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Fake Female Profiles Abounded on Ashley Madison Site, Data Research Shows

Fake Female Profiles Abounded on Ashley Madison Site, Data Research Shows

Who are the people men using the Ashley Madison website?

We know there are a couple of hundred bankers. And there have been reports of men connected with certain reality TV shows who may have used the site, notably the right-wing Christian moralizer Josh Duggar. The Defense Department is investigating to determine whether any service personnel – identified by email addresses ending with .mil and .gov domains – have actually used the site to arrange for extramarital affairs, which would be a violation of military conduct standards.

So who are the women?

In many and perhaps nearly all cases, they’re bots.

Fakes.

Annalee Newitz of technology website Gizmodo analyzed the Ashley Madison dataset, looking into IP addresses of accounts and comparing data fields of profiles to find the actual number behind the rumors that a very large percentage of the reported accounts were fake. She discovered that only about 12,000 – out of 5.5 million accounts marked as female – were actually real.

“…It’s like a science-fictional future where every woman on Earth is dead, and some Dilbert-like engineer has replaced them with badly designed robots,” she writes. “When you look at the evidence, it’s hard to deny that the overwhelming majority of men using Ashley Madison weren’t having affairs. They were paying for a fantasy.”

In order to attract and retain men, the site needed to have an active base of women – or rather, to appear to have an active base of women. It’s only when looking at specific fields in the backend that sophisticated users could see that the vast majority of accounts ostensibly belonging to women were fake.

Apparently, however, Ashley Madison, while getting worldwide attention due to both the hack and its racy mission, is far from alone in its fraud. Niche dating sites and those that market explicitly to an “adult” audience need a pool of women in order to get paying customers; in many cases, men. But attracting women is hard, especially if the site appears to be “full of desperate, oversexed, uninhibited dudes” as Caitlin Dewey in The Washington Post put it. Even before signing up, many women are put off by either the marketing or by unsettling fears; once they do sign up, creepy men often drive them away.

So these companies either concoct fake profiles themselves or outsource the work to others, often in Eastern Europe. Two industry insiders confirmed to the Post that big hookup sites “make money by BS-ing everything,” said David Evans, a consultant who has worked with Ashley Madison in the past.

Ashley Madison’s own terms of service page doesn’t mention fake profiles explicitly, notes Newitz, but does stipulate that many profiles are intended for “amusement only” and that “some” people aren’t necessarily using the site to meet people offline.

Charles J. Orlando, a relationship expert with a number of books and media appearances to his name, tried to find out why women would look for men on Ashley Madison. He didn’t get an opportunity to meet in person with any of them until after he chatted with 33 different women, calling it “arm’s-length cheating…akin to an interactive romance or erotic novel.” While he doesn’t investigate – or even mention – the likelihood that any number of these women could be “fake,” it’s certainly possible.

Two years ago, a former employee of Ashley Madison threatened to go public with allegations of sexual harassment against an executive of its parent company, Avid Life Media. According to emails released by the hack, the woman, Louise Van der Velde, was ready to talk about how the company “simply rip[s] people off” since there are “really no women” on the site.

Another employee, Doriana Silva, alleged in a lawsuit that she suffered repetitive stress injuries because the company wanted her to create 1,000 fake profiles in three weeks.

Although the company’s CEO, Noel Biderman, has said that site membership is 70 percent male, he has claimed gender parity for thirty-somethings – numbers that are now being called into question.

Photo: A photo illustration shows the privacy policy of the Ashley Madison website seen behind a smartphone running the Ashley Madison app in Toronto, August 20, 2015. (REUTERS/Mark Blinch) 

Tom Brady Should Sue Goodell’s Pants Off

Tom Brady Should Sue Goodell’s Pants Off

By Gil Lebreton, Fort Worth Star-Telegram (TNS)

Considering that he has amassed career earnings of $150 million and that his supermodel wife Gisele banked $47 million herself just this past year, it’s probably ludicrous to think that Tom Brady lies awake these nights, worrying about Roger Goodell.

But it’s a good thing that his lawyers are, at least.

Sue Goodell. Sue his pants off, Tom.

Please spare me your righteous indignation about NFL integrity and the New England Patriots’ rap sheet and coach Bill Belichick’s tendency to fondle the loopholes.

We are talking about the air in footballs here, not knocking out spouses or switching a child until he bleeds. Did you even know there was a rule about air pressure before Deflategate?

When we were growing up, the kid down the street always liked to use his ball — the one he got for Christmas with the stripes on it, college style — when he quarterbacked our touch football games.

We preferred our old scuffed football. No problem. Both sides could use what they want.

How the Patriots’ interpretation of this time-honored sandlot protocol grew into a national scandal would be funny, if Goodell hadn’t gone all medieval on the thing.

An original two-game suspension for Ray Rice, but a four-game suspension for Brady?

Sue Goodell’s pants off, Tom.

