back to article US military says it will discipline Ashley Madison users

US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has said the military will investigate email addresses signed up to the Ashley Madison website to determine if improper conduct has taken place. Military.com reports Carter saying "Yes, the services are looking into it, as well they should be. Of course it's an issue because conduct is very …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Adulterated logic

    > Military.com reports Carter saying "Yes, the services are looking into it, as well they should be. Of course it's an issue because conduct is very important."

    Unless of course you are a deserter named Bergdahl, and Obama takes a shine to you, in which case conduct means nothing.

    Aside from that hypocrisy, those big companies had better tread very lightly, given the unvetted nature of the AM accounts being leaked. Anyone sacked might easily point out how the data dump could easily have been altered, and sue the bejabbers out of said big company.

    1. Mark 85

      Re: Adulterated logic

      The big companies probably will tread lightly due to the potential for damaging litigation and publicity. I would hope they have firewall logs, email logs, etc. to back up any mis-conduct. But, chances are, it won't be any higher up's that would be tagged...

      The military may not be so thorough, although I would hope they would be. However, examples will have to be made. I'm not sure how it works now, but an enlisted type would suffer more than an officer since the officer would just get a bad fitness report which is a career killer.

      But given the scruples of AM and they're lack of vetting unless a CC was used, it's possible that many of these accounts are bogus or that the military person has served their enlistment and are out.

      More than anything else, this points out how porous most company's (and the government's) firewalls are. While it's impossible to be bullet-proof, one would think that the dating sites would be blocked from both web access and corporate email. Yeah... an employee can use webmail, but corporate email addy's aren't normally usable from them.

      Footnote: Where I am, FB used to be blocked including email from them to a corporate account. But that's been opened up for awhile. The big dating sites are, however, still blocked, as well as game sites, and at least one certain auction house as employees were spending a lot time running auctions during working hours.

      1. Keith Glass

        Re: Adulterated logic

        Bad OER/FitRep ? Adultery is considered Conduct Unbecoming an Officer, and is a court-martial offense. Usially results in a Dishonorable Discharge at minimum.

        And I know for a fact that people are brought up on such charges, because I sat as one of three members of the Court for an Article 133 Field Court-Martial, over a Lieutenant having an affair. Guy got a DD, two years at Leavenworth, PLUS a nasty divorce and child-support from the girl he got pregnant.

        And an Officer with a Dishonorable can kiss nearly ANY post-Military professional career goodbye. .

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Reportedly...

    Reportedly, the US Military Commander in Chief, a certain Barack Obama, had at least seven Ashley Madison accounts. Perhaps that provides a clue about the reliability of this data.

    Presumably the investigators will be clever enough to broach the issue very gently with each suspect, just in case it wasn't actually them.

    1. Afernie

      Re: Reportedly...

      I KNEW it was uncharacteristically honest of Tony Blair to use his real email address...

    2. Keith Glass

      Re: Reportedly...

      Yeah, but that was on their "ManCrunch" site (grin)

  3. Pliny the Whiner

    The blondes bursting in air

    Given the U.S. military's seemingly never-ending problem with everything from sexual harassment to rape within its own ranks, there's just no moral authority there for it to pretend to worry about consensual acts like, say, adultery. So, stop the make-believe indignation and moralizing horseshit. Honestly, you're making fools of yourselves.

    Today, two Americans -- purportedly U.S. Marines* -- helped to stop a massacre on a Paris-bound train. Those two guys have more moral authority than all of the hidebound idiots in our Pentagon, combined. Here's an idea: Put those two guys in charge of the military's moral matters. I bet you'll get better results.

    * Don't mess with the marines. Not our marines, and not the marines of any other country.

    1. Mark 85

      Re: The blondes bursting in air

      I like that idea. As a former Marine, I'm proud of them. As a human being, I'm proud of them.

      As for the "moralizing"... don't you know the guys at the top always pull that crap? They've been doing it for so long it's become legendary. Presidents, generals, admirals, CongressCritters, etc. ad infinitum ad nauseam. Come to think of it, all countries have this same problem.

    2. Fibbles

      Re: The blondes bursting in air

      Today, two Americans -- purportedly U.S. Marines* -- helped to stop a massacre on a Paris-bound train.

      Two U.S. Marines and a British I.T. consultant...

      1. Keith Glass

        Re: The blondes bursting in air

        Two Marines, one USAF guy, and a Brit IT consultant. . .

    3. skeptical i

      Re: The blondes bursting in air

      re: "never-ending problem with everything from sexual harassment to rape within its own ranks", I was thinking about this when I read that female soldiers tend to have tougher sledding on adultery charges than male ones in military court since it's not impossible that many acts of "adultery" by females in uniform were consensual only in a fearing-of-retribution sense. One hopes the atmosphere has improved and women are treated with more respect.

