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Comment by beedogs | Hacker News Reader

It couldn't have happened to a more deserving site.

Illegal acts against people considered "deserving" is vigilantism, which is bad.

On the other hand, we have many forms of media that worship vigilantism... so this is obviously not a universally held truth.

Media are shit, they'd worship Satan if it brought them more ad impressions. But yeah, laws might be unjust, civil disobedience, yada yada. But seriously - this is not the case here. The hackers aren't a part of a social movement prepared to proudly go to jail for the case of making cheating illegal.

> The hackers aren't a part of a social movement prepared to proudly go to jail for the case of making cheating illegal.

They also aren't guided by morals at all. Anyone with half a brain can figure out that releasing this data would have massive life-ruining repercussions for both good and bad people. Applauding the hackers is incredibly naive, unfortunately that seems to be the theme of this thread.

Vigilantism is by no means categorically "bad". Sometimes it is the correct, ethically responsible action, such as when an existing system is too corrupt and incapable of delivering justice.

Correctness is subjective, as are ethics. All we have is consensus, and the benefit of exposing ideas to debate.

If you allow individuals to take the law into their own hands, without counsel maybe one time in 100 you'll get an Edward Snowden, the other 99 will be the kind of people who beat up trans kids.

Why is it deserving of this? Genuinely interested.

Cheating can cause a lot of emotional harm. Imagine a site for people to commit minor sexual assaults and publish the pictures of the victims. That would be easier to think of as deserving of being hacked though neither is causing tangible physical harm.

The article also gives the reason that they apparently falsely sold customers a "delete your information" fee without actually deleting it. That kind of fraud can only really be exposed by hacking or whistleblowing.

No. You are publishing pictures of someone without their permission. That is not the same.

Wouldn't you say the nature of the consequences are the same - emotional harm? Although you might judge the degree of harm differently. What problem can publishing pictures of assault cause the victim that doesn't happen with cheating?

Cheating is legal. Publishing people's PII is not.

Legality plays no roll in this argument. Plenty of harmless activities are illegal, and plenty of harmful activities are legal.

Being illegal doesn't necessarily make is more wrong. Those laws are quite peculiar to this time and country. You could say that the laws in a democracy reflect what the people feel is right and wrong, but only on a very coarse level. There are bound to be laws that the majority disagrees with, as well as actions which people agree are wrong but individual cases are so complicated the law wouldn't really be able to handle them, so they're allowed.

> Being illegal doesn't necessarily make it more wrong. Those laws are quite peculiar to this time and country.

It does make it more wrong, without getting into personal opinions. Morals vary even more across communities, cultures and countries. It's a fallacy to think yours is universal.

Adultery is illegal in about half of US states.

http://www.theweek.co.uk/62723/adultery-laws-where-is-cheati...

I agree with sibling replies - the illegality of an action is unimportant when looking at the morality of it.

Cheating can also end bad relationships. Which prevents emotional harm. I'm going to go out on a limb, and guess that a lot of the users are kind of ambivalent as to whether their current relationship is going to last.

Who else would use a site like that? People who are comfortable lying (e.g. "cheaters") probably just fake a profile on a regular site, and lie to their date as well.

Yes, maybe they should approach things differently ... but let's not pretend that everyone is perfect. If people didn't have flaws, I can think of dozens of industries that would vanish overnight.

> Cheating can also end bad relationships.

Um... cheating is by no means a requirement for ending a relationship. You can simply say, "This relationship is over."

Cheating is extremely harmful, and on top of that often unnecessary. Couples should discuss and explore open relationships, and if they are not open to that, end the relationship.

In virtually all cases, cheating is a totally unnecessary harm.

I can no longer edit this comment, but I want to be clear that "opening a relationship to end it" does not make sense.

There are good reasons to open a relationship and bad ones. Make sure you are seeking an open relationship because that is something you actually want.

Also make sure to do your research first. I recommend the book, Opening Up.

Your example is somewhat fallacious in that sexual assault is, in fact, criminal, and running a platform that encourages and rewards it is potentially an accessory to that crime. Hacking it may in fact be more ethically (though not necessarily legally) justifiable if its demise in fact contributes to the reduction of violence against the site's users' victims.

Cheating, morally reprehensible as it may be, is not in the same ballpark.

Regarding the "delete your information" fee, I am quite confidant that the lawyers made sure that the service sold was the deletion of your application profile, not the wiping of all traces that you ever did business with the company. To call it fraud is probably premature.

Adultery is also criminal in many parts of the world, including the US.

While that's true, I think it's a little misrepresentative. Obviously it differs by state, but as a whole the US take on adultery is (broadly) religious, so aligns it more closely with other strongly religious countries like Pakistan than with Europe, Japan, etc.

"The United States is one of few industrialized countries to have laws criminalizing adultery"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adultery#United_States

Only sorta true: "The United States is one of few industrialized countries to have laws criminalizing adultery... Adultery remains a criminal offense in 21 states, although prosecutions are rare." [0]

From skimming the rest of the article, it seems adultery is otherwise only criminal in some parts of Asia and Africa. So while I suppose your statement is strictly true, it's not usefully true as a rebuttal of the parent's argument.

(I was actually shocked to find that the law is on the books of 21 US states. I know in the US we have some ridiculously stupid laws, but... c'mon. Adultery is reprehensible to me, but... criminal?)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adultery#United_States

My point is more that judging moral issues by whether there's a law against them is a facile argument, and that the GP needs a better one. I think we can all agree that cheating is morally reprehensible, and thus its facilitators are not morally justified.