Clearly the commissioner, emboldened by hoodwinking the players’ union into handing him deity-like powers, is making up punishments as he goes along. His handling of the New Orleans Saints’ imaginary Bountygate scandal was only the first hint.

This time he waited for “independent” investigator Ted Wells’ 243-page report, which concluded that the Patriots’ deflating was “more probable than not.”

Goodell’s sword was swift. Brady was suspended four games without pay for the 2015 season — which will include a road game against the Dallas Cowboys on October 11. The Patriots were also fined one million dollars, plus ordered to forfeit their No. 1 draft pick in 2016 and No. 4 in 2017.

Brady’s lawyer filed an immediate appeal on his behalf. Cowboys fans may want to follow the progress of that appeal.

The NFL Players Association, meanwhile, is trying to get Goodell dismissed from hearing the appeal of the case since the Patriots intend to call him as a witness.

Director DeMaurice Smith and the players’ union brought this upon themselves by treating Goodell’s magic-wand powers as a bargaining chip in the last contract negotiations.

Now the union finds itself pulling the rope, trying to drag ashore lost leverage while unpopularly defending the likes of Rice, Greg Hardy, and Adrian Peterson.

Brady? Oh, he’ll be fine. He remains adored by many, even beyond New England. And he still gets to keep the $47 million girl.

His legacy tarnished? Oh, please. For using a football that felt slightly more comfortable in his hand?

And if his suspension isn’t reduced on appeal, consider the trade-off. There isn’t a coach in the league who wouldn’t trade a four-game suspension for four Lombardi trophies.

In the end, despite his arrogant facade and $44 million annual salary, Goodell will take the biggest hit. It’s one thing for a rogue owner like Jerry Jones to profess his loyalty for the commissioner. It’s quite another that Goodell has angered Bob Kraft, the powerful Patriots owner who was once his ally.

Despite what Goodell says, Deflategate has never been about integrity and fairness. Nobody hacked into any Seattle Seahawks computers here.

From the beginning, this has been much ado about nothing. It’s been about NFL fans’ disdain for Belichick and their jealousy of Brady, the luckiest football player alive.

Goodell had to do something, and now he’s got half of America again questioning his integrity and job performance.

No objections here, your honor.

Sue his pants off.

Photo: Keith Allison via Flickr

11 of 12 Defendants In Atlanta Schools Case Found Guilty

11 of 12 Defendants In Atlanta Schools Case Found Guilty

By Eric Stirgus, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (TNS)

ATLANTA — After more than eight days of deliberation in a case that rattled the region and garnered unwanted national attention, a jury found 11 of 12 former Atlanta Public Schools teachers, principals, and administrators guilty of conspiring to change student answers on standardized tests.

A racketeering indictment could mean a 20-year prison sentence. The other felonies carry prison sentences of as much as five and ten years each.

The trial stretched five months with 162 witnesses who took the stand. Thousands of pages of testimony were introduced. Closing arguments lasted three days.

The former educators are accused of conspiring to change answers on the 2009 Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests to artificially inflate scores to satisfy federal benchmarks. The prosecution said bonuses and raises were awarded based on test scores.

The alleged cheating was discovered when The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported inexplicable spikes in test scores. Eventually, a criminal investigation was opened that led to a 29-count indictment two years ago. Two of those counts have been dropped, leaving 27 for the jury to consider.

Before the cheating was exposed, the narrative of the Atlanta school system was it was a vastly improving district that took a no-nonsense approach to teachers and administrators who did not meet its high academic standards. Its superintendent, Beverly Hall, won national awards. City leaders used the rising test scores to make the case to businesses that Atlanta was the place to be.

The narrative rapidly changed. Hall resigned amid the investigation. Abhorrent tales of cheating parties emerged. Dismayed parents wondered what their children really learned.

Hall was the ringleader of the cheating, prosecutors said. She was not tried because she was being treated for breast cancer when jury selection began. Hall died earlier this month after testimony ended. One other former educator named in the March 2013 indictment also died. Twenty-one others pleaded guilty to lesser charges and were sentenced to probation.

Some community leaders, activists, and civil rights icons like Ambassador Andrew Young argued criminal investigations and trials were an unnecessary approach to holding those accountable for their actions.

A state-commissioned report found organized, widespread cheating. Investigators found cheating in Dougherty County, but prosecutors did not indict any teachers because they said the cheating was not organized.

Photo: biologycorner via Flickr

Endorse This: Little League Blues

Endorse This: Little League Blues

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It’s getting so you can’t trust anyone these days — not even Little League baseball. Chicago’s beloved Jackie Robinson West team has now been forced to vacate its U.S. championship from last year, in the wake of revelations that the the team’s management improperly extended the district boundaries in order to recruit players. (And just to be clear, the young players themselves didn’t even do anything wrong!)

Click above to watch the reactions of disappointed Chicagoans — then share this video.

Video via WGN-TV Chicago.

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