Hackers who stole sensitive customer information from the cheating site AshleyMadison.com appear to have made good on their threat to post the data online. AshleyMadison.com claimed to have nearly 40 million users at the time of the breach about a month ago, all apparently in the market for clandestine hookups. Ars downloaded the massive file and it appeared to contain a trove of details taken from a clandestine dating site, but so far there is nothing definitively linking it to Ashley Madison. The full text of Ashley Madison's e-mail is: 
 
 Last month we were made aware of an attack to our systems. User data included e-mail addresses, profile descriptions, addresses provided by users, weight, and height. But files containing credit card transactions likely yield real names and addresses, unless members of the site used anonymous pre-paid cards, which offer more anonymity. This data, which amounts to millions of payment transactions going back to 2008, includes names, street address, email address and amount paid, but not the full credit card numbers; instead it includes just four digits for each transaction, which may in fact be the last four digits of the credit card numbers or simply a transaction ID unique to each charge. I like lots of foreplay and stamina, fun, discretion, oral, even willingness to experiment—*smile*" 
 
 Passwords released in the data dump appear to have been hashed using the bcrypt algorithm for PHP, but Robert Graham, CEO of Erratasec, says that despite this being one of the most secure ways to store passwords, "hackers are still likely to be able to 'crack' many of these hashes in order to discover the account holder's original password." Despite promising customers to delete their user data from the site for a $19 fee, the company actually retained the data on ALM’s servers, the hackers claimed. "Too bad for those men, they’re cheating dirtbags and deserve no such discretion,” the hackers wrote. Too bad for ALM, you promised secrecy but didn’t deliver.… 
 
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 Well at least they seem honest? People have already taken to 8chan and other sites to discuss the contents of the data. Advertisement 
 
 Calling themselves the Impact Team, the hackers said: 
 
 We have explained the fraud, deceit, and stupidity of ALM and their members. Now everyone gets to see their data.... Keep in mind the site is a scam with thousands of fake female profiles. See ashley madison fake profile lawsuit; 90-95% of actual users are male. Chances are your man signed up on the world's biggest affair site, but never had one. He just tried to. If that distinction matters." These are illegitimate acts that have real consequences for innocent citizens who are simply going about their daily lives. Here’s a screenshot of the full statement included with the release: 
 
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 Update (9am 08.19.2015): An Avid Life Media spokesperson posted a response on Ashley Madison’s website. The statement ensures the public that the company is “actively monitoring and investigating this situation to determine the validity of any information posted online and will continue to devote significant resources to this effort.” Then comes the tough talk: 
 
 This event is not an act of hacktivism, it is an act of criminality. It is an illegal action against the individual members of AshleyMadison.com, as well as any freethinking people who choose to engage in fully lawful online activities," the company said in a statement. "The criminal, or criminals, involved in this act have appointed themselves as the moral judge, juror, and executioner, seeing fit to impose a personal notion of virtue on all of society. We will not sit idly by and allow these thieves to force their personal ideology on citizens around the world." This post will be updated as this story develops.
– The hackers behind last month's data breach of AshleyMadison.com, one of the foremost websites for "married individuals seeking partners for affairs," have posted the stolen data online, Wired reports. The 9.7 gigabytes of information posted on the "dark web" seem to include account details, log-ins, and payment transactions for at least some of what the company claimed were 40 million users. As Gizmodo observes, "this should be very interesting." The hackers say they released the stolen data to show the "fraud, deceit, and stupidity" of AshleyMadison.com and its users. Ars Technica has downloaded the file and notes that while it does indeed appear to come from a "clandestine dating site," there's no definitive link to Ashley Madison. The company hasn't confirmed and says it is "actively monitoring" the situation. Gizmodo reports people are already finding "juicy gossip" amid the leaked data, including one person who turned up a plethora of British government email addresses. AshleyMadison.com doesn't require email verification to create an account, so anyone could create one using someone else's name and email address. Still, expect divorce attorneys and blackmailers to take notice, notes Ars Technica.