So this Ashley Madison hack is a pretty big deal. Not only has Josh Duggar been outted as having an account on the website, but hundreds of government workers as well. And not only have they been caught having an account, but also accessing them during work:
The AP said few of the government employees they identified actually used their work emails for the site. But they did use work computers to pay membership fees. … In total, employees from more than two dozen Obama administration agencies were paying to seek out extramarital affairs through the site, according to the AP. Prominent agencies such as the departments of State, Defense, Energy, Treasury and Transportation all had employees accessing the site from their networks.
And please note, if you’re military, you can be prosecuted for adultery under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. But also, using your work address?? Gmail is free, people!
Team Blackness also discussed John McEnroe thinking he can actually beat Serena Williams in a match, a radio station that plays nothing but Drake, and a boss’s very inappropriate reaction when a female employee asks for a raise (yes, it does include him using his man parts).
Subscribe on iTunes | Subscribe On Stitcher | Direct Download | RSS
Chris
The military still considering adultery something to prosecute is seriously retro.
Mike J
Heavens! People using work computers to access non work websites!
I’m glad balloon-juice blocks all ips coming from people at work and only allows access from home.
Central Planning
My employer doesn’t really care if you use your work equipment for personal use, however you better be doing your job and not using the work computer to goof off. Seems to me the same thing should apply to the government.
boatboy_srq
And just think: these clueless clods have at least some responsibility for the US’ diplomatic efforts (State), war machine (Defense), nuclear deterrent (Energy), finances (Treasury) and infrastructure (Transportation). And they’re this brain-dead.
Cacti
If you have a security clearance, adultery is a big Biden deal, either in the civil service or the military.
Some people are going to lose careers and pensions over this.
Betty Cracker
@Cacti: Is the rationale that people who are having affairs can be more easily blackmailed? I wonder how sound a rationale that is, if so.
I’m not a fan of lying to loved ones myself. But it seems kinda creepy for an employer to get all up in an employee’s business like that.
catclub
@Cacti:
I suspect a VERY small number.
Cervantes
@Chris:
Not if you think about unit cohesion.
Tree With Water
Just because everyone will enjoy it (posted Deadspin.com) If you don’t, you’re dead inside:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dB3XzIrvFHE
Cacti
@Betty Cracker:
That is the rationale.
No less than General Petraeus was swapping classified info for sexy time.
shell
The folks over at Free Republic were salivating over the hope that people in the government would be found to be subscribers. Felt like telling them, “You know there are Republicans in the government, dontcha?. A lot of them.”
acallidryas
I myself have used my work computer for such activities as coordinating dates with my husband or drinks with friends, accessing facebook, and even occasionally visiting and commenting on blogs.
Unless it was someone directing the silly Healthy Marriage initiative at HHS, I remain unscandalized.
kc
Why wouldn’t the government have sites like this blocked, so employees can’t access them from work computers?
Joel
“Are you now or have you ever been a member of Ashley Madison…?”
kc
@Mike J:
These are federal government employees, though. I would think the Departments of State and Defense would be a bit more strict about employees goofing off on their work computers.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Betty Cracker:
It’s also what Cervantes said — nowadays it’s more to avoid problematic office romances and the complications thereof.
FridayNext
@shell:
That’s what I don’t understand from the original post. I get that each executive agency “belongs” to the president in office, so technically they are “Obama’s.” On the other hand, if they are civil service positions and not appointees, which is the vast majority, they go to their daily jobs and do their thing no matter who is in office. That’s the whole point behind the civil service laws.
But somehow they will make this all about Obama, even though many of these people got, and performed, their jobs under Bush, Clinton, Bush, etc etc etc
Mike J
@kc: These are people that work in offices filling out spreadsheets. They’re going to do exactly the same amount of goofing off at work that people at IBM or Citi Bank or Kmart do.
kc
Ha! Now that would be interesting to see.
I’d be rooting for Serena, of course . . .
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker:
Yes, that’s part of the rationale and I think it’s pretty sound.
But you’d agree that the services are not a typical employer.
FridayNext
@kc:
I was curious about that as well. I worked for a federal agency for awhile and after some problems with the night time cleaning crews using computers to surf porn at night, they basically audited every site and we often got blocked from even legitimate sites and had to request access.
