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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

#111

Post by nickpsecurity »

bcg1 wrote: post #96
nickpsecurity wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a cop out. Actually, the legal system does help many rape victims when they have plenty of eyewitnesses backing up multiple accounts plus testimony from people like Nick Farr about character in general. Tweets, a smear site... these dont stop rapists. Cops and courts regularly do. Not always but many times. This is a police matter but treated as an internet game.

Unfortunately, neither of your statements is entirely true. There are many cases where law enforcement and the legal system fail victims in a variety of ways (e.g., blaming the victim, improper handling of rape kits, police themselves might be predators looking for victims to target, etc). To put ones faith and protection entirely in the hands of 'the authorities' would be a dogmatic insistence on a single point of f…

There is a risk where the law might fail. I could see an awareness campaign as an alternative strategy. Yet, tptacek already showed it works to tune of 60,000+ convictions a year here. Their stated goal is protecting people from him along with getting the truth out. So, legal system should be first consideration.

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

#112

Post by dang »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #68

Actually, with enough female witnesses it's usually easy to get a conviction out of a jury. Matter of fact, it's easy enough that men are regularly released when DNA evidence shows they were wrongly convicted based on one woman's word. This shouldve been sent to the police either with first event or once it became a trend. Instead, we have tweets, stylistic websites, and otherwise a full smear campaign going on prete…

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11850306 and marked it off-topic.

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

#113

Post by DanBC »

espadrine wrote: post #85
Houshalter wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to this essay, about 3% of men will get falsely accused of rape in their lifetime: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/17/lies-damned-lies-and-so... The real number is impossible to determine, but is uncomfortably high.

May I argue that it is uncomfortably low? The estimated percentage of women that are the victims of sexual assault is an order of magnitude higher. (See for instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_assault_in_the_United_S... ) > 23 percent of women and 4 percent of men reported experiencing unwanted sexual contact Even worse, 3% of false positives is a twenty-eighth of the percentage of unreported rapes: https:/…

That number comes from the FBI.

I agree it feels very low - the UK has something like 90,000 rapes per year.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20982105

> The Independent uses its front page to highlight what it describes as the justice system's failure to protect women - and men - from sexual assault. It reports that research by the Ministry of Justice, the Home Office and the Office for National Statistics suggests that about 1,000 rapists are convicted every year despite up to 95,000 people being subjected to rape.

(about 12,000 of those (or maybe as well) are male victims.)

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

#114

Post by nickpsecurity »

hackuser wrote: post #99
nickpsecurity wrote: post #68

Actually, with enough female witnesses it's usually easy to get a conviction out of a jury. Matter of fact, it's easy enough that men are regularly released when DNA evidence shows they were wrongly convicted based on one woman's word. This shouldve been sent to the police either with first event or once it became a trend. Instead, we have tweets, stylistic websites, and otherwise a full smear campaign going on prete…

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…

I may be misremembering that point due to a memory problem. I'm retracting the overturning point for now after tptacek's counterpoint. Same one had data to make me double up on recommending they take it off the net and to the police.

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

#115

Post by hackuser »

tptacek wrote: post #93
nickpsecurity wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great analysis. He's seriously among the least likely people to be a sanctioned spy. Maybe potential to be a CI one day ratting on people to avoid time. Anybody is capable of that. Can't imagine anything more.

It's not a great analysis. It's a superficial recitation of details about Appelbaum from someone with just a casual acquaintance of who he is. That it would seem to anyone like a great analysis is extremely worrying. It suggests to me that this particular cohort of Internet message board nerds shouldn't be trying to debate this particular topic.

> It suggests to me that this particular cohort of Internet message board nerds shouldn't be trying to debate this particular topic.

Agreed. I wish a banner was at the top of the page: Unless you have well-substantiated information to add, don't add any information.

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

#116

Post by rue »

powera wrote: post #54

This Medium post summarizes my take on this statement better than I can. TLDR "I can’t directly say the allegations are false." https://medium.com/@frabyn/decoding-jake-appelbaum-9fa75d060...

That dissection is pretty poorly made. First, the author “paraphrases” Applebaum’s use of “vicious and spurious”:

> 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.

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

#117

Post by dr0l3 »

espadrine wrote: post #85
Houshalter wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to this essay, about 3% of men will get falsely accused of rape in their lifetime: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/17/lies-damned-lies-and-so... The real number is impossible to determine, but is uncomfortably high.

May I argue that it is uncomfortably low? The estimated percentage of women that are the victims of sexual assault is an order of magnitude higher. (See for instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_assault_in_the_United_S... ) > 23 percent of women and 4 percent of men reported experiencing unwanted sexual contact Even worse, 3% of false positives is a twenty-eighth of the percentage of unreported rapes: https:/…

No you may not. Sexual assualt is a despicable crime and offenders ought to be castrated, but it does in no way neccesitate nor does it excuse false accusations. Furthermore if your argument should have any validity it should count for other crimes as well. In that case what is the comfortable amount of false accusations of murder? theft? or any other horrible crime you could possibly come up with. To top it off lets engage in a thought experiment, lets assume that the false accusation rate was 50%. Lets imagine that a person is sexually assaulted, how serious is that report going to be taken? Now imagine the same scenario where the false accusation rate is 0.0%, how seriously is the report then taken?

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

#118

Post by nickpsecurity »

tptacek wrote: post #104
nickpsecurity wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not gendered up at all. You just cited 60,000+ rape convictions. They claim this guy is a rapist. The site wants to stop more rapes. Nobody wants to go to police though. Others instead talk like that's infeasible with multiple eyewitnesses to multiple rapes. Im calling out that BS. This needs to be in court, not Twitter or HN.

There are ways to suggest that this is a poor topic for online debate without arguing that rape victims who don't engage law enforcement are illegitimate. Unfortunately, it's hard to take that odious sentiment back now that you've put it out there.

I just did with a clarification. It's easy for any reader to understand my intent now. Whereas, what you say will be true for anyone biased against me or opposing me in discussion. Not winning them over anyway. No loss.

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

#119

Post by hackuser »

fredgrott wrote: post #90

What is strange: 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 contribut…

> 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.

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

#120

Post by espadrine »

zymhan wrote: post #101
espadrine wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I argue that it is uncomfortably low? The estimated percentage of women that are the victims of sexual assault is an order of magnitude higher. (See for instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_assault_in_the_United_S... ) > 23 percent of women and 4 percent of men reported experiencing unwanted sexual contact Even worse, 3% of false positives is a twenty-eighth of the percentage of unreported rapes: https:/…

You don't think it's possible that a small percentage of really shitty men are responsible for most of those of sexual assaults?

According to the US Bureau of Justice statistics, three out of four rapes happen between people that know each other. It is even higher in most countries. The average rapist is not a lone wolf, it is a friend that didn't care about consent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics#United_States

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