MANCHESTER, NH – Oh what a tangled web…
Turns out the no-longer discreet dating service for married adults Ashley Madison [tagline “Life is short; have an affair”] was frequented by the Queen City’s municipal account.
Based on data analysis of users of the site, which was hacked earlier this week in a massive data breach, manchesternh.gov turns up 4 times, coming in at No. 326 out of more than 1,600 addresses gathered by pastebin.com (see the full run-down below).
Mayor Gatsas said the matter is under investigation at City Hall.
“I was alerted to this information earlier today and immediately notified Jennie Angell, the Information Systems Director for the city. She is conducting a thorough investigation of the claim. Through this investigation should we find the claim to be true, and there was gross misuse of city resources, it will be immediately turned over to the city solicitor, Gatsas said.
Other New Hampshire municipal government accounts that turned up in the pastebin.com search were Dover, Nashua, and Milford. Also cited: U.S. Postal Service, the White House, the Social Security Administration, NASA, and the U.S. House of Representatives.
Someone has some explaining to do.
And of course, in other unwholesome news, Josh Duggar of the reality TV Duggar family, has been named among those with Ashley Madison connections, and has apologized for the “double life” he’s been leading. And the New York Daily News has posted a handy “how to check if your email is on the list” tutorial – while explaining in a little more detail what it all means.
You can read more on the initial data breach on Wired.com.
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