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I absolutely agree. Iām just worried that in rare instances, a story like this could be a setup - and Appelbaum sounds just like the kind of person ātheyā would target.
Better than my usual Judge Death razor: Only the living commit crime, time to cease all life to stop crime.
Difference is, mine works.
Hereās the one story that has a name on it:
This story does not involve sexual abuse, but it reads very similar in its characterization of Appelbaum as the other stories that do involve sexual abuse.
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And itās pretty obvious heās a real person, not some kind of penis-operative. Yuk.
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Yeah, I veered on the conspiracy theory before Farr put his name on it. If Farr is a plant, itās a veeeery long game. Occam says thereās a simpler, if ugly, truth.
To be honest, the whole thing reframes the Assange affaire as well. Iām still convinced they are after him, but moving in the same circles people can reinforce their bad behaviours and persuade themselves that something is acceptable when itās not. (This said, it doesnāt take away the fact that Assange has been fundamentally mistreated by the justice and political system of two countries, regardless of what he might or might not have done, the legal definition of foobar etc etc.)
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I trust Nick Farrs opinion more that Jacob Appelbaums, and Iām saddened he has been treated this way.
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Uh, no. A core Tor developer, in the Wired piece, lists three times she was personally sexually harassed by him.
She then goes on to state that she spoke directly to one of his alleged rape victims and believes the personās account.
Yes, folks should go to the police, but Andrea is not some government shill.
Caveat: Like Cory, Iāve known Jake about ten years and have considered him a friend of mine, even though we havenāt spoken in the flesh in about four or five years. I find this whole thing rather distressing but I also canāt rule out that it is true.
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Considering who itās coming from, I very much doubt that. Without implying judgement on what actually happened (though, if there have been ongoing rumors, and multiple people coming out about it, itās very likely that it is true) I donāt think this is a government operation.
Iām aware that one of the people involved in Assangeās case is a known CIA asset, and I would actually be shocked if thatās whatās driving this.
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Wait, which men? All of them? Most of them?
Sadly, itās true. The need to urinate is universal.
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Very much debatable but I donāt want to thread jack this topic
Iām years removed from face to face contact with the western infosec big names but I do recall that a fair number that I used to know were interested in less than vanilla things. I donāt know if it goes with the territory or if times & standards have changed or maybe just apophenia. I guess Iām just far less surprised that allegations come up than Iām willing to see black helicopters here.
Yes?
I mean, martial fidelity is a done deal and guys donāt step out on their wives and girlfriends given half a chance ever!
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Then why say even this?
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Iāve been writing in support of a lack of a rush to judgment on this topic on FB, g+ and hacker news and a bit on reddit and now here for the last 24h or so. Itās been made very difficult for people to write in support of Jake. Whenever there are allegations of rape or sexual misconduct, or as Nick Farr has done, even putting the language of consent culture on his Medium piece ("What Jake Appelbaum did to me/Why I donāt feel safe in this community) as though he also had been molested/raped, one is left with the feeling that the accusers, like Caesarās wife, are above reproach.
And I am in favor of extending respect to the victims of sexual coercion. My generation fought hard for this. I am a woman who experienced problems of this sort: I was a rape victim. I sought and was turned down for a restraining order against a stalker who wanted me dead back in the 70s. I take this pretty seriously.
I also know what trauma does to a person and Iāve worked through a lot of those issues and Iāve seen others fall on their asses in that process in huge sucking vortexes of collateral damage. There are no good answers readily at hand here. No certainty. No heroes clearly marked out in black and white or 50 shades of gray.
And no, not even any villains clearly marked out by uniforms or earwires.
The hacker/hacktivist/cypherpunk community is full of personalities and drama llamas that are written very large. Scrawled. 3d printed, etched, outdoing each other for inventive ways to make a mark. We got egos and a surplus of opinions. We talk about guns, we chew our hair, we argue about the singularity, we stay up all night over munches and do not give up over freaking stupid points having to do with code design or politics. We lose friends over the kind of maker capacity a hackerspace should try to accommodate in a spare roomā¦Over decades we trade partners like pinochle tricks, if we engage in serial monogamy ā and the rest of us who get more adventurous leave more interesting tracks, and sometimes trails of broken promises and bad decisions. Our culture rests on risk management, and sometimes that ends up being social engineering and sometimes that fucks with the people in our life.
And somewhere, with some of us, that ends up falling into sociopathy. Oh. shit.
The meniscus between an ethical post conventional white hat social engineer and an ethical slut (read the book, itās out there) and the optics of abuse and sociopathic behavior are wafer thin, particularly in some of the alt.* communities we overlap into. Many of you know exactly what I am talking about.
So the problem with this whole thing isnāt (just) Jake. I donāt know from Jakeās personal life.
The problem is, the process. If we make it acceptable to do this kind of crap to Jake ā and donāt you freaking dare tell me this is a slippery slope argument ā this kind of thing goes after any of us. You, me, Xeni, Cory, Eben Moglen, rms, esr (ok, Iām showing my age), you fill in the blank with anyone.
Any privacy activist should spend some time in politics doing opposition research just so you value what we are fighting for. I could go after nearly anyone with online and offline methods and find enough to ruin the most tin hat among us with either real, or credible fabrications, in really short order, without even needing access to PRISM. Mostly with open sources. I did it to a Google VP during the #nymwars just to prove a point to him about the danger of real names (that was fun!).
We have met the provocateurs and they are us.
So we need to sit down and think. You know, with our brains, not our guts or our sentiments where ever those live.
Right now the case against Jake is entirely social engineered to make us not think, but react. Thereās no call to action but a call for hate. Thereās no contract. Look guys, hereās a web site with anonymous people calling for avoiding a state action (court) to deal with Jake as a predator. OK, Jake canāt object to anonymity or avoiding the state, youād think, as an Tor supporter and an anarchist.
No, actually. Anarchists work on contracts and agreements. To do justice in an anarchist community you must confront the problem in a moot, or through some contracted method that is negotiated, and the aggrieved parties or their proxies work out a solution.
As things are now, there is no end to the swirling knives and this is a mob. You have been invited to run riot. Until when? Who knows. Until itās TimeToDieJake (which has now been changed to VictimsOfJake, whatever). This is not a solution.
Itās toxic. If you canāt use the state, negotiate a contract. Donāt summon torches and pitchforks and hide in a high castle. Itās bad for the community, and it slanders anarchism for just what the press used to say we were.
There is no spoon. We can believe everyone at once and no one and still be right.
So until there is a case made, more than a bunch of people saying, YES THIS HAPPENED, and Damn he got pissed because I deleted some emails (and hey, Nick, what kind of hacker doesnāt know how to recover files/sectors to get those back yo?) and real forensics in some formal or contracted informal setting? We are obliged to have doubts.
Because if you donāt have a State judge involved, we are the Court of Public Opinion, and every one of us dons judgeās robes, and has that responsibility. Welcome to real honest to god working anarchism, ladies, gentlemen, and persons of note. The pay sucks but you donāt automatically have to go out and kill anyone until you know they did something.
Personally, I kinda feel better about that.
Otherwise, the torches and pitchforks are over there, and the little white hoods. And youāre part of the fucking mob.
Shava Nerad
founding executive director
The Tor Project
(speaking for self only ā left project in 2007, not a volunteer, havenāt seen Jake in years, just another interested party, but one of the few people in this mix who in retirement has no reputation to lose by speaking out)
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I wouldnāt be surprised if at some point in the past we may have had intersecting circles of acquaintances. You put the interesting aspects of personality so much better than I did above.
Charmed, Iām sure 
Mumble mumble to circumvent āemptyā post stylisation.
