
Hacked: Private Messages From Dating Site ‘Muslim Match’ - twoshedsmcginty
http://motherboard.vice.com/en_ca/read/hacked-private-messages-from-dating-site-muslim-match
======
bmmayer1
This is a serious security threat for many Muslims abroad, given that
premarital sex is severely punishable in several Islamic countries (including
Pakistan mentioned in the leak), and even within countries where it isn't
punishable by law, those who get caught frequently risk honor attacks from
their families as has happened in the US, UK, India and elsewhere.

Obviously dating != sex but there's probably enough 'smoking gun' evidence of
the latter to satisfy any sadist looking to inflict harm on these doxed folks.

~~~
FreedomToCreate
Its a sad reality of the culture prevalent amongst poor and rich muslims.
Hopefully no one becomes a target of any blasphemy laws.

With that said, as someone who grew up as a direct witness to honor cultures
and strong religious roots, labelling people who carry out violence as sadist
is deluding yourself to reality. This isn't sadism, this isn't even
fundamentalism. This is basis of a culture in which honor and religion are
above anything else, and anything which deviates from the set rule is
eliminated. Not doing so is considered outside the norm.

For an easy read on honor cultures, check out chapter six of Malcolm
Gladwell's Outliers and also watch HBO's doc on honor killings called A girl
in the river.

~~~
mpol
Why call it a honor culture? That almost sounds positive. Here (Netherlands)
it is often labelled as shame culture, where people do everything to avoid
shame or put it under the carpet.

~~~
douche
It's something of a standard term[1]

[1] [http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/the-
rise...](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/the-rise-of-
victimhood-culture/404794/)

------
basseq
At the risk of making a tenuous (and inflammatory) connection, I'm struck by
the difference in tone between this and the Ashley Madison leak.

Here, there's sentiments of "how terrible", "leaked users might have severe
consequences", and "this ruins the privacy where people get away from
repressive social mores".

Ashley Madison, by comparison, was met with sentiments of "good!", "glad we're
outing adulters", and "these people are getting what's coming to them".

Yes, I know AM was _explicitly_ based on having an affair, where this dataset
might just _include_ people who are committing adultery (with varying cultural
definitions of "adultery"). But other than impressing our own values on the
situation (e.g., "cheating on your wife" = bad; "premarital relations" = ok),
how do you explain the difference?

~~~
FreedomToCreate
One big difference is that people outed by Ashley Madison were not at risk to
the degree that muslim daters are at being harmed violently.

And even though the definition of adultery may vary between cultures, ignoring
the difference between a website where you purposely go in blatant disregard
of a personal and somewhat legal trust you established with someone versus a
website where you go in an attempt to build a new relationship with the goal
of finding a partner, are totally different things. This isn't "impressing"
values. There is a clear difference in the acts.

To drive that point home, there is a clear difference between a 8 year old
stealing something versus a 40 years old man. The 40 year old man knows the
difference and the consequences while the 8 year old does not. When making a
decision on punishment, it shouldn't matter what cultural values you have,
there is a clear difference between the two that cannot be ignored. And that
is the same things here. Dating versus adultery are more different than just
different values.

So I wouldn't label this as hypocrisy as you are attempting to.

~~~
BurningFrog
Without looking up the statistics, I'm confident that "being outed as a
cheater" is one of the leading causes of people being "harmed violently" by
their spouse.

~~~
CaptSpify
But that's generally discouraged by law. Don't some muslim countries have laws
violently that punish sexually promiscuous people?

~~~
projectramo
Please look it up before you say things like this.

~~~
FreedomToCreate
Just one of many examples [http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-
news/courts/couple-deny-k...](http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-
news/courts/couple-deny-kissing-on-abu-dhabi-corniche?fb_action_ids=)

~~~
projectramo
And the US of A:

[http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/11/is-adultery-
illegal-...](http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/11/is-adultery-illegal-map)

------
ss108
The comments about honor killings and stoning for adultery are a bit
ridiculous. Honor killings usually happen in tribal and rural segments of
Pakistan--not the kinds of people who use Muslim Match. Not all of the users
are even from Pakistan, many were probably from the US and the UK, and a lot
of the people on there were just genuinely looking for a spouse.

Do you guys really think that nobody has premarital sex in places like
Pakistan? All that surfaces in the media are stories of some poor raped woman
getting tried for adultery (usually in a Gulf Arab country, not Pakistan), or
stories of honor killings. Those are real problems for sure, and the cultures
of most Muslim countries have devolved during the past century in many ways,
but a catalog of dramatic headlines doesn't capture what actually goes on in
these countries and how people actually live.

I would expect the jump from "Muslim dating site" to "honor killings and
stoning" from the comments section of a common newspaper, not Hacker News.

