The hack-attackers that targeted Ashley Madison, known as “The Impact Team,” did not only release customer information, but also a trove of 197,000 emails from the inbox of CEO Noel Biderman, among other documents.
Uncovered by the Daily Dot was an internal memo listing a shell company called Pernimus Limited, which is described as one of Avid Life Media’s legal assets. The company signed a 10-year lease for an escort website called Escorts.ca in 2013 that had remained active until Tuesday evening, when it was suspended without explanation.
Other correspondence uncovered also show Avid Life Media executives were actively recruiting escorts for another of their websites, “Arrangement Finders,” a website catering to sugar daddy scenarios. The slogan of the website was just as blunt as their other sites, advertising, “Intimacy with a Twi$t.”
“Tested out sending emails to 20 escorts. Along the lines of ‘you look amazing. I’m traveling on business. Are you on AF [Arrangement Finders]? I use that service when I travel for similar encounters,’” an employee named John Santoro wrote in an email to Biderman.
“I got back 5 replies,” Santoro said. “I’m getting Eros.com scraped for escorts (India),” he added, referring to another online escort directory. “Now, we have a list [of] real indy escorts that could hear about AF on a constant basis. … We might be able to do this semi-legit.”
“Smart,” replied Biderman.
Another email thread between Biderman, Santoro, and four other employees seemed to mock the very real issue of human trafficking.
“Who are these guys and why would they spend so much time and resources going after us…haha,” ALM’s marketing manager, Binu Koshy wrote.
“Perhaps we should start targeting cities with the largest human traffic organizations,” Santoro wrote.
