Hell's members skyrocketed from 1,200 in May to 3,000 in June, growing at a rate of a hundred users everyday, according to Ping. "The forum isn't really 'hell,'" because it doesn't allow drugs, violence or child pornography.īeing the place where the hacked Adult Friend Finder database was posted was a big break for the Hell forum, which was launched in February. At the time she didn't say that Adult Friend Finder was the victim, but only said she had found a "treasure trove of hacked data" from an "adult social networking site" on an "excursion" through the dark web. In fact, she had even wrote about it on her blog in April. He justified his actions because the site "is a pervo website," and "had it coming"-no pun intended, maybe.īut Bev Robb, an independent security researcher, had known about it since the database was posted. The hacker also said he wasn't worried about authorities hunting him down, as he lived in Thailand. "Pay up or be fucked," the hacker wrote, demanding a ransom of $100,000. "This is for owing my guy $247,938.28 BITCH!!!!!!!!!!!" ROR wrote in the thread where he announced the breach, which has since been deleted. ROR claimed he was posting the database, which had apparently been stripped of credit card information, because Adult Friend Finder had a debt with a friend of his. The data came from the hack of the popular online hookup service Adult Friend Finder, which boasts of more than 60 million members. A one night stand, a swinger, a fuck buddy, someone looking for BDSM, webcam sex, or just somebody interested in regular 'ol dating? The files contained highly personal information about almost four million people, including their names, ages, email addresses, locations, and what kind of sexual partner they were looking for. The forum gained notoriety in early March, when a hacker only known as "ROR" dumped fifteen spreadsheets on a message board called "Hacked Data," whose motto is "sharing is caring." Hell, which can only be reached on the dark web, is "a community where criminals can share, learn and make money," the forum's founder and administrator, who only goes by the name "Ping," told me in an encrypted chat.