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Nick Farr's 30c3 Jake Appelbaum story of abuse and harassment

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Re: Nick Farr's 30c3 Jake Appelbaum story of abuse and harassment

#31

Post by danso »

nickfarr wrote: post #25
danso wrote: post #12

> One person following this pattern submitted an LT proposal alleging that Jake was a US Intelligence Operative. I LOLed. After a few rounds of encrypted e-mail pestering and a few texts, they insisted on being put on the schedule. I did so to appease, as was my strategy at the time, with every intention of pulling them off after they inevitably failed to follow directions. You can go look at the wiki histories for a…

I guess I didn't make this clear enough in the post, but I had no intention of letting the talk go forward unless the presenter could bring up some really solid evidence of some sort. Slides, some kind of visual element or documentation were required to earn/keep your LT slot and, for understandable reasons, some people wait until the last minute to submit the final draft of those. To be crass, I threw this person on…

Thanks for sharing your experience and speaking out. I'm sorry for sounding overly critical of you...not all organizations have the capacity/resources to be run in an ordered way, and some things are done ad-hoc until they're popular enough for a more formal system (as lightning talks generally are in various conferences). While I can see why JA would be offended/paranoid by the very contemplation of the topic, I reiterate that does not at all justify the level of continued hostility, or the demands for you to violate the privacy of the proposal's submitter.

Re: Nick Farr's 30c3 Jake Appelbaum story of abuse and harassment

#32

Post by noodnik »

lucb1e wrote: post #19
daxorid wrote: post #18

The notes left on his hotel bed daily are the strangest part. Implying Jake is a Fed, or his supporters were actively compromising his physical security?

Yeah I'm not sure whether to believe that part. If I found notes on my pillow, I'd nope the fuck out of there and either go back to the conference or the police station. In any case, that story would not have ended where it does now.

Well, consider the probably weak as fuck physical security of hotels and their cheesy mag-stripe keys.

In your own home, it's one thing. On the road it might not strike everyone as quite so shocking.

Re: Nick Farr's 30c3 Jake Appelbaum story of abuse and harassment

#33

Post by zer00eyz »

> I want to be part of a community where this kind of behavior isn’t tolerated from the inception. I want to be part of a community where incidents like this are addressed promptly and fairly and not dismissed as “drama”. Admittedly, I could have done more to make this happen...

First of all shit happens.

Second, anyone who ever finds them selves in these situations, STAND UP and keep standing up.

Last, I hope Nick finds the will to go back... He seems to have the support of the community, and has the opportunity to make more like what he wants, and it should be. It is NOT too late.

Re: Nick Farr's 30c3 Jake Appelbaum story of abuse and harassment

#35

Post by rdl »

gravypod wrote: post #34

> one even took his own life after Jake stole his research Who was this?

Pretty obvious, although not my story to tell. Hint: not aaronsw. Fortunately the set of hackers/computer security people in this social circle who have killed themselves in the past 15y is still fairly small.

Re: Nick Farr's 30c3 Jake Appelbaum story of abuse and harassment

#36

Post by ForHackernews »

smm2000 wrote: post #30
ForHackernews wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, you don't exactly have to be a government agent to sneak into a hotel room. "Hey, I think I lost my keycard, can you run me another one? The name's Farr...room 221."

And it's all on video camera (pretty much all hotel lobbies have them), whoever made a copy of a key remember it, etc. Many hotel corridors have cameras too. It's not as easy as you think to get copy of the key and enter the room without leaving evidences.

Who says they did it without leaving evidence? I'm sure there's security camera footage somewhere (presumably deleted by now, but maybe not). It's not like they're going to put out an INTERPOL warrant based on some grainy security camera footage of just-another-dude-with-a-beard walking into a hotel room.

Re: Nick Farr's 30c3 Jake Appelbaum story of abuse and harassment

#37

Post by 1024core »

chris_wot wrote: post #5

If you ever deal with a sociopath, just learn to accept that nothing you can do will defeat them and get the hell away from this person as quickly as you possibly can. I've dealt with three people in my life who I consider sociopaths or pyschopaths. The first time I had no idea what to expect, so it was a massive shock. The second time, I watched them turn on me incredibly rapidly, and from going from being supportiv…

Thanks for sharing.

