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Security came up quite frequently.

# Review

The docuseries follows the rise and downfall of Ashley Madison, the controversial dating app designed for marital infidelity. Prior to the data breach in 2015, Ashley Madison had been one of the fastest growing Canadian tech companies, boasting over tens of millions of active users.

The docuseries itself is decent, and features accounts from various people close to the company, such as employees, users, and regulators. While I personally view infidelity as wrong if not both partners are onboard, the real scandal is the poor OPSEC Ashley Madison had on sensitive data. There were many things that went wrong within the company, such as not encrypting stored data and not deleting contractor logins after the contract termination.

The hack also exposed many dubious business practices, such as the overwhelming number of fake female bot accounts and the service to charge people to delete their user data (but not actually deleting the data). There are some interesting anecdotes of the hack, such as people committing suicide and destroying their reputations. What is shocking is the broad variety of people using the app, such as Christian YouTuber Sam Rader and the CEO of Ashley Madison Noel Biderman himself (who I recently read about in his role as a board member of crypto company WonderFi).

The Ashley Madison story is not all bad news, though. It was also very interesting to understand the marketing tactics used to achieve virality before virality was a thing.

# Conclusion

What not to do when running a dating company for infidelity.

# Overall rating: 6.9

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