"and come on, 98% of the people talking about this on Twitter barely recognize that [marital infidelity] as ethically problematic in the first place"
What makes you say that? In my experience it is extremely rare to find anybody who thinks cheating on a partner is ethical, and I see no reason to think this particular group is any different. This is one of those things that most people feel very strongly about, and almost always in the same direction.
And that's exactly why the reaction is so gleeful. The people who use this site are perceived as scumbags, precisely because cheating is considered to be a grave moral (if not legal) crime. Outing them is considered justice. The idea that some of them might use the service with the consent of their partner isn't enough to break through that, nor is the idea that two wrongs don't make a right.
I don't agree with the gleeful reaction, but I see no hypocrisy here.
I don't think that's the parent comment's main argument for hypocrisy.
> how do you make a case that it's unethical for dragnet traffic looking for people who want to blow up civilians with homemade bombs?
Many of these proponents of the hack will unabashedly praise this hack for making these 'cheaters' identities public, but would surely argue against the use of hacking for releasing their own private account information for any site they have an account on.
The hypocrisy comes from the fact that hacking is a double-edged sword, and people are failing to see the other edge.
I don't understand this argument that people "would surely argue against the use of hacking" in other places.
Context matters a lot. For example, most people would agree that killing is bad. On the other hand, most people would agree that killing in self defense, or to save the life of an innocent, is acceptable.
In the context of a hack, I imagine we'd all agree that hacking fluffy-bunnies-and-flowers.com and releasing all the subscriber information would be bad. On the other hand, I'd argue (and I think a lot of people agree) that hacking lets-help-each-other-plan-mass-murder-of-innocent-children.com and exposing its subscribers would be perfectly fine, even a good thing. There's nothing hypocritical about criticizing the former but praising the latter. The nature of the target counts.
All it really comes down to here is what category you think ashleymadison.com.com is in. Some people think it's in the former, because consenting adults and whatnot. Lots of people think it's in the latter, because they think cheating is extremely wrong. If you hold that opinion, then there's nothing hypocritical about praising a hack against a site like that. We might disagree with the opinion that ashleymadison.com is a bad site, but that's a different thing.
> In my experience it is extremely rare to find anybody who thinks cheating on a partner is ethical
I'm half and half - I won't cheat on a partner (for various reasons) but if someone wants to cheat with me when I'm available and they're fully aware of the risks etc., I'm ok with that.
What makes you say that? In my experience it is extremely rare to find anybody who thinks cheating on a partner is ethical, and I see no reason to think this particular group is any different. This is one of those things that most people feel very strongly about, and almost always in the same direction.
And that's exactly why the reaction is so gleeful. The people who use this site are perceived as scumbags, precisely because cheating is considered to be a grave moral (if not legal) crime. Outing them is considered justice. The idea that some of them might use the service with the consent of their partner isn't enough to break through that, nor is the idea that two wrongs don't make a right.
I don't agree with the gleeful reaction, but I see no hypocrisy here.