So far, the only thing I'm fairly sure of is the "jacobappelbaum.net" and "@DieJakeDie" social media efforts are doing more harm than good, and were a horrible idea.
They might make a not-extremely-guilty person look worse than he is, or make a horrible person somehow sympathetic to people who think he's "also a victim", but they don't help.
For what it's worth, the web site denies involvement with the twitter account:
> I SAW SOME DIFFERENT TWITTER ACCOUNTS CLAIMING TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS SITE. IS THAT YOU?
> No. Since it is no longer possible to create a Twitter acocunt without a phone number and because we believe anonymity is important, we opted to boycott direct Twitter presence for this site. We don't have a Twitter account.
> We have seen the accounts you're talking about and they aren't associated with us. We don't know who is running them, and some of us are disturbed by their incendiary statements and graphics. We don't condone calls for violence or for Jake to self-harm.
If the people he's exploited stay silent, then he can keep doing it!
Going through the legal system isn't much help in a community which is distrustful of it.
Complaining to the person in question, well, they've tried that, and it did nothing.
And if they don't group their stories together, then it's harder for people to find the accusations against him. There is strength, and more importantly in this case, credibility, in numbers.
Perhaps Lewman was unaware (this seems unlikely given the DailyDot article's reporting of "mishandling" or "botching" the situation), but it would surprise me if someone with that orientation turned a blind eye to the alleged behavior.
In cases like these, most people (like me) who read these exchanges have no idea what is true and what is not. Either there is rape or not. If not, there is libel and slander. In any case Internet publicity is not correct place to get justice.
There is a pretty clear common theme displayed on the Twitter accounts of people that are in this community and know each other personally. These are also not outsiders but trusted members of the community. So far the response is either silence or acknowledgement of the accusations. This is not a trail but it looks like the attempt to remove a toxic person from this community to prevent harm to others. This does not mean that he is guilty of the accusations but a lot of persons related to CCC congress, hackers, Tor members univocally agree that it's a good idea to have him step down and exclude him. There seems to be enough personal backstories that everyone seem to agree it's the right thing to do.
At least that's my impression from the outside. This is not some kind of government orchestrated smear campaign, rather an effort to prevent harm.
In cases like this where it is word against word, I think it is important as an outsider to hedge your bet. Act as if the allegations are true and false at the same time.
Assuming they are true: make sure to create a safe space (virtually, in real live, and in discourse) for potential victims. Don't put the accused person on sensitive community functions. Take (this and further) accusations very seriously. If someone doesn't want to deal with him, don't push the matter and don't ask why. You want to avoid retraumatization of potential victims, and you want to create a climate where affected people can feel safe. You should give people raising these accusations the benefit of doubt, and resist the urge to dig for proof or to argue about what actually happened or not. Especially given how hard it is for victims to get recognition and justice by going through the "official" channels, i.e. court. (This is basically the idea that is discussed as "power of definition" among feminists in Germany; I'm not sure how it's referred to in other countries, a quick search didn't come up with much.)
Assuming they are false: It's rarer than most people think that accusations of sexual abuse are falsely raised, but it is still a possibility. Especially given that he is a exposed public figure and possible target for "character assassination". Any scenario could be possible, from personal revenge to a smear campaign by an intelligence agency. One should protect oneself from this possibility, whether it is real or not. Don't exclude him from your communities. Don't stop using his software, don't judge or punish him. Don't give him the punishment of shunning.
Basically you have to do an impossible balancing act. You don't want to perpetuate this patriarchal shit that lets men often get away with sexualized violence. But you also don't want whoever might be abusing this claim (agencies, personal enemies, ...) to win. So the only sane course is to be all about protection of victims, providing a safe space etc., but not punishing anybody.
I once was on a committee to craft a sexual assault and harassment policy for a small organization. It was an impossible task: You can't expose others, and especially the alleged victim, to a violent felon; imagine if they struck again! You also can't cost someone their job, residence, or reputation over an unsubstantiated allegation. And a small organization lacks the resources to do a valid investigation, conduct hearings, etc.
You absolutely can and should treat the complainant with respect and support; nobody accused them of a crime and they should not be treated with suspicion or doubt.
> It's rarer than most people think that accusations of sexual abuse are falsely raised, but it is still a possibility.
Disclaimer: it seems to me the claims are true.
