Earlier this week, the personal information of millions of Ashley Madison users was leaked to the internet. There’s been a lot of talking points around the data, but one of the biggest insights gleaned from it is that people like to lie about their birthdays on the internet.
One in 12 Ashley Madison users were apparently born on New Year's Day, according to a Washington Post analysis of the data, which is a bit more than the 0.3 percent likelihood they were actually born on the first day of the new year. Other popular birthdays found in the data were repeats, such as February 2nd (2/2), March 3rd (3/3), April 4th (4/4), May 5th (5/5), and so on.
The Ashley Madison hack proves it: Everyone lies about their birthdays. http://t.co/7m8W6hQSYo pic.twitter.com/ojRwX5Hjkj
— Chris Cillizza (@TheFix) August 20, 2015
The most disappointing aspect of this revelation is that when it comes to making up birthdays, there's a massive lack of creativity. Thankfully, it's Hack Week at The Verge, so here's a random birthday generator, for the next time you need to provide a fake birthday.