The world is full of strange things, and people's brains always seem to be filled with strange thoughts, such as cheating.
According to research, 20-40% of men and 20-25% of women who are married will cheat, which is by no means a small number.
As the saying goes, where there are people, there is a market, and an Australian guy and a Canadian broker have set their sights on the huge market of "cheating", and they have set up a website to serve people who are interested in cheating.
However, just as the site was doing its best, the membership information was published, and the results were shocking...... Including many celebrities, Internet celebrities, and politicians, they are all senior members of the cheating website......
Netflix近期曝光了这一传奇网站，取名为《Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal（偷情网站泄密事件：性、谎言与丑闻）》。
Source: Netflix
1. The Australian guy founded a "cheating" website, which became popular in an instant and earned hundreds of millions
For a while, you may receive an ad while browsing the web, and when you open the link, your page will automatically redirect you to that website.
It is a "dating" site for men and women who are eager to cheat. Enter the URL link, and a faint blue-purple background appears on the screen, and a man and a woman can be seen faintly in front of the background being tryst behind the door of the hotel room.
In just 12 seconds, you'll be able to create a profile for free. Once you've submitted an email address, you'll be taken to Ashley Madison's (AM) chat screen, and then, if you're a woman, get ready for a sea of pick-ups.
There's a maverick genius behind AM who controls it all. You can call him evil, but you can't doubt his business senses.
The man's name is Noel Biderman, and he's the CEO of Avid Life Media in Toronto, whose main product is AM.
诺埃尔·彼得曼(Noel Biderman)。 图源:Netflix
Prior to founding AM, Noel worked as a lawyer and sports agent, and although he had a boring job, it didn't stop him from having a keen sense of business.
Noel has discovered in his career that half of his working hours have been dealing with issues related to extramarital affairs as athletes. Unlike others, he found business opportunities in it.
In 2001, Noel called in his friend in Australia, a top computer whiz, and together the two started an extramarital dating website, AM.
This is a cheating site for married or already in love, and all relationships should be done in secret.
Noel declared, "Monogamy seems to me to be a failed experiment." Whether this is true or not is unknown - Noel is married and has two children.
Source: Times
Noel said he initially set up AM to serve married women because "there are already so many sites in the world that seek sexual stimulation for men." That's why two women's names were used when naming the site, Ashley and Madison — the two most common names for newborn girls in Canada that year.
Noel and his Aussie friend's office is barely decorated, looking like a hastily erected low-budget movie set.
Behind his desk is a large, pure-screen monitor that plays the advertising slogan of the company's flagship brand: "Life is too short." Why not steal joy (Life is short, have an affair). ”
Source: Netflix
The wider AM spreads in society, the more serious the criticism of people from all walks of life becomes, but people still can't resist the desire in their hearts - more and more registered members of the website.
By 2015, AM had gained nearly 40 million registered users from 38 countries around the world, including the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Ireland, New Zealand and Sweden.
The website charges a membership fee of nearly $170 per person every year, with an annual income of hundreds of millions, making a lot of money.
The number of employees has also increased to more than 100, and most of them are young.
Noel said that he did not feel any guilt about this, and he never thought that he had done anything "unreasonable".
"I'm not advocating extramarital affairs. No one will cheat after watching an ad for tens of seconds. They want to cheat because people want to cheat, and there is something wrong with their lives themselves. At most, our website provides some convenience. ”
Noel was once asked how he would feel if he saw his wife seeking an affair on AM, and Noel said he would break down.
Source: ABC
It seems that Noel only wants others to keep cheating, and he keeps making money.
In order to further promote AM, Noel spent a lot of money on advertising. He once sought a business partnership with a bus company to invest C$200,000 (A$220,000) to place body ads on Toronto buses, but the bus company refused.
Toronto's Public Transportation Authority said it would not tolerate slogans like "Life is too short, why not steal joy" on city traffic, "It's deception and lying, and we're not going to let it appear on the bus." ”
Subsequently, Noel tried to spend another C$10 million (about A$11.014 million) to seek an advertising partnership with Arizona Phoenix Airport, naming the airport "Ashley Madison International Airport".
However, although the Phoenix airport was in an economic crisis at that time, it still refused to advertise AM.
Source: Netflix
It is reported that after the advertisement was rejected several times, Noel's office was outraged, and Noel and his colleagues believed that Noel himself was the owner of the company that made an honest living but was treated unfairly.
