THE Hacker's Motives
The Impact Team indicated that they planned to hack ALM over what they claimed were dishonest business practices. The hackers specifically identified a “full delete” feature marketed to users for a fee. The benefit of this feature for users is that if the user decided to discontinue use of the site, all of their personal data would be deleted and completely removed from the company’s servers. Impact Team demonstrated with the released user data that ALM had lied about the full delete feature (Cox, 2015; Lord, 2017).
Another promise Ashley Madison never kept, according to the hackers, was that of deleting sensitive credit card information. Purchase details were not removed and included users’ real names and addresses. In a statement, Impact Team stated that, “Full Delete netted ALM $1.7 million in revenue in 2014. It's also a complete lie.” Impact Team went on to say that, “Users almost always pay with credit card; their purchase details are not removed as promised, and include real name and address, which is of course the most important information the users want removed (Cox, 2015).
Impact Team indicated that the target of their hack was ALM and the Ashley Madison website and not the users. By releasing the stolen data, the hackers indicated that they were not only “punishing” ALM, but also demonstrating to the users that their criticisms of the company were true. In the email interview that Impact Team participated in, when asked why they sought to harm the users, many of which had never even used the website for its stated purpose, Impact Team said that the users should blame ALM as they were the ones who had lied to users and did not protect their data properly. Impact Team’s Ashley Madison claimed that users could have their personal accounts completely deleted for $19. However, this was not the case, according to The Impact Team (Cox, 2015; Lord, 2017).
It is worth noting that business practices aside, the hackers also had another message: "Too bad for those men, they're cheating dirtbags and deserve no such discretion...Too bad for ALM, you promised secrecy but didn't deliver." Ultimately, the hackers marketed themselves as “hacktivists” and sought to protect the users that had been wronged by ALM’s bad business practices. That being said, it appears that with the statement above, that the hackers also wanted to do some harm to the users that they viewed as immoral for using the Ashley Madison website (Cox, 2015; Lord, 2017).
Another promise Ashley Madison never kept, according to the hackers, was that of deleting sensitive credit card information. Purchase details were not removed and included users’ real names and addresses. In a statement, Impact Team stated that, “Full Delete netted ALM $1.7 million in revenue in 2014. It's also a complete lie.” Impact Team went on to say that, “Users almost always pay with credit card; their purchase details are not removed as promised, and include real name and address, which is of course the most important information the users want removed (Cox, 2015).
Impact Team indicated that the target of their hack was ALM and the Ashley Madison website and not the users. By releasing the stolen data, the hackers indicated that they were not only “punishing” ALM, but also demonstrating to the users that their criticisms of the company were true. In the email interview that Impact Team participated in, when asked why they sought to harm the users, many of which had never even used the website for its stated purpose, Impact Team said that the users should blame ALM as they were the ones who had lied to users and did not protect their data properly. Impact Team’s Ashley Madison claimed that users could have their personal accounts completely deleted for $19. However, this was not the case, according to The Impact Team (Cox, 2015; Lord, 2017).
It is worth noting that business practices aside, the hackers also had another message: "Too bad for those men, they're cheating dirtbags and deserve no such discretion...Too bad for ALM, you promised secrecy but didn't deliver." Ultimately, the hackers marketed themselves as “hacktivists” and sought to protect the users that had been wronged by ALM’s bad business practices. That being said, it appears that with the statement above, that the hackers also wanted to do some harm to the users that they viewed as immoral for using the Ashley Madison website (Cox, 2015; Lord, 2017).
For the full interview with the impact team, click below: |
To return to the Assignment 1 home page, click below: |
