The Day Someone Signed Me Up For An Ashley Madison Account (That Day Would Be Yesterday)
from the so-creative dept
We’ve written a few times now about the leak of data from Ashley Madison, the “dating site for people who want to cheat on their spouses,” mostly discussing the company’s bizarre infatuation with abusing copyright law to try to take down anyone posting content from the leak. We haven’t taken part in any of the stories about naming and shaming individuals who have been found in the database (or just where they might work). As a lot of people have been noting (thankfully) in their stories, for no clear reason, Avid Life Media (the company that owns Ashley Madison) doesn’t do email verification. That means anyone can create an account using anyone else’s email address. In fact, last month, reporter Farai Chideya noted that someone had created an account using her email.
And, apparently, someone thought it would be funny to do the same to me. Yesterday afternoon, I got a message telling me “Welcome to Day 1 of your Ashley Madison Experience.” Someone using my email signed me up, using the rather creative account name “masnicator.” I’m kinda surprised that Ashley Madison is still even allowing online signups (let alone not using an email verification system, or for that matter even keeping the site up at all). But, perhaps even more ridiculous is that in the “welcome” email, it highlights how the service is “100% Secure.”
As if to hammer home just how bogus the whole thing is, the site sent me another email just a few hours later, claiming that it was showing me new people who had just signed up near me. Of course, if anyone is actually “signing up” now, I’m guessing it’s for the same reason that someone signed me up: to mess with people or to joke around.
Not sure why whoever did this did this, though, I guess thanks for the story?
Filed Under: email verification, trolls
Companies: ashley madison
Comments on “The Day Someone Signed Me Up For An Ashley Madison Account (That Day Would Be Yesterday)”
Not sure why whoever did this did this, though, I guess thanks for the story?
Come on Mike, it’s not like you don’t read the comments.
At some point one of our trolls will confuse sites and post here using the nick “wtf15604”. No?
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No, you have it wrong. Mike even admit that he’s thankful for the story
“I guess thanks for the story?”.
See, his wife did it so that he can have more stories to post but Mike was really the mastermind behind the whole ordeal. and you and I the readers fall for it.
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See, his wife did it so that he can have more stories…
I don’t have access to the Crystal Ball, but my guess is that Techdirt rarely (if ever) lacks material for stories.
People/companies/governments are constantly doing/saying stupid shit these days.
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Especially since they often preface an article that occurs weeks after the events covered in the story with phrases like, “I meant to write about this when it was happening but was too busy at the time.”
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That’s just a fake publicity stunt to make it look like they can’t keep up with the idiocy and that they don’t lack material. Besides Techdirt steals all their content from everyone else. It’s nothing but a pirate site.
Ok, since someone will mistaken this for a serious post I will put a /sarc tag
/sarc
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My post was clearly sarcasm. Please readjust your sarcasm detectors.
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Please readjust your sarcasm detectors.
Sarcasm baseline adjustment in progress…please wait [/]
Ok. Better now. Sometimes it gets misaligned from reading too many Anonymous Coward posts.
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I would never be that careless.
afk, registering David Cameron on this site.
Only two people would ever know about this except that you DID make it a story!
That you actually took the bait and run with it is the mistake. YOU are doing the needed publicizing, and the “Streisand Effect” quipper should know better than to create needless publicity! — You’re so desperate for stories that I wonder if you didn’t sign up yourself! Because what use is it to anyone else UNLESS YOU publicize it?
Re: Only two people would ever know about this except that you DID make it a story!
So… You believe that know-one would know about the (British Prime Minister) “David Cameron” account if David Cameron hadn’t publicized it?
Re: Only two people would ever know about this except that you DID make it a story!
“That you actually took the bait and run with it is the mistake.”
What mistake?
Re: Only two people would ever know about this except that you DID make it a story!
Because what use is it to anyone else UNLESS YOU publicize it?
When reading this article my first thought was that you, Blue, where responsible for this.
It doesn’t seem out of character that you would do this and then use it as some sort of ammo the next time an article on this subject came up. This would be right in line with your overwhelming obsession to discredit Techdirt at any cost.
Re: Re: Only two people would ever know about this except that you DID make it a story!
Yep, par for the course from Blue. The person who loves to point out that Google CO-SPONSORED (I put that in caps in the hopes that it clicks in his head how co-sponsors work in regards to, well, anything) one specific thing that Mike himself has listed on this website. As if it’s some grandiose conspiracy that Mike is hiding at every possible turn. (It’s on the website, Blue! We can all see it! You literally are making mountains out of a molehill we’ve all been aware about since forever and a day. And it’s not the mountain you make it out to be! Sponsor != employer)
Re: Re: Only two people would ever know about this except that you DID make it a story!
“This would be right in line with your overwhelming obsession to discredit Techdirt at any cost.”
It would also be the first time he had something factual and non-tangential to work with. You can only run with “Mike noted that piracy isn’t the worst thing ever therefore he’s a pirate” and “Mike publicised Google sponsorship on another site therefore he works for them” so many times before even the obsessed stalker gets bored. Why not create actual “evidence” from hand so there’s soemthing concrete to point to?
Re: Only two people would ever know about this except that you DID make it a story!
“You’re so desperate for stories”
Must be Friday!!!
Re: Only two people would ever know about this except that you DID make it a story!
Dude… How can you fail that hard?