~~~
mikeash
Here are several examples of honor killings in the US:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing_in_the_United_St...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing_in_the_United_States)

I'm sure you can find them in other countries too.

The people who use Muslim Match and the people who would commit honor killings
aren't the same people. I don't see why it's so unimaginable that a child
might use Muslim Match and their parent might think honor killings are
necessary.

~~~
hackuser
A few examples of something happening in a country of 300 million is
meaningless; I expect more people were struck by lightening.

(Also, a Wikipedia article on a hot button issue isn't reliable, IMHO; it's
only the product of some partisan(s) willing to spend more time editing than
everyone else.)

~~~
mikeash
The claim isn't that there will be _lots_ of these, so a small number isn't in
any way meaningless. If some incident was going to result in a few more people
getting struck and killed by lightning, that might well get a similar
reaction.

If you don't like Wikipedia as a source, the original news stories are all
linked at the bottom.

~~~
hackuser
> If some incident was going to result in a few more people getting struck and
> killed by lightning, that might well get a similar reaction.

I disagree. How many things cause people to die in higher numbers? We wouldn't
have time to read about all of them.

If you are suggesting that stereotype and demonization of Muslims isn't
involved in the response, I have a very hard time believing it. Just look at
those things here on HN (where apparently it's ok to say those things about
Muslims; the TOS apply only to other groups).

~~~
mikeash
HN tends to follow stories about tech, science, and other hacker-y things. The
fact that this story may involve death is interesting, but it's not why it's
getting attention here.

But since it gets attention due to its tech content, and since it seems quite
possible _some_ death may result, I don't see why that should be ignored just
because the numbers are small.

I don't see this as stereotyping or demonization. If people were saying that
_all_ of these people were going to die, then I could see it. But merely
stating it as a possibility is just being realistic. You'd see the same sort
of reaction if gaydar.net's user database leaked, just with "Christian" and
"driven to suicide" in place of "Muslim" and "honor killing."

~~~
hackuser
It's interesting to me that people seek to deny the obvious, the prejudice
against Muslims. You can find many such statements on this page.

~~~
mikeash
It's not obvious to me. Maybe you could point to some examples?

Acknowledging that the group contains some crazy people is not prejudice, it's
just fact, unless one also chooses to ignore similar situations in other
groups. I don't see that here.

------
UnoriginalGuy
That's legitimately a shame. This is one area where people deserve privacy and
lack of privacy can injure people in real life in various ways.

Hopefully they figure out who is responsible and they're from a country which
cares.

------
riyadparvez
Does the hacker have any religious motivation? As an ex-Muslim, I cannot
comprehend how someone in his/her right mind can do something like this. The
people whose identities are revealed will be socially rejected in the best
case; in the worst case, physical abuse, honor killings, and whatnot. These
hackers should be prosecuted for intentionally risking other peoples lives.

~~~
tassl
While I do agree with you that the hackers should be prosecuted (but in the
same way than any other hacked service), what should be really prosecuted and
repudiated are the regimes that allow that kind of "behavior". And I saying
this assuming that you, as ex-muslim, agree completely with that statement,
after all the punishment for leaving Islam is... a bit extreme.

------
Swennemans
Wow no HTTPS, makes you wonder what security measures they did take.

~~~
dreamsofdragons
None, obviously. If you don't have https, you don't even have the illusion of
security.

------
DominikR
This is clearly a criminal and very evil act that will likely harm many
people, not just emotionally but also physically. I wonder how anyone could be
so deranged to do something like this.

But it is also a cultural problem of these Muslim societies that they actually
stone people to death for adultery. This is horrific.

If I were to make a dating app then I would outright ban all of these
countries because I don't want to have their blood on my hands if I made an
error and data was leaked as a result.

