Archive for September, 2015

On Suicide and Ashley Madison

Suicide is a difficult topic to discuss. It has claimed many well-known individuals in society at large and in information security. It is a difficult topic for me to discuss since one of my best friends in college committed suicide just a few years ago, something I still struggle to talk about. As many of you know, I am a veteran, and far too many of my fellow veterans have also taken their own lives, at a rate far higher than the population at large. There have been a number of high-profile suicides in my home town recently…

It’s been about 3 1/2 weeks since the dump was released. In a random selection of 20-37 million people matching Ashley Madison’s user demographics, at least 250 to over 400 people have committed suicide. If three Ashley Madison users have committed suicide, they would have a suicide rate 1/100th that of the population at large. What’s going on?

No Comments