That said:
I don't think the above observation has a great deal of predictive value in this context, where "this context" is "sexual assault allegations against a public figure". The fact that most sexual assault allegations picked out of all sexual assault allegations happen to be true, does not tell you much about sexual assault allegations against public figures when the ratio of reported sexual assaults against public figures to the number of reported sexual assaults in total, is very, very low.
Indeed, every sexual assault allegation against a public figure could be false, and it wouldn't move the needle at all on the likelihood that the typical allegation is true.
> Any scenario could be possible, from personal revenge to a smear campaign by an intelligence agency.
It's also worth being aware of the possibility that Jacob Appelbaum is himself an agent of an intelligence agency (either a plant, or someone turned informant once they realized they could blackmail him and that a creep is a useful informant), and his behavior is a way to maintain his power and in turn the intelligence agency's.
"But really, I thought, why would Jake be so defensive about some random [lightning talk] that might have otherwise gone completely unnoticed? If I were a government operative hell-bent on destroying the global hacker community, what would I do differently from what Jake is doing now?"
I don't think this is particularly likely over the simpler explanation that he's a non-government-affiliated creep, but if we're going to give credence to "A government agency that hates Tor was behind this," it's worth looking at all the possible ways a government agency might get an advantage out of the situation.
with this [0] notable comment "Now that Nick has written his story however, it goes back on the front page of HN and the comments here basically support it as totally credible. ... Don't get me wrong, I very very much think that Nick should write up his story and feelings. But I think a lot of people need to examine themselves closely for why they couldn't believe the women who shared their stories yesterday, but now can today."
Jake doesn't mention Nick Farr's accusation. I've been missing Nick the last years at C3 too. Now I know Nick's side of the story, I wonder how the CCC Vorstand [1] and Jake react to censoring the Lightning Talk?
First, both the accusers and the accused should have their day in court. It should not be debated any other way.
That being said the TOR project had an obligation to be transparent about this situation and failed to do so..
Some of us do in fact run open source projects and should we abide by TOR's example when we are confronted with the situation of accusations of illegal acts by a project contributor?
Courts aren't about truth finding, they're about establishing whether there's enough evidence that a specific crime was committed. Something like Nick Farr's story[1] is, if true, not against the law, but it does display behaviour that can be really detrimental to a community.
> the TOR project had an obligation to be transparent about this situation and failed to do so..
You can't always be transparent.
* Publicizing a victim's rape, or their names, without their consent is considered publicly shaming them. It's a very bad idea.
* Publicizing an accusation against someone that you can't substantiate, especially something very damaging to their reputation such as rape, could be slander. You could be sued (and rightfully so).
* Publicizing any private HR issues is also often illegal and/or wrong.
Maybe Jacob Appelbaum raped someone, maybe he didn't. That's not anyone's business except Appelbaum's, his accusers', and the legal system's. It certainly is not a public concern, and it's irrelevant to Tor.
I found it interesting to read. Appelbaum is relatively well-known in tech circles, and I use HN to keep me updated on "what goes on in tech circles" -- whether that's gossip or new technological developments.
The destructive and destabilizing force of an abusive, possibly sexually, actor in a community, especially in an authority position has historically proven to be far more harmful to communities than whatever objective work they contribute. Bad actors engender the long term viability of a movement.
Personally I don't even think these stories should be on HN... nothing good can come from them because all anyone can offer is pure speculation.
Now, in the interest of speculation, I have some conspiracy theories to suggest. Normally I wouldn't post conspiracy theories, but I think conspiracies have way more validity when you're talking about the security community.
1) Jacob Appelbaum works for an intelligence service and was compromised, and this is their way of pulling him from the field
2) Jacob Appelbaum works for an intelligence service and was compromised, and this is a rival intelligence service's way of pulling him from the field
3) Jacob Appelbaum does not work for an intelligence service, but rather is the victim of a smearing campaign by an intelligence service
My personal opinion is that the guy is an asshole, his (ex-)friends are fed up with him, and they severely overstepped their bounds in attacking him. The line about "what you have to do with a sociopath" (paraphrasing) was particularly alarming for me; that was a clear signal of desire for vindication.
It was flagged by users and set off some software penalties.