Of course in some cases people might be harmed physically even in our
societies, but it'd occur much less frequently and what's most important - it
wouldn't be something that is supported by our institutions, culture and
society.

~~~
hackuser
> Muslim societies that they actually stone people to death for adultery

This is false. Put on your skeptical, critical thinking cap:

1) Do you really know that stoning is prevelant, and not just a few
sensational news stories?

2) Is there a high correlation? That is, are there Muslim societies that don't
stone people (maybe in wealthy parts of the world)? Are there other groups
that do stone people and do similarly brutal things (maybe in poor parts of
the world)?

It's very serious to spread this misinformation; this is how hatred and
discrimination spread, and how brutal things happen to minorities. Consider
that many of the worst calamities in history are based on ignorance and hatred
of the 'other' ethnicity, including what has happened in the wealthiest
nations.

~~~
DominikR
This is about a leak from a dating app for Muslims. So it doesn't make sense
for me to write about the risks that someone in Hawaii or Germany might face
after a similar leak.

And sorry, but there are many types of sexual acts that are criminalised in
Muslim countries.

Not just adultery which is punishable by death in Saudi Arabia, Iran,
Afghanistan, Jemen, Qatar (and I'm sure there are many more) but also
homosexuality where also the death penalty is applied in 11 Muslim countries.

You can't brush that away by pointing to discrimination. Compared to the West
these societies have in some areas truly horrific laws. Yes this is not true
for all Muslim countries (Turkey, Bosnia and Indonesia comes to mind), but it
is most of them. And where there is no death penalty, we often see honor
killings which are not persecuted by their governments. (Pakistan)

If no one speaks up about this then these societies will continue like this
forever. I don't mean to hurt normal people in Muslim countries that just go
about a normal life, but I also wont say everything is fine when it clearly
isn't. And who could I hurt with this except for radicals or people
unknowingly following or being played by radicals?

There's also many things that are wrong in our societies, but one thing is for
sure: You wont see US or EU citizens burn embassies to the ground or declaring
Fatwas because someone criticised our society or culture.

~~~
hackuser
> You can't brush that away by pointing to discrimination.

I don't, I point to very poor reasoning and analysis. I challenge you to
answer my questions above instead of posting more insubstantial analysis.

I do point to discrimination where I see it; as you say:

> If no one speaks up about this then these societies will continue like this
> forever

But if one spreads ignorance, it persists forever, with great harm to the
victims. So we must be careful to do the right thing. Let's look in the mirror
first, and point out our own problems; we are just as flawed and human.

\----

 _And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother 's eye, but
considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine
eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt
thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye._

------
dsfyu404ed
If anything this will just show that generally speaking people are people.

Regardless, I expect the staff of the various network evening comedy shows to
be combing through this for raw material and will be disappointed if (after
this hits mainstream media) those shows don't throw around some politically
incorrect jokes.

edit: my comment was misinterpreted. I meant jokes along the lines of "this
guy is very religious, went to school in $place" -> take some words out of
context -> some joke about stereotypical thing about $place"

I did not mean to imply that they'd just read funny excerpts of people's
conversations, take them out of context and then tell everyone who said it.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "I expect the staff of the various network evening comedy shows to be
combing through this for raw material"

I would be disgusted if they did. It's private information. Just because
someone stole it and made it public doesn't mean you should propagate it
further.

~~~
coldpie
You're absolutely correct, but I really wish we could get away from this idea
that anything on the Internet can be private. If it's on the Internet, it
should be considered public, especially if it's on someone else's servers.
Maybe some day this won't be true, but today in 2016, it is. Don't put private
data on the Internet.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "You're absolutely correct, but I really wish we could get away from this
idea that anything on the Internet can be private."

