Hacker's Database: AshleyMadison.com Attracted Over 6,000 from the San Angelo Region

Since the release of Ashley Madison’s 9.7 Gigabytes worth of hacked data last Tuesday, Aug. 18, women, and some men, across the nation and globe are scrambling to learn if their spouse sought to have an affair using the online website for married people looking to cheat.

In the San Angelo area, over 6,000 people were registered on AshleyMadison.com, according to records obtained from the hack. Most of the registered members were male.

On Tuesday, The New York Times reported a group by the name of Impact Team leaked log-in information, email addresses, payment details and encrypted passwords for 37 million users of Ashley Madison and its companion, Established Men. Prior to this data breach, parent company Avid Life Media was hacked, and a third site, Cougar Life, a site for women looking to cheat. However, the database for download only contains the male dominated Ashley Madison and Established Men website data.

Analysts have confirmed the data legit.

In San Angelo and the Surrounding Area

According to an interactive map generated by Technilogica, a web-based company, here are the numbers for San Angelo and the surrounding areas (in no particular order):

Another site out of Abilene reported 8,000 Abilene-area users found on the database and posted the numbers for Abilene, Tye, Trent, Buffalo Gap, Merkel, Baird, Cisco, Rising Star, Early, Coleman and Ranger. 

People can access the interactive map here.

A Local Perspective on AshleyMadison.com

Anne Mills, a private practice therapist in San Angelo for six years and who has practiced counseling and therapy for more than 20, said marital affairs today happen on two levels: emotional and sexual. Regardless, both are damaging.

As for the Ashley Madison case, Mills said she’s not surprised about what’s taking place, especially since technology has established new ways and opportunities for people to engage in extramarital affairs.

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Above: AshleyMadison.com screen grab of their home page.

“The ability to have emotional or sexual affairs online has brought a new dimension to therapy,” Mills said. Not only has it brought this new dimension, but technology has also created another form of sexual addiction.

Mills added affairs can also be about pathology.

“There can be a family history where someone grew up with a parent who had an affair and knew what took place,” she said. In essence, people who grow up in this type of environment are prone to continuing the cycle and may have affairs of their own as adults.

Overall, however, Mills said there are several reasons people seek to have affairs. The first reason is a person can feel abandoned because of his or her spouse’s job or the issues that come with raising children; therefore, that person will seek other places for comfort. As for the other reason, some married individuals “like the thrill of it all,” Mills stated.

“It’s complex because it’s part of the family system,” she said. “And when you introduce a third person into the family system, there’s going to be discord. Also, technology allows us to be people we’re not. It’s really an interesting phenomenon.”

Mills said although the situation taking place with the hack leak across the nation is detrimental, the men who have committed suicide as a result may have been dealing with other things as well.

“My first inclination is there’s probably an underlying issue, and they felt exposed; therefore, suicide was the only outlet.”

Mills added that depression may have been a possibility as well, and the element of shame that comes with something like the Ashley Madison case tipped the scale. Thus, in situations like the San Antonio Police Chief, he must have felt his life was over and could not deal with the shame and embarrassment.

“That’s an extreme solution,” she said. “I wouldn’t doubt there were those underlying issues.”

The Impact

Impact Team said this act was for the good of the people; however, Ashley Madison released a statement that said, “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 free-thinking people who choose to engage in fully lawful online activities. 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.”

Since this story broke, national headlines across the globe have stormed the web and print media outlets, and families are having divorce discussions and/or starting proceedings. Not to mention, some spouses have committed suicide. The New York Times reported Monday two suicides in Toronto, Canada have been linked to the data leak thus far.

A writer for Times wrote, “The hack of the cheating website Ashley Madison has triggered extortion crimes and led to two unconfirmed reports of suicide, Canadian police said Monday.”

In Texas, three suicides have been linked to the leak, and San Antonio Police Chief Captain Michael Gorhum (since denied by widow), who served 25 years with the SAPD, is among those numbers.

For People Who Want to Know

Overall, many experts are encouraging people not to download the database because some counties may deem it illegal and the file is large, which can slow down a computer. Instead, people in the areas mentioned who want to know if their spouse is, or is not, on the list, can click here.