Maybe most of these Ashley Madison members work in the IT departments?
kc
@Mike J:
I understand the universal impulse to goof off (she typed, as she goofed off). I’m just surprised the feds aren’t stricter about limiting access.
Bobby Thomson
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): these are not office romances.
Mike J
@Cacti:
But he wasn’t blackmailed, he was trying to impress his girlfriend.
kc
@FridayNext:
I’m just gonna assume they’re all Bush people who successfully “burrowed ” into their agencies at the end of Bush’s term. :)
Cervantes
@Bobby Thomson:
Right, but we’re talking about the reasons for the policy.
Mike J
@kc: An office is an office. Some federal;offices are stricter than others, but nobody is going to work for less than industry standard wages at a place that won’t let you check ESPN to see how badly the Red Sox are losing.
Every company in the US will tell you they don’t want their employees goofing off, and 95% them look the other way if you take five minutes here or there to check facebook.
JDM
@kc: I could beat John McEnroe in a tennis match. Pay me 500 grand – win or lose – and I’ll show you.
Mike E
@Joel: Define “member”.
Mike E
@kc: Gawd, she’d crush him!
redshirt
I’ve been following the Shaun King story these past few days and it’s sickening.
We’re in a war – I hope more people start to realize this. Their side certainly does.
Joel
@Mike E: Ba dum bum ching!
Peale
@Betty Cracker: Yeah. Under the rationale that they can be blackmailed. However, the guys whose names have been released can’t exactly be blackmailed at this point. So it’s kind of like pulling over people for speeding 5 years in the past.
SatanicPanic
@acallidryas: This. Who cares?
Another Holocene Human
@Betty Cracker: Back during WWII, foreign intelligence agents actually used honeypots successfully. I don’t know how current that is, but the US did recently bust a very young, attractive Russian female spy in NYC.
That may be the concern. Then again, maybe not.
No doubt most of the military adultery is the result of the pressure to marry for benefits and then the constant time away and relocation. And they kind of look like the Catholic monasteries repeatedly trying to ban masturbation and gay sex.
redshirt
@Mike J: You’re right, with the caveat that most places these days will preemptively block adult sites and other controversial subjects. I’d think AM would have been included in a list of adult sites, but apparently not for the Government.
kc
@Mike J:
Seems to me that at this point, many federal employees have better than industry standard wages, benefits, PENSIONS, and so forth. Who the hell gets a pension these days, besides government employees?
In any case, I’m just a bit surprised that that the Departments of Defense, State, etc apparently don’t have, or enforce, stricter policies on employees using their computers and networks to goof off than, say, Joe’s Auto Parts would have.
gene108
@Chris:
You can blackmail someone, who wants to keep an illicit affair a secret.
“Hey, Flyboy you don’t want your wife to find about the ‘live boy / dead girl’ thing last night, well…me and my friends just need some info you have at your base…like a couple of passwords maybe to the firewall…no biggie…”
kc
@JDM:
Shoot, I would attempt to beat him for half of that.
boatboy_srq
@acallidryas: It isn’t so much the “public sector workers step out” thing here – it’s that there are going to be a LOT of pink slips and courts martial in the works now, which is going to be major-league disruptive short-term. There is a small bit of shaden to be freuded here, though: a lot of these people are where they are because Teh Icky Gheys who could have done the job better were disqualified because B4ttsecks.
Betty Cracker
@Cervantes: The service is definitely different from most types of employment — it’s not every boss who can roust an employee out of bed at 4 AM and make her march around in the rain.
But it does seem like an invasion of privacy to police service members’ bedroom activities, and I wonder how effective it is. Are military folks less likely to be two-timing rats? I doubt it. Also, other activities could possibly set someone up to be more receptive to blackmail, such as gambling. Is that also policed?
SatanicPanic
@gene108: but how hard is to get info like that anymore? Seems like you wait long enough it ends up on the internet
Peale
@redshirt: maybe it was, eventually. I mean if I set up http://www.pealessexytimeporn.net I’m sure I’d be flagged much more quickly than http://www.pealesview.com.
