"Good month for Divorce attorneys"

[DZoolander]

So I was listening to the news the other day, and that quote stood out to me as it was made in reference to the Ashley Madison leak.

Ostensibly - I assume it means people going off to search the database in order to see if their spouse was part of that whole thing.

That got me wondering...because as I understand it...the database itself was posted to the "dark web" - and is only accessible via the TOR browser. Most people probably don't have TOR - and most people probably wouldn't know how to read a database. Rather - most likely what they're doing is going to the number of little cottage websites that have been set up that purport to read the database without the TOR/Dark Web requirements.

I was kinda curious - so I took at look at a couple of those websites and started putting in random email addresses. The reason for that is that I'm curious to see the results that come back to see if I think the results are authentic or not. I'd explain the reason why I'm suspicious of those types of things on a technical level (given the size of the database and a number of other things that would be involved) - but I'll just leave it that I'm curious/suspicious of other developers.

Here's the thing...the results that came back from my random queries didn't exactly instill me with a lot of faith that the results being given were authentic...and here's why.

Every email address I posted that was obviously bogus (like aeoghioiaeg@aegihoag.com) came back false. But - every email address that I gave that looked like it might be halfway real (like... "scott@gmail.com", "kara@gmail.com", "neil@gmail.com", etc) all came back positive.

So it leaves me wondering...did someone write a script that simply checks to see if the domain exists (gmail.com, hotmail.com, etc) - and then checks to see if it's a proper name/etc? Or is it really authentic? Realistically...I can't believe that Ashley Madison was SO HUGE that every proper name I came across at gmail.com had an account there. What are the odds that I randomly pick "scott@gmail.com, kara@gmail.com, neil@gmail.com), etc...and they *all* had accounts?

To me - that just seems fishy...and when that type of "evidence" is the basis of statements like "this is going to be a good month for divorce attorneys" - it gives me pause/problems.

What do you think?

 

[WolfGate]

From the CNN report I saw, they did not verify email addresses, so people could use fake ones and still register. I would think the simple name on a common email service would get picked often in that case. So it does not surprise me given the tens of millions of users.

Does make me feel bad for those early gmail (yahoo, etc.) adopters who were able to get their first name, though.

 

[DZoolander]

That would make sense.

I was just left thinking "What are the odds that EVERY simple name @gmail.com that I concocted had an account?" lol

 

[bluegreysky]

I was just saying to my coworker on Friday about how a few hundred or thousand women and men are probably dodging a bullet because of the leak... finding out that they are being cheated upon is going to suck for them but this particular group of them is the ones who haven't been married that long or don't have kids with that person and now they can leave and go find someone who treats them right instead of going forward another 5 or 10 or 15 years completely unaware of the infidelity and it bites them alot harder down the road...

 

[HerCrazierHalf]

That would make sense.

I was just left thinking "What are the odds that EVERY simple name @gmail.com that I concocted had an account?" lol

I suppose one would have to confirm using the billing address. I'd presume people on such sites might have even employed nicknames or even (gasp) fake names.