Ashley Madison leak: Is this newsworthy?

Thank you. That was my question, too. It would depend on whether the leak was of verified or unverified accounts.

 

According to a buddy who is way more interested in this than I am - If you parse through the data, you can ferret out the unverified (meaning, the emails were signed up) vs. the verified (meaning, they completed registration) accounts.

Re: the journalism value, I think it's somewhat limited. Once I knew I could look at the names, I couldn't resist taking a scan for the town I cover. A local politician is on there, although, he's not married. A married acquantice was in there too. I do think it would be relevant if you had a Duggar-type making a very public stand about marriage and infidelity, but otherwise, eh.

And thanks to the Internet, you can run your GMail contacts to see if you have any matches: Scan Your Gmail For Ashley Madison Users in 2 Clicks - Hypepotamus - Note: That one seemingly uses the unverified user database.

 

Which one?

 

And, for the record, if a government employee is using a government email address to log into AshleyMadison.com, it's absolutely newsworthy.

 

Why?

 

Gross misuse of an account that should only be used for official tasks?

 

I understand that would be the official line. But at this point, people using their work email for personal reasons is like pulling the tag off the mattress. No one was risking any state secrets here.

 

What moron uses their work email for personal purposes? It takes about four seconds to sign up for a gmail account.

 

I've even heard that some morons use their personal email for work purposes.

 

I think there's a story in the almost-inevitable bankruptcy headed AM's way. Charging $20 a pop for a "full delete" and having that prove worse than useless is civil suit heaven.

 

Ha, I'm sure the potential class members will love having the class-action letter delivered to their house.

 

Along with the latest 90-day supply of Valtrex.