I'm not convinced that this story belongs on Hacker News. The mandate of the site is "stories that gratify intellectual curiosity", and it seems pretty clear that both the curiosity and gratification here are more voyeuristic than intellectual. Arguably the appropriate scope for the story would be the smaller online community of people who are personally and professionally affected by it.
On the other hand, the HN community is clearly interested, Tor is a longstanding topic here, the discussion has been better than it might (edit: though it has now gotten significantly worse), and if we're going to have it at all we shouldn't have only one side of it. So I've turned off flagging on this post and reduced the software penalties.
> Not only have I been the target of a fake website in my name that has falsely accused me of serious crimes, but I have also received death threats (including a Twitter handle entitled ‘TimeToDieJake’).
Credit where credit is due - the guy has learned his lesson about how to properly play the part of the social media victim.
This is a pretty heated subject. Could you back any of these statements up in a substantial way?
> with enough female witnesses it's usually easy to get a conviction out of a jury
> men are regularly released when DNA evidence shows they were wrongly convicted based on one woman's word.
Finally, do you know more about this situation than what's in the articles? Otherwise, I have to question your ability to judge the alleged victims, their motives, or their actions. Based only on reading what's on the Internet, I'd feel I was far overstepping my bounds by judging anyone on anything.
This ginned-up gender conflict is neither germane nor relevant to the discussion; comments like these are a big part of the reason these Appelbaum threads on HN are so awful.
I guess I'm just trying to understand why police weren't involved. There a story on the blog he refers to of him taking advantage of a woman when they were completely intoxicated and allegations she was raped by him and his friends.
Most people don't go to the police when they're assaulted by someone they know, especially when it's someone who's very well-known and powerful within the community (think of how long it took for Cosby's allegations to become public).
Additionally, this is also the hacking community. Most hackers don't trust the police at all.
rdl|9 years ago
They might make a not-extremely-guilty person look worse than he is, or make a horrible person somehow sympathetic to people who think he's "also a victim", but they don't help.
moyix|9 years ago
> I SAW SOME DIFFERENT TWITTER ACCOUNTS CLAIMING TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS SITE. IS THAT YOU?
> No. Since it is no longer possible to create a Twitter acocunt without a phone number and because we believe anonymity is important, we opted to boycott direct Twitter presence for this site. We don't have a Twitter account.
> We have seen the accounts you're talking about and they aren't associated with us. We don't know who is running them, and some of us are disturbed by their incendiary statements and graphics. We don't condone calls for violence or for Jake to self-harm.
TazeTSchnitzel|9 years ago
If the people he's exploited stay silent, then he can keep doing it!
Going through the legal system isn't much help in a community which is distrustful of it.
Complaining to the person in question, well, they've tried that, and it did nothing.
And if they don't group their stories together, then it's harder for people to find the accusations against him. There is strength, and more importantly in this case, credibility, in numbers.
gohrt|9 years ago
That is obvious form the name, before considering the content at all.
justcommenting|9 years ago
Notably, Lewman volunteers at Transition House (http://boston.cbslocal.com/2014/10/01/technology-used-as-wea...), founded IPVTech (Intimate Partner Violence tech), and appears to work/volunteer with other organizations associated with victims of domestic and/or sexual abuse (http://wiki.lewman.is/CV#work-with-trauma-victims-including-...).
Perhaps Lewman was unaware (this seems unlikely given the DailyDot article's reporting of "mishandling" or "botching" the situation), but it would surprise me if someone with that orientation turned a blind eye to the alleged behavior.
nabla9|9 years ago
nisa|9 years ago
At least that's my impression from the outside. This is not some kind of government orchestrated smear campaign, rather an effort to prevent harm.
captainmuon|9 years ago
Assuming they are true: make sure to create a safe space (virtually, in real live, and in discourse) for potential victims. Don't put the accused person on sensitive community functions. Take (this and further) accusations very seriously. If someone doesn't want to deal with him, don't push the matter and don't ask why. You want to avoid retraumatization of potential victims, and you want to create a climate where affected people can feel safe. You should give people raising these accusations the benefit of doubt, and resist the urge to dig for proof or to argue about what actually happened or not. Especially given how hard it is for victims to get recognition and justice by going through the "official" channels, i.e. court. (This is basically the idea that is discussed as "power of definition" among feminists in Germany; I'm not sure how it's referred to in other countries, a quick search didn't come up with much.)
