Ashley...oh Ashley.....

who is ashley madison?


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Mike,

You need to get out more.

Ashley Madison is a site for cheating on your spouse. It was huge.
The site was hacked for millions if not tens of millions of IDs. Then a site came up to expose
who was on Ashley Madison. Now investigators are finding that there were no member to member
solicitations. Just some fake stuff behind the scenes.

Dave

I read in one report that almost all of the members were men. Many posing as women. Perhaps they were all schill accounts set up so the site looked robust.

Real people did sign up and admitted to doing so. The internet brings both good and bad, you have to choose your path here just like you do in real life.

posing as women? LMAO

I hear the site is doing better than ever! Go figure!

Married men who cheat on women join a site expressly designed to do so and then are shocked there are no women there waiting for them with open arms. #duh

My agent runs an escort service....catering to the very elite....the same clients that buy many original paintings from her gallery.

Danl,

Which are more expensive? The paintings or the backroom dealings?

Dave

David-

Never asked for an escort quote... since I don't fit the "uppity" profile of her clientele.

Hopefully at least Ashley is active on the site.

Unless women use some other outlet to find affairs, I'd bet there are plenty of women on the site and others like it though they are probably substantially outnumbered by men.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/17951664/ns/health-sexual_health/t/many-cheat-thrill-more-stay-true-love/

"Survey takers guessed that twice as many people are having extramarital affairs as really are, estimating that 44 percent of married men and 36 percent of married women are unfaithful. The reality is it's not as rampant as we think, with 28 percent of married men and 18 percent of married women admitting to having a sexual liaison, the survey found."

I saw new information on Gizmodo just now that estimated that at least 70,000 of the women on the site were bots.

And we thought bots only looked at our art.


And I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's way easier for women to find hookups than it is for men. In general.

Cynthia, not a limb at all, every guy ever since we were boys know that to be true. Lol


but, it is a changing world so now I'm not so sure anymore.

i would imagine some of those lady bots are visiting us here.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Speaking of ladybots, maybe people would like to listen to this radiolab episode:
http://www.radiolab.org/story/137466-clever-bots/

Just for clarification..the site was for men that wanted to cheat on their significant other with a younger (very) women. The site didnt/wasnt for women. The scam was that the guys that set it up did so by creating fake profiles of these younger women which would be available to the men. Men would sign up (for a fee) and try to make contact with these women (fake- most likely the pajama boy operators of the site) though emails, chats, etc. I am sure the fake women would string the loser guys along..maybe they had a few real young women/hookers that would actually participate with the loser guy member for a pserson to person meeting for big bucks...then they would blackmale the loser member - thats how it worked....I am also pretty confident that there was never a hack. The operators of the site likely perpetrated the story of a hack to scare the loser guys that were members. Seems like everyone got what they deserved.

I remember when the Adobe site was hacked and I suddenly started receiving fake Paypal emails. And I thought that's bad, so I changed all my passwords to backwards, and kept getting confused for ages until I came up with entirely new ones

I saw new information on Gizmodo just now that estimated that at least 70,000 of the women on the site were bots.

They were very busy. I heard on NPR is was something like 25 to 30 million members. Maybe more.

Dave

i would imagine some of those lady bots are visiting us here.

Mike??? You are still on your own....no such luck.....

lol

Dave

That math sounds pretty good, There are 150 million american males. If half the male population is over 18 years old, thats, say 60 million males. If Ashly Madison had 25 to 30 million members that would be like half the male population. Thats about right. most men are pigs, cheats, creaps and liars. Been this way since the beginning of time. My question is, why is it that women today have tried really hard to be just like men.

Robert:
Women try to be like men because (statistically) men get paid more and get better jobs.
Golden Rule again: S/He who has the gold, rules.

Interesting, I didnt' think of that. I know if the shoe was on the other foot, I would never sacrifice my morals and principles and be a pig, lying peice of crap and cheat just for the money or prestige. Could it really be that the total change in women today (as compared to my days as a kid and when my mom was young), was all due to the money? Thats pretty sad. And the young girls I see today, the way they dress, the way they act, it seems like there is no end in sight as I don't see how young girls can grow up to ever aspire for the moral qualities that once made women so strong and the pilars of the family. We are doomed!