I don't think that's possible. It's too integral. Think about communications
you make that are intended to be private between you and the person receiving
it (your doctor, the government). No matter how important the communication I
think in 10-20 years there will be no option to snail mail that. Snail mail
could be 'hacked' much easier but there are laws in place to prosecute people
for violating that expected privacy. The same thing should happen with
communications online. Of course this all depends on your views on privacy. I
believe privacy is a essential right, one which we must defend or there will
be severe consequences. It's very difficult to do that online but just saying
'anything you post online should be considered public' erodes privacy rights
massively as it is such an important communications mechanism.

~~~
coldpie
Sure, that's the ideal, but that's not the reality on the ground. People treat
logins to websites like it's a guarantee of privacy, and it's just not. Maybe
once we have standardized and widely used end-to-end crypto (keybase), have
some real authentication (extension of end-to-end crypto), and take computer
security seriously (stop using C and C++, to start) we can start to consider
things communicated via the Internet to be private. But we're not there yet
and we need to get across to people that if you put your name and photos up on
a dating site, that information is public and you should be prepared to deal
with the consequences.

------
rm_-rf_slash
Given the other comments here and the longtime and blatant surveillance of
Muslims by the FBI and NYPD, to name a few alphabet agencies, one would
imagine that there is ample market opportunity in providing secure services
and communications for Muslim clients. Might even have Islamic-appropriate
functionality, such as allowing families to discuss potential marriages but
forbidding the presumptive couple from communicating directly, or facilitating
Islamic loans in a similar fashion to WeChat Pay.

Or maybe there is and I don't know about it since there aren't that many
Muslims in my community or social circles. So if that's the case...success?

~~~
nickpsecurity
"there is ample market opportunity in providing secure services and
communications for Muslim clients."

You mean aiding and abeitting terrorists? That's the nonsense they'll mention
when they target that company or its founders. "They" means about any country
in the Wassenar Agreement, part of many Eyes coalition, prone to mass
surveillance, or concerned about terrorism. That's unfortunately about every
democracy or powerful non-democracy you can develop crypto in.

I'm not saying you can't do it. I have no idea what outcome will be. I just
know it's one of riskiest, business models for crypto.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
If a terrorist organization wants secure communications, they will find a way
to get them, whether by an app with encryption by default like Telegram or
something they make in-house. You can't stop or prevent that unless you intend
to do so for everybody on Earth.

It has nothing to do with being Muslim.

~~~
douche
Shit, you could encode a ton of secret communications in imgur with a tiny
amount of steganography. There's a lot of junk bits that could be used here
and there to store sensitive data in places that would not be looked into.

Security through obscurity

------
danso
This link is basically a summation of this Vice article:
[http://motherboard.vice.com/en_ca/read/hacked-private-
messag...](http://motherboard.vice.com/en_ca/read/hacked-private-messages-
from-dating-site-muslim-match)

~~~
sctb
Thanks, we updated the link from
[https://thestack.com/security/2016/06/30/muslim-match-
dating...](https://thestack.com/security/2016/06/30/muslim-match-dating-site-
hacked/).

------
timwaagh
really? the most interesting messages where only sweet romantic stuff? This
should be a treasure trove for journalists.

~~~
Avshalom
Ah yes, the old Dating-Site-That-Is-Actually-An-ISIS-Terror-Cell-Coordination-
Site ploy...

Oh wait, that's not a real thing at all. Why _should_ this be a treasure
trove?

~~~
timwaagh
because groups talk differently amongst themselves than they do in a survey. i
live in a muslim dominated neighbourhood. i had them for classmates so i heard
them talk amongst themselves and they said some stuff that did shock me (not
just related to jihad, but also things like: some girls talked about how they
where not allowed to look western boys in the eye). but more importantly
because we want to know this. how do they (the other) think. what is a
'moderate muslim'. its fascinating to get some insight on these things.

~~~
fahadkhan
"what is a 'moderate muslim'."

WOW! How do cope with such a high level of paranoia?

~~~
cableshaft
I'd say it's less paranoia and more "all we get from the media is anti-Muslim
propaganda and reports of horrible things extremist Muslims do, it'd be nice
to have something to point to that's not about that."

Honestly I'd rather the mainstream media just starts doing consistent positive
coverage on individuals in the Muslim community to counteract the negative
news, but I'll take what I can get.

I've had discussions with several 'normal folk' Americans (note: I am
American) that are totally brainwashed into believing being Muslim is
synonymous with being pure evil, and I'm afraid of what that mindset leads to,
especially on a large scale.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
I've had discussions with several wealthy upper class Americans (who should
know better) that are totally brainwashed into believing being poor white
trash, pro gun, pro gay marriage or pro abortion is synonymous with being pure
evil.

The ability to fail to understand the difference between a group and it's most
visible members is one that is common across ethnic and economic subsets of
the population.

