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Jacob Appelbaum’s response to accusations by the Tor community

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Re: Jacob Appelbaum’s response to accusations by the Tor community

#11

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

rdl wrote: post #10

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.

OK, what would you do, then?

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.

Re: Jacob Appelbaum’s response to accusations by the Tor community

#12

Post by reitanqild »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #11
rdl wrote: post #10

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.

OK, what would you do, then? 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 import…

Report it to the police for one. (Ref Assange.)

Re: Jacob Appelbaum’s response to accusations by the Tor community

#13

Post by DanBC »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #11
rdl wrote: post #10

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.

OK, what would you do, then? 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 import…

There's a difference between creating attack sites and letting people know there's a problem with a person.

The attack sites reduce the credibility of the claims to me.

Re: Jacob Appelbaum’s response to accusations by the Tor community

#14

Post by petertodd »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #11
rdl wrote: post #10

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.

OK, what would you do, then? 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 import…

> And if they don't group their stories together, then it looks like there's few accusations against him.

As long as the accusations on that site are made anonymously, it doesn't look like there are any concrete accusations against him.

Re: Jacob Appelbaum’s response to accusations by the Tor community

#15

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

petertodd wrote: post #14
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, what would you do, then? 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 import…

> And if they don't group their stories together, then it looks like there's few accusations against him. As long as the accusations on that site are made anonymously, it doesn't look like there are any concrete accusations against him.

If the accusations weren't anonymous, then that puts the people making them at risk of reprisals.

As with everything involved in talking about abuse, you are damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Re: Jacob Appelbaum’s response to accusations by the Tor community

#16

Post by DanBC »

chris_wot wrote: post #9

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.

Look how how rape victims are treated by police and the courts.

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.

Re: Jacob Appelbaum’s response to accusations by the Tor community

#17

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

DanBC wrote: post #13
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, what would you do, then? 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 import…

There's a difference between creating attack sites and letting people know there's a problem with a person. The attack sites reduce the credibility of the claims to me.

What is that difference, exactly?

Re: Jacob Appelbaum’s response to accusations by the Tor community

#19

Post by petertodd »

smartbit wrote: post #6
byoogle wrote: post #2

Previously: 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11831629 2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11837901

3. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11842301 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…

> "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."

I think this shows how putting your reputation on the line when you accuse someone makes the accusation itself far more powerful and likely to believed; remember that no-one has yet publicly and non-anonymously(1) accused him of rape directly, but rather, have only said that others have accused him.

I hope that if these allegations are true, people in addition to Nick Farr will have the bravery to go public with them - that's what's needed to actually put a stop to abusers.

1) In this context, "non-anonymously" includes commonly used pseudonyms of course - the legal names of people aren't what's important, but rather the identities they commonly use.

Re: Jacob Appelbaum’s response to accusations by the Tor community

#20

Post by petertodd »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #15
petertodd wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And if they don't group their stories together, then it looks like there's few accusations against him. As long as the accusations on that site are made anonymously, it doesn't look like there are any concrete accusations against him.

If the accusations weren't anonymous, then that puts the people making them at risk of reprisals. As with everything involved in talking about abuse, you are damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Agreed.

In cases like this with multiple alleged victims, if everyone goes public with allegations at the same time that can reduce the risk of of reprisals; I hope that's what's actually going to happen here, rather than this being a smear campaign.

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