AM also issued a press release accusing Fox of refusing to air their company's ads during Super Bowl football.
Noel said, "How can I not be angry about this? ”
But in any case, Noel said he was used to eating behind closed doors.
Source: Netflix
However, encouraging cheating and creating a market for it earned Peterman a fortune, but it did not bring him popularity.
AM's business is legal, but at the same time illegal. It's illegal because the site encourages users to break their marriage contract and cheat on their partners. This not only created a huge difficulty for the company's brand promotion, but also created a challenge for the company's financing, and at the same time, it also created an enemy for Noel.
Noel said he sometimes fears for his safety when rotten eggs have been thrown at his window.
The thing that scared Noel the most happened anyway, AM was hacked.
图源：Daily Mail
2. AM was hacked, and the identity of millions of members was exposed
In 2015, a hacker group called The Impact Team successfully hacked the AM website, resulting in the theft of the information and credit card data of more than 37 million members of the website.
This includes more than one million Australian users, 90% of whom are men.
It is reported that the seed file containing this data has a capacity of 10 gigabytes, "including the registered user's email, address, personal description, weight, height, website password, credit card number and billing information." ”
The hacking group, known as The Impact Team, demanded that AM and its sister site, Established Men's Canadian parent company, shut down the sites immediately or publish users' private information.
Source: SMH
Eventually, AM refused to compromise with the hackers, and tens of millions of users' profiles were exposed.
According to The Guardian, the outlet had registered an account with AM and found that its information was in the published data, which partly illustrated the authenticity of the information.
For a while, users who had registered on the site were in a panic, and husbands and wives around the world were frantically searching for their partner's name in a leaked list.
PC Magazine published how to use the hacked data, and after downloading the file, the key is to use the Tor browser (Onion Browser), which surfs the Internet anonymously, to find the information.
An "enthusiastic user" with a Twitter account named @hilare_belloc provides a quick tool to search directly by entering the email address you want to search for on ashley.cynic.al/.
Among the lists that have been exposed, there is no shortage of celebrities and politicians.
Source: CBC
According to the Daily Mail, Hunter Biden, the son of the current US President Joe Biden, is named among them, and his private email address is also included in the exposed information.
Mr. Hunt vehemently denied this, saying that his email address had been hacked and maliciously registered by a "competitor", "This account was obviously set up by someone else without my knowledge, and I first learned about it from the media." ”
亨特·拜登。 图源：Daily Mail
In addition, the name of Tony, the brother of Hillary Clinton, the wife of former US President Clinton, also appears on the list, and there are also two credit card purchases.
Tony's wife came forward to clarify that although Tony is a member, he has never cheated.
图源：Daily Mail
In addition, Jeff Ashton, the U.S. attorney for the state of Florida, was also affected by the incident.
After his name was published, he publicly admitted the mistakes he had made, and he begged the public to forgive him for his 35 years of silent service to the public.
He said that he was not "really cheating", but registered an account out of "curiosity".
Today, he still lives with his wife, Rita.
图源：Daily Mail
Jason Dore, a Republican official in Louisiana, was also caught and recharged, and he and his wife have two children.
But he said he was just going up to research competitors and wasn't really cheating.
图源：Daily Mail
Politicians can use the resources of public opinion to justify themselves, but for ordinary people, it is undoubtedly a bolt from the blue.
Sam Rader, a YouTuber whose name is prominently listed, is on the list with his wife, who runs a video account with more than 2.5 million followers, which ironically creates an IP called "Family Harmony".
After the incident, Sam knelt down and begged his wife for forgiveness, and the two sought professional emotional help to get through the situation.
Today, the two still shoot family-themed videos, and Sam says, "I have been forgiven by God and completely cleansed myself of my sins." ”
图源：Daily Mail
Showbiz star Josh Duggar has also cheated on him many times through AM websites during his marriage, and he admitted that he is an "out-and-out hypocrite" who lives an unknown double life.
Six years after AM's list was exposed, Josh was arrested for possession of child pornography.
图源：Daily Mail
Two users of the site committed suicide after the hackers published AM's user information.
Canadian police chief Evans said that the cheating website's parent company, Avid Life Media, will offer a reward of 500,000 Canadian dollars to hunt down individuals and gangs who disclose the data information of the cheating website.
