Exposed: The Ashley Madison Hack

by Sophie Elmhirst, Maria Luisa Tucker, Sophie Nélisse (Narrator)

Millions of people—looking to cheat on their partners—signed up for Ashley Madison in the early 2000s, seeking a private space to share their public desires. The promise of discretion was shattered in the summer of 2015, when anonymous hackers stole the company’s cache of user information and published it worldwide. The result? One of the most shocking data breaches of the internet age. Overnight, millions of unfaithful spouses had their real names, addresses, and sexual preferences published online in a searchable database that anyone could browse. Presented by acclaimed actress Sophie Nélisse, told through the dramatic stories of those who were caught up in the hack, and from experts who put it all into the context of our rapidly changing internet culture, Exposed: The Ashley Madison Hack serves as a cautionary tale for anyone whose secrets live in the cloud—and what happens when trust is broken both online and in the real world.

©2024 Audible Originals, LLC (P)2024 Audible Originals, LLC

Genres: Nonfiction, Audiobook, True Crime, Crime, Technology, Sociology

3 pages, Audible Audio

Published January 24, 2024

Reviews

[Karla · Rating 3 out of 5]

Story 3 stats**
Audio 4 stars**
Narrators
Sophie Elmhirst
Maria Luisa Tucker
Sophie Nèlisse

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This true story serves as a cautionary tale for anyone whose secrets live in the cloud and what happens when trust is broken both online and in the real world.
In the early 2000's people looking to cheat on their partners signed up for Ashley Madison. They chose to seek a private space to share their secret desires.
In the summer of 2015 the promise of discretion was shattered when anonymous hackers stole the company's user information and published it worldwide.
A very interesting read!

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was interesting. I didn't know much about the hack except that it had happened. I enjoyed learning the behind the scenes stuff.

Very short; podcast format.

[Stefanie Robinson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ashley Madison is essentially a dating site, for married people that are interested in finding people to have affairs with. The website ensured users that they could deleted their information, and information that was on the site was secure. Unfortunately, that was proven untrue in 2015 when a hacking group released the names and personal information of those using the sites. Many members of the military, government, and those in media were found to be using the site.

If you are interested in this, it is currently available on Audible Plus, and was about three hours of listening time. I am not really sure what I expected from a little three hour long book, but I suppose it was informative enough for that length of time. I didn't like the formatting or the voice over stuff. It just wasn't for me.

[CatReader · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars rounded up. In this brief 3-hour Audible-exclusive audiobook that feels like a few back-to-back podcast episodes, Sophie Elmhirst provides some brief context into the Ashley Madison hack. For those unfamiliar, Ashley Madison is a dating website whose target audience is married people looking to have extramarital affairs; despite being hacked and having thousands of user records leaked in 2015, the website is still alive and kicking as I write this in 2024.

This program includes voice-acted interviews with several people whose personal infidelity was exposed, or whose partner's infidelity was exposed, in this data breach. Elmhirst attempts to humanize and even garner sympathy for several of the exposed cheaters, but I think that's a hard sell (I was personally not moved).

My statistics:
Book 140 for 2024
Book 1743 cumulatively

[Nigel]

A sad book, I couldn’t finish it on how sad it is.

To much neurosis,

I got to read happier books 📖

[Michelle N · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good narration.

As I don't live in the US, I was not familiar with the Ashley Madison story. Found it interesting and shocking at the same time.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember this hack happening but it was interesting to hear the story behind it.

[Kelsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Script felt a little juvenile