@Asbostos is victim-blaming and defending viglilantism.

Anyone who supports the rule of law should want to see the perpetrator of this on trial.

Maybe the company who was breached should also be in court, but that's a different matter entirely.

I'm not sure Asbostos doesn't want to see the perpetrator of this on trial, they're just saying that the victim was immoral (and I'm not terribly sorry for them either).

I am also not convinced that vigilantism is always wrong. I can't blame the villagers who, after seeing a restaurant owner entice a dog with food only to kill it with a chair, never stepped foot in the restaurant again, effectively bankrupting it.

  I'm not sure Asbostos doesn't want to...

Sure, I'll concede an assumption there.

  I am also not convinced that vigilantism is always wrong

'Wrong' is subjective so that statement is a truism. For a given act of vigilantism there will be a proportion who condone it and a proportion who don't. Who decides?

That's what the law is for. It's so we can't all just wander about dispensing 'justice' without accountability. What happens if someone commits suicide because of this hack? Can their kids sue the people responsible? No, they're denied due process.

I'm not convinced that law enforcement conducted by the proper authorities is always right, but at least we have some semblence of oversight and accountability and the opportunity to learn from mistakes and improve things.

Don't you think it's inconsistent that the hackers themselves are hugely critical of the company they breached for not properly deleting customer data on request; and yet those same people have already started publishing that exact same customer data? They're not even accountable to their own definition of right and wrong.

  I can't blame the villagers who, after seeing a 
  restaurant owner entice a dog with food only to 
  kill it with a chair, never stepped foot in the 
  restaurant again, effectively bankrupting it.

I don't think that fits the definition of vigilantism. Vigilantism is law enforcement undertaken by those without society's authority to do so. What you described above is simple consumer choice, a boycott at worst.

> 'Wrong' is subjective so that statement is a truism

Morality is subjective, so dismissing the statement as a truism means that we can't talk about morality at all.

> For a given act of vigilantism there will be a proportion who condone it and a proportion who don't. Who decides?

Same goes for a given law.

> What happens if someone commits suicide because of this hack?

"I'm not convinced vigilantism is always wrong" is not the same as "I condone this hack".

> Don't you think it's inconsistent

I do indeed.

> Vigilantism is law enforcement undertaken by those without society's authority to do so.

I suspect we'll have to define our terms more strictly if we're going to debate this. My definition of vigilantism includes any action in response to an injustice that isn't performed by the executive branch of government.

I can see how anyone taking the law into their own hands can lead to innocents getting hurt, but the other side of the coin is guilty people walking away. As a society, we've decided to err on the side of the innocent, which is commendable, but that doesn't mean that we've completely and utterly solved the matter of justice, making vigilantism obsolete and always unjustified.

  ... dismissing the statement as a truism means that 
  we can't talk about morality at all.

I just think we need to be more careful with words, as you point out.

  Same goes for a given law.

Yet with laws there is an opportunity for debate and reform, as well as some degree accountability. You can be reasonably confident that at least a strong minority think any given law is reasonable. For vigilante actions that support will be a lot smaller and the debate, accountability and opportuity for reform drop to zero.

  "I'm not convinced vigilantism is always wrong" is not 
  the same as "I condone this hack".

Sure. Apologies if it sounded like I was accusing you of that. Wasn't my intention. I just wanted to highlight the lack of accountability.

  My definition of vigilantism includes any action in response 
  to an injustice that isn't performed by the executive branch 
  of government.

Sure, well in that case there are plenty of actions that are reasonable, such as undertaking a consumer boycots, or passing a gun control law in response to a school massacre. I was using the regular definition, hence the misunderstanding.

Yes, I think I agree with you on everything. I'm mostly influenced by the fact that I saw a man hit a stray dog with his car right after I fed it (it was emaciated) even though he was on a mile-long straight stretch and the dog was standing on the street for a while. Not only did he hit the dog and ran while onlookers yelled for him to stop, but he ran a stop sign in his attempt to speed away and caused a truck to veer into the opposite lane to narrowly avoid him.

The police told me they couldn't do anything because a police officer wasn't there to witness any of this, which is reasonable as far as laws go, but I don't think such behaviour should go unpunished, even if it's just people thinking less of the perpetrator.

Adultery is a felony crime in some parts of the US.

http://www.theweek.co.uk/62723/adultery-laws-where-is-cheati...

> In most states, including New York, cheating on your spouse is considered only a misdemeanour. However, in others like Idaho, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oklahoma and Wisconsin, it is a felony crime. Prosecutions are rare, but they do occur and punishments can range from a $10 fine in Maryland to life imprisonment in Michigan, according to Mother Jones.

> http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/11/is-adultery-illegal-...

your morals are universal now? You're comparing legal activity between consenting adults to sexual assault, which in itself I find repulsive and worse than cheating

Adultery is not, in fact, legal in significant portions of the US. I wouldn't say it's like assault, but the aggrieved party is the spouse who is cheated on who is being put at risk of STDs and similar things.

Also, while the morals may not be agreed upon by all parties, I think that the people who are hiding it from their spouses are not hiding it because they expect the spouse to agree. There are, after all, significantly more honest ways to handle that sort of thing than going behind your spouse's back. I had never heard of this site until now, but from what little I've seen, it appears to cater to those who are not at all honest about what they're doing.

I certainly agree that no one should be going around dispensing vigilante justice or encouraging the same, as well as with the cautions that someone could easily ruin the wrong people with that kind of information, but it's hard not to think that some will end up reaping what they have sowed after this.

What about Uber? Their business is pretty sleazy in many people's beliefs.

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