Botsplainer
There’ve been many military careers derailed in the past over extracurricular fun times – this is just how it’s gonna be for the foreseeable future. As a security measure, I can see why it should be a thing, and can see how not having troopers distracted would be important.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@kc:
As others have said in other threads, just because someone has a .mil or .gov e-mail address doesn’t mean they are a government employee. Contractors, visiting professors, summer students, post-docs, etc., etc., can all have e-mail addresses like that.
A .mil or .gov e-mail address just means that you have a .mil or .gov e-mail address.
Cheers,
Scott.
(Of course, people who have such addresses shouldn’t use them for sites like that. Sheesh.)
kc
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Thanks; I didn’t know that.
If I’m reading the report correctly, though, a number of IP addresses (not just email addresses) were for federal government networks.
I’m not all in up in arms about it, mind you, just mildly surprised that the feds don’t exercise tighter control over their computer usage.
Mike E
@Joel: Tip your veal…try the waiter!
gene108
@kc:
How many people are actual DoD or DoS employees?
You can also have contractors, who are on government projects and will get a .gov or .mil e-mail ID, because the mails have to be routed through the government server.
I also think, for some folks, they have their work e-mails tied into their (work) cell phones Instead of flipping between work and private e-mail accounts, they just use their work e-mails for everything because they are always checking e-mails / getting calls on the phone.
Bobby Thomson
@Betty Cracker: heh. Nixon funded his early political career with poker winnings from half the Pacific.
Bobby Thomson
@Betty Cracker: not as heavily as FYWP policed my answer to you.
Benw
Just wait for the fireworks when some opposition researcher stumbles across imthefirstblackprez.gov in the AM database.
M31
What’s funny is that from what I’ve read, AM had maybe 90-95% men as members, meaning that not many of them had actual affairs (I read that AM may very well be sued for having lots of fake female accounts on there to fool guys into thinking it was full of actual women wanting affairs–that would be hilarious, and I bet the latest dump which has the CEO emails in it is going to be very interesting).
An online acquaintance of mine said that AM was the preferred site for women looking for ‘sugar baby’ relationships, so even fewer of the women on the site were plain old cheaters.
Peale
The advantage of using a work e-mail and office computer and desk, I assume, is that your spouse isn’t actually in your workplace. Although, again, considering how many government employees there are and how many military personnel there are, this barely registers for me. Just another one of those “They’re public employees and they obviously have it easy living on my dime I’m really their boss you know cause I pay all of their salaries” fixations that distracts from the issue that anyone’s data can be put on display at any time and there’s actually a lot fewer people who will look good when the entirety of their online lives are made public than people who will come off squeaky clean.
catclub
@kc: I think there are emails that look like this: [email protected]
That ctr stands for contractor – not a government employee.
Wapiti
@Chris:
This partially goes to unit cohesion, but there’s lots of possibility for odd power arrangements in the service. Is someone getting lighter duty because they’re the sergeant’s favorite on the side? Is the sergeant major coercing young enlisted spouses for sexual favors while their partners are deployed? Did someone make the promotion list because they’re someone else’s main squeeze?
It’s frankly a lot simpler to prove adultery (You’re married. That wasn’t your spouse. You’re busted.) than to prove the existence of favors traded for sex, in many cases. I saw a rape accusation turn into adultury charges as well. (It wasn’t rape! She was willing! She says not, but in any case, she isn’t your wife. Busted.) I think that’s part of the reason the military is happy to keep these rules on the books.
FridayNext
@kc:
Don’t forget job security.
And speaking only for myself and my industry, historic preservation and museums, the federal government pays WELL over industry standard. Plus those other things you mentioned.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker:
Gambling is OK by the rules unless you’re doing it with your subordinates.
(If you’re looking for an exhaustive list of these infractions, see Article 134 of the UCMJ.)
Puddin
@Chris: @FridayNext: In the IT industry it’s the opposite and the federal government pays well below industry standard. I work with a lot of network engineers and network security folks and once they have 5+ years’s experience the majority leave for much better pay and comparable benefits at private companies.
J R in WV
Not only is sexual hi-jinks frowned upon, the fact that “trusted” people with high-level clearances are showing themselves to be dishonest cheaters means those clearances will be going away.
People who prove that they are lying cheaters don’t get high-level security clearances, which are often necessary for their job duties, military or civilian.