Well, if X percentage of men mess around there has to be a number pretty close to that of willing women. Or at least one VERY promiscuous woman.

thats true too. maybe i am wrong thinking that women have changed . in the past 30 years it certainly feels like they have. things are so upside down today ..

Lets not forget that at our core....at our instinctual nature....We are, in fact, animals.

true, but still, in my mind, men are pigs and women were always angels....while men will not become angels, women seem to gravitate to the other... society is doomed without the counter-balance and moral compass that women have always provided... men would be nothing without women... without women.... what then? it really bums me out

"...there has to be a number pretty close to that of willing women. Or at least one VERY promiscuous woman."


I recall seeing her last standing at Fleet Landing in Naples, Italy. She seemed to be at every port during the 70's-80's. :)

There are all sorts of statistics....But about 70 percent of married men admitted to cheating on their wives. And most statistics found that about 50 to 60 percent of women admitted to having an affair. Is monogamy a natural state? Nope. But hey, let's try to force it on people and see what happens. 50% divorce rate in the U.S. Not many people are virgins when they marry. And many stay married despite infidelity. There are also open marriages. My Grandpa cheated on my Grandma (we found condoms after he passed away at 88 that were NOT expired!). And when she was going through her dementia she kept yelling at him about his affairs off and on. My Dad cheated on my Mom for 7 years! And guess what? She cheated on him too with a co-worker. They stayed together. I am sure Ashley Madison had many female bots, but I am willing to bet there were many real women too. After all my conservative Christian Mom cheated. Some men spent thousands......You don't do that unless you are actually meeting people.

Sharon,

Conservative and Christian do not act as catchalls for 'they really behave themselves". Not at all.

But we are going where we are not allowed.

Ashley Madison was not built on the concrete of cheating. It was built on the fumes of fantasy.

Dave

"in my mind, men are pigs and women were always angels...."
That's very binary. I take people as individuals, each individual is their own unique mix of good and bad behavior.

As a woman (angelic, of course) I have a large collection of halos, with varying amounts of tarnish. I carefully select the halo with the right amount of tarnish to suit the occasion...
Some of them are painted with Rustoleum to match my shoes.

AND bags.

Where is the art connection with this thread? Am I missing something?

"Why bring this up? We all know as artists there are scams out there. Well Ashley Madison might be the biggest one yet."

Being an "artist" is not exclusive to being aware of scams "out there". Being an informed adult concerning the scams in today's world can be applied to a good majority of the masses hopefully.

Kim-

The art is in the marketing. If artists could market their work as effectively they would all take center stage.

Robert—I'm not sure if you were responding to the link I posted. If so, I agree the site is for cheaters but perhaps some of the "women" were simulated this way.

The effects of the hack will probably run it's course many times this year before the year is through, too: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/fla-attorney-jeffrey-ashton-confirms-ashley-madison-account-article-1.2334976.

As far as why bring up a discussion of this site: it's no less random a subject than anything else here, right? The implications stretch beyond scams to include whether information is ever safe when stored online (banking, medical records, etc). This latest breech will probably redefine boundaries of responsibility by legal precedent (especially since Ashley stored the data in the way they did), and it may start a counter digital revolution that could reassert privacy movements. That is if we don't forget about it after another dose of scandal in the entertainment weekly :)

Kim,

Many of us here market online extensively. I just learned 70% of all web traffic is bots.

We keep getting scams sent our way. Well this was the biggest example.

We are not just artists. The more success you want the more you are going to have to deal with the internet
and other marketing matters.

Dave

The disparity between percentages of male and female members on Ashley is easily explained. If a woman wants a hookup, she doesn't have to pay a service to find a willing male.