[Scented Pages · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed the kind of LIVE formatting of this book. I very much so remember the Ashley Madison scandal and this true crime book was fun and messy to get through finding out all the in's and out's of it.
This was about that dating website called AshleyMadison.com created back in the day for married people to find other married people to cheat with. It was all supposed to be done very clandestinely, and it was thought to be a protected website. UNTIL IT WASNT! And that mess was hacked and ish hit the fan. EVERYBODY's cheating ass spouses, their information and their sexual proclivities were outed on the internet.
I guess my question is: Why would people think that a website set up FOR people to do BAD things would be a SAFE website in any way? WHY would it be safe from hackers, or particularly protected or "upstanding" in ANY way? I would NEVER think that a digital tool used for the aiding and abetting of cheating would be anything any THINKING person would want to involve themselves in. I would think the website, the CEO, the employees of the company, EVERYBODY and ANYTHING associated with it are all EVIL, money-hungry people/ conglomerate.
I would absolutely think 1. creating a digital trail, On BEYONCE'S INTERNET would come back to bite me in the ass. 2. the website was "fishy" and able to be easily hacked, or is taking people's money somehow. It just seems too weirdly good to be true. I would think putting my card information on Ashley Madison would be JUST AS sketchy and risky as putting it on ANY PORN website. You just don't DO that with your credit card.
And well, come to find out the whole website is built on LIES and thievery. I am not surprised. Most of the users were bots designed to prey on, and take lonely people's money.
Cheating is cheating no matter how it starts or ends....but I do think that it is a different type of "thing" to SIGN UP for a website, with the SPECIFIC intention to cheat. It is one thing to FALL into some shit in real life....It is another thing, altogether, to go on a website SEEKING some bullshit. TRYING to start a second life ONLINE to cheat in REAL life is another level of diabolical TO ME. I just feel like if you're gonna cheat, do it like a NORMAL fucking person and do it purposely by a mistake. LMAOOO . I'm joking. But i DO feel like getting on a website for it, is a WHOLE LOT!!
It was interesting that the hackers were never caught and punished. I love learning the details behind some MESSY-ish that happened in my lifetime that I can remember. I also really like learning about the culture of internet judgment and internet psychology. FIVE STARS

[Perm Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t believe I hadn’t heard of this before😳⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is my personal 5 star rating system because I’m too lazy to write a review for every book.

5 stars -> OMFG. I couldn’t stop listening. I was engaged from beginning to end. The story & narrator was amazing. I 100% recommend this book & author. I was able to clearly follow each and every character.

4 stars -> It was pretty good. I would’ve rated 5 stars, But either the ending was lacking, I struggled to keep up with characters, or the story didn’t keep me fully engaged. The narrator was pretty good as well. I’m on the fence about recommending this book, It could go either way.

3 Stars -> It was boring at times & I missed chunks of the story. I most likely struggled to keep up with character developments. The only way I would recommend this book is if it was part of a series. The narrator was most likely average or just couldn’t fix a mediocre book.

2 Stars -> It was pretty horrible. I used it as background noise because I hadn’t had a chance to search for another book. The book either had a bad narrator, The character development was non existent, or the story was hot garbage. I would not recommend this book.

1 Star -> The absolute only reason I listened to this book was because i had no time to search for another one & I needed background noise. It was 1 step up from listening to the radio. I wouldn’t recommend this book to my worst enemy. Everything about this book was terrible. This is only recommended for people on death row and have absolutely nothing else to read.

[Krysta Angotti · Rating 4 out of 5]

This definitely made me rethink all of my thoughts about the Ashley Madison hack. Obviously in 2015 I just assumed everyone who was on the dating site was awful because they are cheating on their spouses. But some got to share stories about how their lives changed for the better from it. And also how there were so many different legal issues from freedom of speech to revenge porn talked about in this. It really makes you want to look at each situation case by case and not just lump everyone as a whole. Now I do believe the majority were on there to cheat and try and get away with it. But for some, they had open marriages or used it for swinging and their information was leaked as well even though they weren’t doing anything that would be classified as cheating. And a huge take away is how today vs 10 years ago people are more open with their sexuality and their marriages and how if it would come out today, it wouldn’t be as much of a scandal than when it was introduced. The hack would have been more about personal information and less about exposing the cheaters.

[Heather Button · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw Audible advertising this book right at the time there was a similar documentary on Netflix. Candidly, I knew of this hack, but it was a while ago and I didn't pay much attention at the time.

This sort of documentary via audiobook explores what happened during the Ashley Madisom hack and the aftermath of both some of the people affected by it, as well as the company. In some ways, it's interesting that the company still exists after everything it went through, but it sounds like people still sign up and seek out relationships on the site.

