, address, relationship status and credit card number on every street corner in the neighborhood.

Also, you do it to people who weren't cheating at all. You don't even know them.

Then you start buying billboards.

Your comment entirely hinges on the following statement:

"If you found out your friend's spouse was CHEATING"

Let me rephrase it, and let's see if your statement still holds...

"If you found out your friend was a member of a gardening forum"

Given this second scenario, if I were to purchase billboards exposing their personal information, including pictures, address, and - important - their registration on the gardening forum, then I certainly would be to blame for the deplorable act of exposing personal information. I agree on this point entirely.

It is NOT my fault however, if society believes gardening is morally reprehensible, and they then incur shame as a result of having chosen to associate with gardeners.

Replace gardeners, with liars, cheaters, etc, and you'll see (hopefully), why I don't appropriate the blame for this hypothetical "shame for family members" onto the hackers. Furthermore, let's not pretend like the hacker's suddenly caused family trauma that never would have happened. That's incredibly naïve. In all likelihood, if there was infidelity, these relationships weren't exactly headed in a good direction to begin with, and their exposure as liars, and cheaters, would happen for a good lot of them anyways! And just to underscore my point, if they were gardeners, there would be no shame in it all.

So for maybe the 3rd time now, just so that I am completely clear - NO, exposing personal information is NOT cool, and I do NOT think it's right to do. However, the fall out being incurred by family members, has more to due with the nature of the exposure, than the exposure itself. I really genuinely struggle to see why this point is so difficult for some.

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