Assuming they are false: It's rarer than most people think that accusations of sexual abuse are falsely raised, but it is still a possibility. Especially given that he is a exposed public figure and possible target for "character assassination". Any scenario could be possible, from personal revenge to a smear campaign by an intelligence agency. One should protect oneself from this possibility, whether it is real or not. Don't exclude him from your communities. Don't stop using his software, don't judge or punish him. Don't give him the punishment of shunning.
Basically you have to do an impossible balancing act. You don't want to perpetuate this patriarchal shit that lets men often get away with sexualized violence. But you also don't want whoever might be abusing this claim (agencies, personal enemies, ...) to win. So the only sane course is to be all about protection of victims, providing a safe space etc., but not punishing anybody.
hackuser|9 years ago
You absolutely can and should treat the complainant with respect and support; nobody accused them of a crime and they should not be treated with suspicion or doubt.
deciplex|9 years ago
Disclaimer: it seems to me the claims are true.
That said:
I don't think the above observation has a great deal of predictive value in this context, where "this context" is "sexual assault allegations against a public figure". The fact that most sexual assault allegations picked out of all sexual assault allegations happen to be true, does not tell you much about sexual assault allegations against public figures when the ratio of reported sexual assaults against public figures to the number of reported sexual assaults in total, is very, very low.
Indeed, every sexual assault allegation against a public figure could be false, and it wouldn't move the needle at all on the likelihood that the typical allegation is true.
unknown|9 years ago
[deleted]
geofft|9 years ago
It's also worth being aware of the possibility that Jacob Appelbaum is himself an agent of an intelligence agency (either a plant, or someone turned informant once they realized they could blackmail him and that a creep is a useful informant), and his behavior is a way to maintain his power and in turn the intelligence agency's.
Argument 1: https://inciteblog.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/why-misogynists-...
Argument 2: https://medium.com/@nickf4rr/hi-im-nick-farr-nickf4rr-35c32f...
"But really, I thought, why would Jake be so defensive about some random [lightning talk] that might have otherwise gone completely unnoticed? If I were a government operative hell-bent on destroying the global hacker community, what would I do differently from what Jake is doing now?"
I don't think this is particularly likely over the simpler explanation that he's a non-government-affiliated creep, but if we're going to give credence to "A government agency that hates Tor was behind this," it's worth looking at all the possible ways a government agency might get an advantage out of the situation.
byoogle|9 years ago
1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11831629
2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11837901
smartbit|9 years ago
with this [0] notable comment "Now that Nick has written his story however, it goes back on the front page of HN and the comments here basically support it as totally credible. ... Don't get me wrong, I very very much think that Nick should write up his story and feelings. But I think a lot of people need to examine themselves closely for why they couldn't believe the women who shared their stories yesterday, but now can today."
Jake doesn't mention Nick Farr's accusation. I've been missing Nick the last years at C3 too. Now I know Nick's side of the story, I wonder how the CCC Vorstand [1] and Jake react to censoring the Lightning Talk?
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11842977
[1] http://www.ccc.de/vorstand
fredgrott|9 years ago
First, both the accusers and the accused should have their day in court. It should not be debated any other way.
That being said the TOR project had an obligation to be transparent about this situation and failed to do so..
Some of us do in fact run open source projects and should we abide by TOR's example when we are confronted with the situation of accusations of illegal acts by a project contributor?
y7|9 years ago
1: https://medium.com/@nickf4rr/hi-im-nick-farr-nickf4rr-35c32f...
hackuser|9 years ago
You can't always be transparent.
* Publicizing a victim's rape, or their names, without their consent is considered publicly shaming them. It's a very bad idea.
* Publicizing an accusation against someone that you can't substantiate, especially something very damaging to their reputation such as rape, could be slander. You could be sued (and rightfully so).
* Publicizing any private HR issues is also often illegal and/or wrong.
bsder|9 years ago
So you fire anyone who gets accused of something? Hope you are a big fan of the Salem Witch Trials.