Not It.
The beast, so bloated, did not notice its mortal wounds and keep trudging forward. Messages sent, flirtations imagined, all to get another monthly fee – unaware that the transactions would not finish. Another sign up, see how special and shiny we are, give us money, send flirtation #28972… the money will flow as the zombie beast kept plodding forward.
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It’s ootb playing out part of his love fantasy with Mike.
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That might have been one of the WEIRDEST mental images I’ve ever had reading this site.
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You’re out of luck as well as ‘the blue’, ootb. Mike’s straight. Check out his reference to his wife. ;D
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She’s his beard.
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Well at least she’ll never get a headache! ;D
Instead of making questionable excuses it seems like you check out the new site “Baldy Madison”. It’s for pudgy, balding zeroes delusional enough to think they stand a chance with an attractive woman under 300 lbs.
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It’s for pudgy, balding zeroes delusional enough to think they stand a chance with an attractive woman under 300 lbs.
The size of the erm…. pocket book.
I have seem more than enough fugly doods with smoakin hot chicks… don’t kid yourself.
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Indeed, and the ugly guys don’t even have to be rich. Any men who are surprised by this haven’t been paying attention to what women want as much as the guys with hot wives and girlfriends do.
It's a feature
Not verifying emails is actually a feature – it gives plausible deniability to anybody caught having an account. Something I’m sure cheaters would want.
I just find it amusing that the fake profile put WTF in the username. Someone either thought it was funny, didn’t like creating it, or both.
It could just be the 15604th account they made? Probably all copy and paste
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Maybe the WT is “wants to” rather than “what the”….
So they don’t double opt-in their email registrations? What is this – 1999?
They'll delete it for only $19. :-)
They were making two million bucks a year off only that fraudulent claim.
I too am quite astonished they’re still even in business, much less accepting (or receiving) new signups, and still not bothering to verify email addresses! You’d have to be living in a cave to not know about ALM’s shenanigans by now. I’d never even heard of them before these stories broke.
The story on Wired actually lauds them for not being too bad at IT noting they even used bcrypt. Now you know what Wired‘s opinions are worth if you didn’t before.
C'mon, this is great!
And sooo much cheaper than buying yearly subscriptions for people that annoy you to Blue Boy or On Our Backs….
Usual Suspects
Mike, did you ask the Tims?
I’m just saying…
Re: Usual Suspects
Mike, did you ask the Tims?
I’m just saying…
Or maybe that Glyn guy… this seems just like him. 😉
Re: Re: Usual Suspects
Karl. The least suspect is usually the culprit. >.>
Re: Re: Usual Suspects
No, he’s too Moody…
The site is 100% secure. The person who used your email is 100% secure from being found out. You sir, are not secure.
Demographics of New Signups
I’d like to see the demo data on new members. You gotta bet it’s two camps:
1) clueless dolts who wanna cheat on their wives, and read absolutely NO news from any source.
2) dudes getting punked by their locker-room buddies or by other miscreants.
ROTFLMAO!
Karma’s a bitch, eh?
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Karma’s a bitch, eh?
I’m trying my hardest to figure out what you think this means. If someone signing me up for this, which has no impact on anything, other than that I got three random emails (and a good story to post on the blog), is “karma” then it sounds like I’m living a pretty clean life, huh?
I mean, that is a clever username.
boB did it.
A priest visits a sex shop...
A priest visits a sex shop and buys some DVDs.
At the pay desk he says: “I want to have some information for my sermon next week.”
The shop assistant: “That’s what they all say!”
That’s what this article made me think about, somebody else signed me in, that’s what they ALL say…
Re: A priest visits a sex shop...
That’s what this article made me think about, somebody else signed me in, that’s what they ALL say…
Ha! Yes. Though, at least this happened after the hack, so it’s not like my info shows up in the leaked data that everyone’s searching through.
Though, since posting this I’ve heard from a couple friends (both with somewhat generic emails) that say their emails got included a while back. I tend to believe them, but it is interesting.
Guess out_of_the_blue and antidirt needed something to do after it was discovered that they’d been writing fanfictions about their obsessions with “Mikey” on their Ashley Madison accounts…
Same issue, other sites...
I had this issue with Friendster. Someone signed up my email address a few years back. You could not contact them without an account. I had to create an account just to ask them to remove the other account.
I not long after that and I think on 2 different occasions had the same issue at Facebook. But hard to contact facebook regardless of whether u have an account. The only time they responded to me I do not know how I contacted them in such a way that I got a response but they told me basically to go get a lawyer if I do not like it. The only thing I could do was to (claim it) by doing a password change request as my only method of getting the account deleted.
Would be that the site you are referencing were the only offender but bigger fish are doing the same thing.
It would appear that the only way to be sure someone signed up is if they paid since the cc info is there.
Maybe that soulmate of yours has signed you up Mike.. maybe she got fed up with you working 23hrs a day and started to listen to the Pina Colada Song ( ‘Escape’ by Rupert Holmes) and thought Ah HA I know how I can get his attention.
🙂
I'm not suprised.
Must be Dave the thordist, or whateverhisfaceis.
He has had a hard on for you for a long time, either that or that douchebag lobbyist, he was creepy enough.
What the internet needs is an ‘Ashley Madison’ website for copyright trolls.
1) Create
2) Leak
3) ?
4) Profit