AM issued a statement saying, "The attack is not hacking, it is a criminal act, and it is an illegal act that violates the privacy of individuals." Hackers see themselves as moral judges, jurors...... But we will not sit idly by and let these thieves impose their personal values on the world. ”
But the hacker group Impact Team said they came up with the idea to attack AM because the site's parent company made a $1.7 million profit in 2014 with a feature called "clean removal," which was actually a lie.
It is reported that registered users pay $20 to let AM delete their various sensitive information.
However, the hackers found that the company actually kept the user's date of birth, city, zip code, height, living habits and other content (that is, the content published by the leak).
For example, a user registered in London can be "located" in a London neighborhood by residual information even though some information has been deleted. With his description of his characteristics and date of birth, it is easy for his relatives and friends to "recognize" the user.
Source: CNN
In addition, according to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigation, AM companies use robot beauties to pretend to be real people to exchange information with male customers.
Men have to top up to buy credits to send messages and emails to women — $79 buys 200 points, while women basically enjoy the service for free, "because it's almost never heard in the history of AM that a female user has reached out to a man." ”
Source: CNN
After the user's information was exposed, cybersecurity firm Rapid7 warned that people who are suspicious of their partner should not easily draw inferences and conclusions based on that information.
Eighty percent of the information used by most registered users is fictitious and outdated, and even if the information is determined to belong to a person, it does not mean that that person has been unfaithful to the marriage.
Cybersecurity experts believe that although AM has been criticized by family groups and the public, the key to this hacking behavior is not the registered users themselves, but the consequences and impact of social stigma culture on those users.
Source: Sky News
3. After AM entered Australia, it exposed the pressure of Australian society
Research shows that 20-40% of men and 20-25% of women who are married will cheat.
According to an analysis by Bruce Elmslie, an economist at the University of New Hampshire, men and women between the ages of 35 and 40 are equally likely to cheat; After that, the frequency of cheating in women decreased, and men continued to go their own way, "which is understandable from a reproductive point of view." ”
Curiously, in Australia, where AM officially entered in April 2010, women accounted for the most users, accounting for 40%.
Source: CNN
Noel spent a few weeks in Australia and noticed that adult services were legal there, the report said. "I think in the eyes of Australian women, men have all the playgrounds – brothels, strip clubs, massage parlors, and women have nothing."
According to the webmaster, 20% of the female users of AM are single.
Several Australian experts have suggested that the presence of a large number of married men and young single women among the site's users may provide an opportunity for adult services.
After all, why should a young woman who is not yet married look for a married man? Judging by their profiles, many girls are looking for someone to pay for their purchases.
Noel said, "Is this any different from normal dating? You take a girl out, buy her a diamond necklace, buy her a Valentine's Day gift – that's how the world is. And, we're going to kick out everyone who tries to pimp. We did a really hard job of screening and identifying. ”
图源：Independent
According to News, more than 17,000 Australians registered for AM during the pandemic. Eleanor (not her real name), a 25-year-old Melbourne woman, is one of them.
She said she started contacting her ex shortly after the pandemic started because of rent pressures, and she had a boyfriend at the time.
"I think Tom and I would have been closer if it wasn't for the lockdown, but our daily activity is either going to his house or coming to my house to watch a movie, which is so boring."
"I don't want to meet new people, it's too tiring, and it's simpler to connect with your ex in comparison."
Eleanor then began to complain about Tom to his predecessor.
"The reason why I broke up with my ex-boyfriend was because he didn't want to get married, and after I got in touch with him, I started complaining about Tom, and after 2 months, I had a hunch that I would break up with Tom."
Eventually, she and Tom broke up.
In this regard, clinical psychologist Jo Lamble said that many couples have problems staying together every day, and some people will feel like retirement.
According to psychologist Meg Foreman, "The most important thing is to admit the behavior and then understand why it is the way it is and then it will not be repeated." ”
"If your partner knows about these things and he/she chooses to continue the relationship with you, then communication is important and you may be able to seek partner counselling."
Source: CNN
Today, AM websites are still active in Australia, and even though it has been hacked and tens of millions of customers' information has been leaked, people still can't betray their desires and seek the thrill of life.
All relationships in life, including love, will eventually become as boring and tasteless as material. Some people are keen to find new forms and start new relationships.
Friends, I'm not a troublemaker, but I don't know if your other half has registered an AM account?
Source: Netflix