This is a quick listen, and frankly kinda fascinating. Cyber security issues like what happened to Ashley Madisom have happened to countless companies since then, but theirs is fascinating because it's linked to something so personal, private and morally repugnant to many.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

[Cecilia ReadsbyMoonlight · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story was VERY interesting! I had never heard of Ashley Madison before. Hearing stories from people who used and were affected by a site freely encouraging cheating between married people is wild to me. The fact that a site like this even exists really proves the point that our use of the internet to communicate freely with anyone any way can be harmful to our relationships. It leaves us with questions. Were the hackers responsible for exposing the people on this site heros or criminals? Were the people engaged in the site terrible liars or just lonely? How far are people willing to go for a connection, for a fantasy love?

Free with audible membership.
It narrated like an investigation with interviews with people involved. I enjoy listening.

[Tia Sinclair · Rating 4 out of 5]

never followed this story at the time but have a lot of thoughts about all of it.

Personally, I have always been (and remain) leary of the internet in terms of privacy. And as much as we would like to stay protected, the ways of our world will never really allow us to.

Even the most popular social media sites claim to allow you to delete past data but we know that they really don't.

As a NeMaNoCh (never married no children) I am in no position to share my thought/opinions on the main parties, the specific website and its nature and other related aspects of this story.

[ᒪᗴᗩᕼ · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5⭐

彡 the vibes 彡
▶️non-fiction
▶️feels like a podcast
▶️the truth about the Ashley Madison Hack
▶️cheating and the aftermath

Exposed: The Ashley Madison Hack is free on Audible+. It has a full-cast narration that is very well performed. This started out well since I don't recollect this hack from when it happened. Unfortunately, its momentum and my interest crashed and burned rather quickly.

[Nicole Anderson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing new in this book.
People make money exploiting other people’s indiscretions.
Bright idea of starting an app where people could do things secretly, then be blackmailed for those secrets, for lots of money.
Boohoo.
Spoiler, you always get caught.
Never play games you can’t afford to lose.

[AttackGirl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes I do remember all of this. Lots of military and government email addresses.

But now look we have Pornhub ruining the young men, men, older men, women, society. Lowering the birth rate causing group and social work, increasing psychological disorders pushing the boundaries of CIVIL SOCIETY.

[Justyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one had my interest and attention from the beginning. I enjoyed it. I'm grateful it was a free selection on Audible and I didn't need to pay anything extra for it... Because it's not worth anything extra

[Autumn Telles · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was super interesting - really kept me connected through the whole read. I enjoyed the narrator on Audible and thought the different "characters" narrations helped bring it to life as well.

[Cosmin Fota · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good documentary on the app, the hack and the effect on the people who used it, as well as we're in a relationship or even married. Good study, I liked the voice acting. The ScreenJunkies guy voice was a nice surprise.

[Jen]

Some people may not like the topic. I did appreciate that there were so many reminders of the subject matter and verbiage so listening could take place in safe places. For those of us that remember the news release of the breach, this was an interesting read.

[Alyssa Theile · Rating 3 out of 5]

I knew very little about Ashley Madison other than that it was taboo. I definitely never heard about the hack or the bots (wild). I enjoyed the perspective of the journalist who explained how he got info from the hackers. The situations with the men was predictable.

[Lucid Quill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember when this was breaking news but never really got into it. I think a lot of people forgot or never even took into consideration the ripples from this. This production was done very well, it was engaging and informitive with great personality.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

An intriguing podcast-like audiobook that examines not only the Ashley Madison hack but the ongoing loneliness epidemic (so much so that the hack, and the hackers, recede out of view in favour of a state-of-the-nation analysis of dating in the 2020s).

[tom · Rating 2 out of 5]

unfocused, mediocre podcast missold as an audiobook. not sure if the “AI voice generators” they had reading things out was a joke (two voice actors were also credited) but if not, it’s unacceptable to use “AI” to replace any voice acting.

[The Chapter Conundrum (Stacey) · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

[Amanda Loncar · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was informative, but the narrator was a little too chipper sounding considering the dark and serious content of this audiobook/documentary.

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a free book on Audible. It started out interesting, and then quickly turned boring. In the end, it sounded a lot like a promotion for open marriages and Ashley Madison's new "products."

[Emily Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting listen. It's crazy that he still hasn't told his daughter how they met. But it's crazy to think that all of this happened and this company came back even stronger.