are people who cheat on their spouses unforgivable, and therefore deserving of every indignity?

I can't say why they chose a photo of a cheater looking at wedding photos instead of for a new mistress.

I can’t say why they chose a photo of a cheater looking at wedding photos instead of for a new mistress.

 

An especially tough ethical question today! Do we have sympathy for the victims of data theft when hackers decide to punish a site like Ashley Madison for making a business out of people cheating on their spouses? Or, as Heather Havrilevsky asks in NYMag, are we throwing stones when our houses (or in this case, our pasts) are made of glass?

As easy as it is to chuckle at a bunch of douche-bag dudes getting outed for cheating, consider for a minute the full scope of ramifications endemic to our new, easily hacked lives. Every last one of us is hopelessly vulnerable to hacking today, thanks to insecure smartphones; insecure databases; absurd, ever-changing, and increasingly invasive Terms of Service; and supposedly benevolent megacorporations that illegally suck private data off unsecured Wi-Fi systems and legally compile private information gleaned from multiple apps to sell it to data brokers like Experian who might, in turn, haplessly sell it to Vietnamese identity-theft crime rings. If that sounds like some kind of Orwellian paranoid fantasy, it may be time to wake up and smell your credit-card numbers hitting the Dark Web.

This might be a good day for us to rethink our attitudes about the victims of hacking, whether it’s Sony’s Amy Pascal or the married dude next door, because the mob is coming for us, too. Do we really want to live in a world where no one is allowed to make mistakes? Are we arrogant enough to believe that we’ll never screw up? If we do screw up eventually, do we want our future personal failings to be judged and prosecuted by a self-righteous mob who may or may not share our values and ideas about right and wrong?

What rights do cheaters have in your mind, even if you are a person who says they would never, ever cheat?

 

If the answer is ‘they get what they deserve’, consider instead: what would you do if your most shameful secret was suddenly online?

 

Is there any scenario in which you, as a person being cheated on, would be able to get over it?

 

If the person you loved did it once, regretted it, and would almost certainly never do it again, would you want to know, or be better off never knowing?