I left a sociopath 10 years ago... and I still have angry feelings towards him. That bastard would be so charming and nice to your face; meanwhile, he was sabotaging my career behind my back, while I trusted him completely. His goal was to replace the CTO of our small company; and he knew that as long as I was around, the CEO wouldn't give in to his blackmail. So he set about poisoning the CEO about me.

We worked mostly on government contracts. The CEO had cofounded another company (with blessings of the directors), and wanted some source code that we had worked on. I wasn't sure if it was legal to share the code, so I went to the Sociopath and asked him (since he had been there longer than me). He told me, in clear terms, that we were not supposed to share the code. So I tried to ignore the CEO's order, buying time, putting him off. Little did I know that Sociopath had gone to the CEO and told him that, for whatever reason I did not want to give him the code, despite his repeated requests for me to do so. Things simmered for a few weeks, until one day the CEO dresses me down in public: why are you not giving me the code, when Sociopath has also told you to? I was shocked; and then things started falling into place. I realized that for the last year or two, he had been slowly poisoning CEO against me. Little incidents that seemed strange now suddenly started making sense.

Fuck this shit, I said, and quit after a few weeks. After taking some time off to heal, I found another job and washed my hands off that shitty gig.

Re: Nick Farr's 30c3 Jake Appelbaum story of abuse and harassment

#38

Post by rdl »

djcapelis wrote: post #27
rdl wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was equally slow to fully believe Nick until he posted details (which he did). In general I'll evaluate someone's own claims on their merit (including personal credibility), but am a lot less likely to base actions on third party hearsay. If any of the rape accusers posts a similarly detailed account with verifiable facts (easier under his or her own name, but still can be anonymous) those can be taken seriously to…

Hey Ryan, Let me just start by saying I think you're a totally reasonable person and I respect your thoughts,[1] so let's talk some more about why we've come down seeing things a bit differently here. So first off, I think that I've seen a lot more consistency from you than from other parts of the Internet. And that's cool, consistency is worth doing and I also agree skepticism is good. It's a value I hold. It's a va…

I'd generally agree that sexual claims are taken more skeptically, and that the way they're dismissed tends to be different (and gendered). Ironically while sexual claims are dismissed more, male-victim sexual claims are dismissed even more than female-victim sexual claims (although female-victim is more common, outside prison/military). I see this more as a sexual/violence/sexual-violence vs. professional ethics/other difference.

In this specific case, I think you'll see non-sexual claims from men and women treated the same (although trolls probably dismiss them in a gender-specific way, i.e. going after Andrea's appearance and after Nick in other ways). I don't think ethical issues other than sexual issues would be treated/believed substantially differently based on the gender of the victim here.

(I also think a lot of people are uncomfortable discussing sexual violence related problems, so while those certainly need to be addressed as well, if some people only want to focus on the plagiarism/ethics/work-stealing/etc. aspects, that seems like it could still be positive. Doesn't mean other people can't pursue the sexual/violence related issues with a person.)

Re: Nick Farr's 30c3 Jake Appelbaum story of abuse and harassment

#39

Post by quanticle »

ForHackernews wrote: post #22
daxorid wrote: post #18

The notes left on his hotel bed daily are the strangest part. Implying Jake is a Fed, or his supporters were actively compromising his physical security?

I mean, you don't exactly have to be a government agent to sneak into a hotel room. "Hey, I think I lost my keycard, can you run me another one? The name's Farr...room 221."

Which is why most reputable hotels will ask for a photo ID when running a new key. At least that's the procedure I had to go through when I last forgot my keys in my hotel room and locked myself out.

Re: Nick Farr's 30c3 Jake Appelbaum story of abuse and harassment

#40

Post by Twirrim »

nickfarr wrote: post #29
9918819911 wrote: post #8

I get the impression that almost everyone in this space overreacts and throws dirt at each other. Here is how others of the Tor project reacted in a similar situation: https://pando.com/2014/11/14/tor-smear/

This is why it took me so long to come out with this story. The last thing I want to do is put myself out there only to be dismissed as part of a larger smear campaign (as I was at the time.) Further: This is a direct description of what I have come to know as Jake's M.O. Not an isolated incident. This has to do with one person's behavior, it has nothing to do with the projects that person was involved with. Maybe wh…

Life is too short to waste it spending time either around, or dealing with, toxic people!
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