The US operates on innocent until proven guilty for a reason.
throwaw11122334|9 years ago
https://github.com/cephurs/jacobappelbaum.net
Cephurs was an op in a channel run by the law enforcement folks who took down LulzSec:
http://www.xeroflux.net/uploads/Operation_Anon_Rat.pdf
Kinda suspicious.
grapehut|9 years ago
googlefushift2|9 years ago
[deleted]
devishard|9 years ago
Maybe Jacob Appelbaum raped someone, maybe he didn't. That's not anyone's business except Appelbaum's, his accusers', and the legal system's. It certainly is not a public concern, and it's irrelevant to Tor.
y7|9 years ago
PollenBull|9 years ago
legodt|9 years ago
daxorid|9 years ago
Fej|9 years ago
DyslexicAtheist|9 years ago
https://twitter.com/ValbonneConsult/status/74046605073149952...
https://twitter.com/ValbonneConsult/status/74046629719723212...
Also whatever he might have done will now be drowned out by these false accusations. Mob mentality is as bad as whatever he might have done.
jubalfh|9 years ago
WhatIsThisIm12|9 years ago
Now, in the interest of speculation, I have some conspiracy theories to suggest. Normally I wouldn't post conspiracy theories, but I think conspiracies have way more validity when you're talking about the security community.
So, check out these links:
- https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/
- https://theintercept.com/document/2014/02/24/art-deception-t...
Then consider these conspiracy theories:
1) Jacob Appelbaum works for an intelligence service and was compromised, and this is their way of pulling him from the field
2) Jacob Appelbaum works for an intelligence service and was compromised, and this is a rival intelligence service's way of pulling him from the field
3) Jacob Appelbaum does not work for an intelligence service, but rather is the victim of a smearing campaign by an intelligence service
My personal opinion is that the guy is an asshole, his (ex-)friends are fed up with him, and they severely overstepped their bounds in attacking him. The line about "what you have to do with a sociopath" (paraphrasing) was particularly alarming for me; that was a clear signal of desire for vindication.
Chris2048|9 years ago
How do you determine this?
dang|9 years ago
Houshalter|9 years ago
The real number is impossible to determine, but is uncomfortably high.
elcapitan|9 years ago
dang|9 years ago
I'm not convinced that this story belongs on Hacker News. The mandate of the site is "stories that gratify intellectual curiosity", and it seems pretty clear that both the curiosity and gratification here are more voyeuristic than intellectual. Arguably the appropriate scope for the story would be the smaller online community of people who are personally and professionally affected by it.
On the other hand, the HN community is clearly interested, Tor is a longstanding topic here, the discussion has been better than it might (edit: though it has now gotten significantly worse), and if we're going to have it at all we shouldn't have only one side of it. So I've turned off flagging on this post and reduced the software penalties.
nikcub|9 years ago
fgadsuhopmfup|9 years ago
[deleted]
44458427|9 years ago
[deleted]
venomsnake|9 years ago
Credit where credit is due - the guy has learned his lesson about how to properly play the part of the social media victim.
reverend|9 years ago
[deleted]
nickpsecurity|9 years ago
[deleted]
dang|9 years ago
hackuser|9 years ago
> with enough female witnesses it's usually easy to get a conviction out of a jury
> men are regularly released when DNA evidence shows they were wrongly convicted based on one woman's word.
Finally, do you know more about this situation than what's in the articles? Otherwise, I have to question your ability to judge the alleged victims, their motives, or their actions. Based only on reading what's on the Internet, I'd feel I was far overstepping my bounds by judging anyone on anything.
tptacek|9 years ago
geofft|9 years ago
powera|9 years ago
https://medium.com/@frabyn/decoding-jake-appelbaum-9fa75d060...
rue|9 years ago
> I can’t directly say the allegations are false.
Then, a few lines below, the author quotes Applebaum as saying:
>> I want to be clear: the accusations of criminal sexual misconduct against me are entirely false.
I’m not taking sides here (it’s important that possible abuse is brought to light!) but this lawyer is straining his credibility.
rmeyers|9 years ago
Open source projects are completely ruined these days by the ballast that surrounds them and drags them down.
SeanLuke|9 years ago
bitL|9 years ago
Natanael_L|9 years ago
GFK_of_xmaspast|9 years ago
chris_wot|9 years ago
jmcgough|9 years ago
Additionally, this is also the hacking community. Most hackers don't trust the police at all.
DanBC|9 years ago
It's not surprising that people are reluctant to report rape and sexual assault.
Here's one, where the perpetrator was seen by other people assaulting someone who was passed out drunk: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/06/stanford-sexu...
He still said the sex was consensual, and his lawyers put that women through hell.