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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

#151

Post by imrehg »

tacone wrote: post #127
moyix wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> No. Since it is no longer possible to create a Twitter acocunt without a phone number Really?

And also one phone number seems to be allowed to be tied to one Twitter account. (Last time I tried). Sucks if I want to make some twitter bots to do a service / data stream, or set up a Twitter account for an organization...

https://support.twitter.com/articles/15348

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

#152

Post by daxorid »

rndmind wrote: post #60
daxorid wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he was plagiarizing original research and raping other community members, he was most certainly not an asset to the community.

He was an invaluable and founding member of the TOR community. I have deeply seated suspicions that something fishy is going on.

I'm curious how he was 'invaluable' if the accusations of plagiarism are true. Other people are responsible for his contributions, in that case.

The technically incompetent but socially competent taking credit away from where it is due ought to be a well understood phenomenon here at HN. Why give him a pass if this is the case as well?

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

#154

Post by zealotmonkey »

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…

In 2013, before, and during 30c3, Jacob Appelbaum suspected, and made claims, including one before the European Parliament, that he was under surveillance[0]. Since at least 2010, Jacob Appelbaum had been detained at airports and had his computer seized, multiple times. Despite this, Nick Farr, at 30c3, during the time period in which Jacob Applebaum heavily suspected he was under surveillance, and was presenting talks about classified NSA material, thought it would be friendly to permit a lightning talk that alleged that Jacob Applebaum was working for an intelligence agency, and then, without the actual talk happening, delete all records of that allegation when Applebaum, who thought he was under surveillance, requested information pertaining to that possibility.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Applebaum#Journalism

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Applebaum#Detention_and_...

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

#155

Post by tacone »

imrehg wrote: post #151
tacone wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No. Since it is no longer possible to create a Twitter acocunt without a phone number Really?

And also one phone number seems to be allowed to be tied to one Twitter account. (Last time I tried). Sucks if I want to make some twitter bots to do a service / data stream, or set up a Twitter account for an organization... https://support.twitter.com/articles/15348

I mean, really? Do you have to give them your phone to get an account?

So much for growth.

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

#156

Post by bcg1 »

cuckcuckspruce wrote: post #134
bcg1 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Presumed innocent" is only true with respect to the legal system of the state. Individuals are free to presume whatever they like for whatever purpose.

Awesome! I presume you're a mass murderer. Prove to me you're not.

Like I said, you're free to presume whatever you want. I'm also free to not care, and I have no obligation to prove anything to you.

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

#157

Post by tptacek »

wonkaWonka wrote: post #145
tptacek wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First: no, this is not plausible. Second, a question: exactly what is it that people think Jacob Appelbaum did to make him Public Enemy #1 of any government? He's not an especially important Tor contributor. Tor is not only funded by the US Government, but it began as a project at the Naval Research Lab. He's a spokesperson for Wikileaks, and Wikileaks has gotten itself engaged in serious legal issues with the US Gov…

Which community would that be? Being an insightful guy and a good public speaker has value. Especially in a technical field. Your talks on things like elliptic curve cryptography are solid talks. Like it or not, you could probably trade on giving those kinds of talks alone, and never have gotten your hands dirty doing the work, to prove the theory correct in your own mind. It's not hand-wavey to be able to give a voi…

My talks on ECC are an interesting example, as they're talks on research that I didn't myself do (Sean Devlin wrote the challenges for them, and we got the ideas for those challenges from lots of other people).

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

#158

Post by lawnchair_larry »

tptacek wrote: post #79
Chris2048 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While conspiracy theory is a risky proposition, in this case the agencies involved are known for such things. COINTELPRO, prism etc, so it's no entirely implausible to raise such concerns.

First: no, this is not plausible. Second, a question: exactly what is it that people think Jacob Appelbaum did to make him Public Enemy #1 of any government? He's not an especially important Tor contributor. Tor is not only funded by the US Government, but it began as a project at the Naval Research Lab. He's a spokesperson for Wikileaks, and Wikileaks has gotten itself engaged in serious legal issues with the US Gov…

What's so important about Appelbaum that he'd be a state-level target? For any government?

We don't have to speculate about this, because we already know that major social networking sites received court orders (with gag orders) to turn over his information.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks-related_Twitter_cour...

I don't buy the conspiracy angle myself, but I don't really know enough that I'd place a bet either way. Clearly he is targeted by state-level actors, however.

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

#159

Post by bsder »

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…

> should we abide by TOR's example when we are confronted with the situation of accusations of illegal acts

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.

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

#160

Post by bsder »

nisa wrote: post #23
nabla9 wrote: post #8

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…

> So far the response is either silence or acknowledgement of the accusations.

So what? The majority can, and often is, wrong. People cover their own asses first and defend the truth second.

I've gotten really draconian about "accusations" nowadays. If it isn't worth going through the legal system, it's mob justice and a priori false unless there is real, physical evidence.

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