To Robert's point about women becoming more like men - not sure we are turning into pigs but we do "lean forward", if we care about advancing our careers or getting our fair share. Assertive somehow became synonymous with bitch, maybe because it was a modern departure from the old-school way of raising women. Back in the day, some little girls were taught from infancy to be kind, gentle, quiet and above all else, acquiescent in the presence of men. It was made implicit that those qualities were pleasing to men and they would be more likely to tolerate us and even protect us if we were good little women. Well, guess what? We are on our own and free to show our strength and not be afraid to go toe-to-toe with males if want to do more than survive as some man's "angel".

In my case, it was a kick having two such disparate parents raising me. My mom was really old school - hell-bent to make me one of those seen-but-not-heard, pleasant little women who darned socks for her man and never complained (even if she was seething inside). Dad, on the other hand, treated me as his equal from the time I was a baby. In his eyes, I was a fully-vested human being endowed with the right to an opinion and the freedom to express it. Mom was appalled, of course. With my attitude, how on earth would I ever get a man? Guess whose lead I followed.

God bless your dad!

Kathleen,

My mom and dad are the same way, same set up.

Last night discussing a problem at work, mom, "just dont say anything and do whatever they want".

Love my mom, but that line of reasoning is nonsense.

Dave

Dave, I agree that marketing is essential to sales but a whole different category from our art. I assume that nothing is safe on the internet and proceed carefully when in the "jungle". This is common sense strategy 101. Currently contemplating a bot intervention of sorts.....they are beginning to annoy me. Thank you for your perspective . --Kim

i cant recite all the reasons off hand but the bots are very impotant thing and your friend when it comes to marketing on the net

I had some of my best sales during the popular Lion Dentist thread.
...

Even bots need love I guess.

Hi Kim,
I see that you are very new, here as of August 30. Welcome to our rabbit hole.
We get threads on lots of topics, not all of them art art related.
Some of them are worthwhile, or at least entertaining, others... not so much.
If a thread is not providing you with anything worthwhile, there's no reason you have to continue reading that thread. There are plenty of others.

Cheryl, thank you for the warm welcome and advice, geesh, I thought I had to read them all!

Ashley Madison had something we've heard about: bots.



"Ashley Madison Code Shows More Women, and More Bots


Equally clear is new evidence that Ashley Madison created more than 70,000 female bots to send male users millions of fake messages, hoping to create the illusion of a vast playland of available women.

...

What I have learned from examining the site’s source code is that Ashley Madison’s army of fembots appears to have been a sophisticated, deliberate, and lucrative fraud."

(Gizmodo - 8/31/15)

Bots are absolutely your friend. Without them, you don't get listed in any search engines. If you are listed and a bot can't find you for long enough, you will be delisted. Don't block bots unless you are absolutely positive you know what you are doing and are having consistent problems with scrapers.

Fascinating thread. One new FAA member shows almost 19,000 views (in less than 3 weeks). No groups or contests entered. Bot related? Who knows?

Or reeeeeeeeeeally good at social media. If it were all bots, we'd all be racking up the same 19,000 views in the same 3 weeks.

Kathy,

If the guy/gal came along with 500 or even 200 images, when someone likes his portfolio they add a lot of views that
other newbies would not get.

I joined with no images, there are people who joined at the same time with 400 images and now have 150k views or more. I have
30k in my first year.

Seeing and buying are two very different things. It depends more on who sees your art. Preferably a buyer. Obviously. lol.

Most people are not buyers.

Dave

Kathy,

Have to add....

No groups or contests entered.

Artists in groups and contests are not often if ever buyers.

Dave

Dave, I agree that marketing is essential to sales but a whole different category from our art.

Kim,

Especially on a POD, your art is a product you need to market. It is not less or more special than any other product you
would need to market. The principles of marketing apply here. You would do your self a disservice thinking art is not a product.

Picasso early on painted labels for wine bottles. No one here is above that.

I will add a link in a new post of a free easy post grad class at MIT.

I also recommend YouTube videos by Hugh MacFarlane.

Dave

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/sloan-school-of-management/15-812-marketing-management-fall-2002/

Just one of many free classes offered at MIT. Read the lecture notes.

Dave