The Ashley Madison hack can cause legal trouble and even death: Adultery is illegal in many countries, with the law being harshly enforced. Photo / iStock
The Ashley Madison hack can cause legal trouble and even death: Adultery is illegal in many countries, with the law being harshly enforced. Photo / iStock
Predictably enough, everyone's tearing into the leaked of data from extramarital affairs site Ashley Madison now that it has been published on the internet.
The fallout from the hack is a massive wake-up call that all of us need to take greater care with our data - and that far better protection for it is needed.
Information from the Ashley Madison hack could be used to blackmail individuals, government staffers, and company employees, if it's sensitive enough. It can even cause legal trouble and death: Adultery is illegal in many countries, with the law being harshly enforced.
For instance in South Korea, which decriminalised adultery only this year, 5,500 people were convicted for adultery since 2008.
Luckily for those convicted, even though the South Korean law provided for two-year custodial sentences, few went to prison for adultery. Taiwan still hauls mainly women in front of courts for adultery, with private investigators doing "lifestyle audits", or spy on couples, for blackmail purposes.
People in other countries where adultery is a crime, especially women, face a far worse fate if their details are found in the dumped Ashley Madison database.
How bad? The United Nations working group on discrimination against women called on governments around the world to repeal laws that "allow the imposition of fines, imprisonment, flogging, death by stoning or hanging for adultery".
Adultery in some countries could mean a kiss, holding hands in public, or simply a man suggesting it took place, without any evidence as such.
In other words, the data leak could mean "honour killings" and other barbaric acts will happen. What's worse, the harsh penalties could be meted out against people who weren't even members of Ashley Madison, as the site did not verify user data.
The possibility of even one such casualty should be enough to wipe the smirks off the faces of those who think the leak means adulterers (men, mainly) get their just deserts and comeuppance, and also, reason for the authorities to investigate Ashley Madison and other sites that store personal information.
Gear: HP Colour LaserJet M227dw multifunction printer
The M227dw is aimed at small businesses, up to five people.
The paperless office isn't quite there yet, despite it being 2015 already, so it's a good thing that printers have become cheap and capable.
HP's Colour LaserJet M227dw has an impossible to remember name, but it works as advertised, being easy to set up and operate, with computers, smartphones and tablets, providing rather good printouts and heaps of features for a reasonable price - $400 to $450 if you shop around, which is great value for multifunction device with a colour laser printer.
The M227dw is aimed at small businesses, up to five people: any more and the relatively small amount of paper it can store, 150 sheets, becomes a limitation, ditto the recommended monthly page volume of 250 to 2,500 pages.
This isn't a big machine, and it's unobtrusively if not elegantly designed.
It's fully networked with wireless and wired connections, and was easy to set up for both Microsoft Windows and Apple OS X clients. There's a small touch screen on the M227dw to set up and manage the printer, or you can do it via a built in web-based administration tool.
Heaps of network print features are included for both Windows and Apple (Airprint) and while some require a bit of technical nous to figure out, the M227dw works straight out of the box in most cases for basic jobs.
HP provides print apps too for Apple iPhones and iPads, and Android devices; I tried them out and they print out well over Wi-Fi connections.
Print quality is very good being a laser, in both black and white and colour at the maximum 600 dots per inch resolution.
Text looks crisp and good, and although I didn't have the right paper, photos on standard stock came out much better than expected. Print speed as per ISO/IEC 24734 is 18 pages per minute, and the first sheets of paper come out of the M227dw in 12 to 13 seconds, which is very quick.
The M227dw isn't too noisy in operation either. Being a laser it will pass toner gas when printing, which some people don't like.
A built-in scanner lets you capture documents at up to a high 1,200 by 1,200 dot resolution, and it's fast too, with the ability to adjust colours, contrast and other settings and can be operated while printing. There's also a low resolution copier function in the M227dw.
But wait, there's more: a fax. I didn't try this out, because it's 2015 and I couldn't think of anyone who has a fax connected still. Oh, and I don't have a landline either. Guess it's nice to have though, should you need it.
Toner life is rated at 1,500 pages for the black and white cartridge, and 700pp for the colour ones, with HP's Jetintelligence tech promising to squeeze out 28 per cent more out of each.
HP wants you to buy the pukka cartridges they sell, and they're not cheap: the black and white cartridge costs $134 including GST, and the three colour ones $159 each. Whether or not you can use third-party toner cartridges is not sure, as HP has added what it calls "anti-fraud technology" to encourage users to buy its own-made supplies.
The expensive toner cartridges are the main drawbacks to an otherwise good small office printer with plenty of features and which is easy to set up and use, for a good price.