      Great headline, Pliny, and agree about the Marines in Paris, the world needs more such people.

    4. disgruntled yank

      Re: The blondes bursting in air

      One airman, one National Guardsmen.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Don't be silly.

    1. There was no email verification (apparently) so anyone could sign anyone up.

    2. Can you verify the source of the email addresses? No, they came from someone who committed a criminal offence (lets leave the morals out of it) therefore they are untrustworthy.

    3. As they are untrustworthy you can't say with certainty that email addresses were not added after the breach.

    4. Can you verify the file you downloaded with the email addresses is in fact the one that came from the breach and not a doctored file downloaded and re-shared with added information.

    As per the above, yes it would be difficult for someone in the forces to claim, however the policy is quite well known so the potential for mischief by scraping other data breaches is quite high.

    1. T. F. M. Reader

      @AC : "Don't be silly."

      Back to you. How many of those who used their military email addresses actually browsed to the site and emailed their "dates" from their service computers? While on duty? There will be logs, caches, cookies, backups, all sorts of records. Won't be difficult to prove in the majority of cases, if the military takes it seriously.

  5. h4rm0ny

    What's it got to so with them?

    See subject. If the US army can kill hundreds of thousands of people in an invasion for oil and some soldiers looking for sex is what brings disgrace, then there's something deeply wrong here.

    1. Mad Chaz

      Re: What's it got to so with them?

      Welcome to the US, where brutal murder is fine, but god forbid we see a female nipple!

  6. x 7

    "US military says it will discipline Ashley Madison users"

    I'm sure many of the AM users only signed up because they were looking for a lady who could force some discipline into their lives. Preferably complete with dungeon / torture chamber / rack........... - that would appeal to some members of the military, regard it as interrogation training

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Discretion

    "[...] and many organizations may choose to chuck some members under the bus rather than risk litigation."

    Presumably the leaked data doesn't actually show that a person committed adultery. Firing people would probably guarantee a catastrophic family break-up - even if the spouse was otherwise unaware. Even if they weren't fired - the possibility of it would introduce stress that would have a negative effect on their work.

    Given the unreliability of the email address as evidence - then companies will just waste resources in investigations. Far better for a company to clear the air by saying they don't intend to investigate their staff - and issue a carefully worded reminder of "company IT use" policy.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Discretion

      If it's anything like British "justice", you're guilty by association these days.

      None of that innocent unless proven guilty nonsense.

  8. Anonymous IV

    We should be told...

    Were any El Reg email addresses found on the Lists of Shame?!

    1. Pen-y-gors

      Re: We should be told...

      If there were, I'm sure they were purely for research purposes.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: We should be told...

      oy, anonymous IV! Would be a shame if your real (?) details were revelead by mistake for making such riske comments, no? :D

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: We should be told...

      Some of us are still pinning for a certain Ms. Bee, She Who Can Never Be Replaced. The alleged girls on AM were pale imitations of the Real Thing(tm).

      Hmm. Better make this AC, as She Who Must Be Obeyed has been known to read El Reg.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    but... why so harsh?!

    I thought they were trying to do a research (aka gathering intelligence) on ISIS female fighters registered on the infideli website everybody's talking about.

    or was it the guys who registered from the .nsa accounts?

    1. James O'Shea

      Re: but... why so harsh?!

      Why would anyone register on AM from a No Sex Allowed account?

  10. Rol

    Exclusionary?

    There is no argument that this data was illegally obtained and along with plausible doubts about the authenticity, I can't see any court accepting the stolen data as evidence.

    Obviously, the smoke it has billowed up, will spurn others to look elsewhere for the proof a fire existed and no doubt, those who where so dumb as to use their work computers will get an education the hard way.

  11. x 7

    funny..... this week A-M have suddenly started mailing me with scam mails on the line of "Fiona in Vermont has chosen YOU"..................pity I'm in the UK. Are they desperate for business?

    The mails all go to a dedicated "crap" e-mail account so it all gets black-holed

  12. Florida1920
    Paris Hilton

    What if

    Being "disciplined" is why they signed up for A.M. in the first place?

  13. Anonymous (Noel) Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Military Discipline!

    Mr Carter told reporters this afternoon that he was willing to personally discipline nubile young female military personnel by reddening their firm bare arsecheeks with a sound spanking over his knee.

  14. Nameless Faceless Computer User

    waste of time

    I'm guessing they'll be tracking down many dudes by the name of Chet Manley and Carlos Danger.

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