When Ashley Madison, a dating site for people seeking adulterous affairs, is hacked, millions of users' intimate data is exposed, wrecking marriages and destroying lives. This three-episode documentary series from Minnow Films and director Toby Paton explores the creation of the website during the dot com boom, the people who used the site to explore a part of their love lives they felt was missing, and the hack that made it all come crashing down.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00I love being a dad. I love my wife.
00:04It was a beautiful marriage, but it was also just like monotonous.
00:09I remember seeing an advertisement.
00:12Life is short, have an affair.
00:14I was like, that sounds intriguing.
00:16Ashley Madison was ahead of his time.
00:20The vision was to be the largest and only website for married people who wanted to have an affair.
00:26When I would go to trade shows, I would say, who's your biggest competitor?
00:30And I'd say, the Bible.
00:34I thought it was a great idea.
00:36Go on a site and you're able to tell this stranger your deepest, darkest desires.
00:41I signed up with all my real information, which obviously was a stupid decision.
00:45At that time, cybersecurity was just starting to enter the public consciousness.
00:50Security came up quite frequently. We talked about it. We were worried about it.
00:55Ashley Madison was a cash cow.
00:58And then all of a sudden, we got hacked.
01:03It was chaos.
01:05This hack is one of the largest data breaches in the world.
01:08If that information got out, this would ruin a lot of people's lives.
01:13Everyone was looking for dirt, looking for names that they recognized.
01:17And name after name started coming out.
01:19You had celebrities being disgraced.
01:21It was an absolute witch hunt.
01:23I had no idea what was coming.
01:25It was all over the media. Like, what is going on?
01:28Such a selfish decision. I felt so humiliated.
01:32I wanted to get into bed, pull the sheets over my head, and put on the Golden Girls.
01:37This could be the biggest hack of all time.
01:39Everyone was wondering who was behind it.
01:42The theories were all over the place.
01:44Maybe it was a competitor.
01:46Cheating a husband.
01:48A disgruntled employee.
01:50Here's a giant who done it.
01:52This went way, way too far.
01:54We have a list that we're on that is our secret.
01:57Accusing people, trying to publicly shame them.
01:59I started to realize a lot more was going to come out.