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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

#41

Post by WhatIsThisIm12 »

Personally I don't even think these stories should be on HN... nothing good can come from them because all anyone can offer is pure speculation.

Now, in the interest of speculation, I have some conspiracy theories to suggest. Normally I wouldn't post conspiracy theories, but I think conspiracies have way more validity when you're talking about the security community.

So, check out these links:

- https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/

- https://theintercept.com/document/2014/02/24/art-deception-t...

Then consider these conspiracy theories:

1) Jacob Appelbaum works for an intelligence service and was compromised, and this is their way of pulling him from the field

2) Jacob Appelbaum works for an intelligence service and was compromised, and this is a rival intelligence service's way of pulling him from the field

3) Jacob Appelbaum does not work for an intelligence service, but rather is the victim of a smearing campaign by an intelligence service

My personal opinion is that the guy is an asshole, his (ex-)friends are fed up with him, and they severely overstepped their bounds in attacking him. The line about "what you have to do with a sociopath" (paraphrasing) was particularly alarming for me; that was a clear signal of desire for vindication.

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

#42

Post by elcapitan »

dang wrote: post #33
elcapitan wrote: post #26

Why did this post disappear from the front page? Can't find it on the first 20 or so pages listed neither.

It was flagged by users and set off some software penalties. I'm not convinced that this story belongs on Hacker News. The mandate of the site is "stories that gratify intellectual curiosity", and it seems pretty clear that both the curiosity and gratification here are more voyeuristic than intellectual. Arguably the appropriate scope for the story would be the smaller online community of people who are personally an…

Thanks!

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

#43

Post by jmcgough »

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.

Most people don't go to the police when they're assaulted by someone they know, especially when it's someone who's very well-known and powerful within the community (think of how long it took for Cosby's allegations to become public).

Additionally, this is also the hacking community. Most hackers don't trust the police at all.

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

#44

Post by [deleted] »

DanBC wrote: post #16
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.

[deleted]

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

#45

Post by xyience »

Sacho wrote: post #40
Sanddancer wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reporting it to the police is an amazingly stressful process that requires you to relive it again and again, being tried in the public eye, opening yourself up to claims of being a slut, etc. Just being able to admit you were raped is a strength a lot of victims don't have.

Creating a site that alleges you are a rapist is an amazingly stressful process for the presumed innocent person, requiring him to respond to a torrent of media and social hate and shunning, being tried in the public eye, open to claims of being a "monster", etc. You could argue you're "helping" more people by believing rape claims, but that's both mob rule(the rights of the many trample the rights of the few) and no…

Rape accusations have already been climbing for the purpose of bludgeoning. This is why it's hard to get a lot of people up in arms over even rape, because what actually happened (if anything) is more and more often not actually "rape" as classically understood. (Classically even being like, 20 years ago, we don't need to go back to Old Testament views.)

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

#46

Post by [deleted] »

xyience wrote: post #45
Sacho wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creating a site that alleges you are a rapist is an amazingly stressful process for the presumed innocent person, requiring him to respond to a torrent of media and social hate and shunning, being tried in the public eye, open to claims of being a "monster", etc. You could argue you're "helping" more people by believing rape claims, but that's both mob rule(the rights of the many trample the rights of the few) and no…

Rape accusations have already been climbing for the purpose of bludgeoning. This is why it's hard to get a lot of people up in arms over even rape , because what actually happened (if anything) is more and more often not actually "rape" as classically understood. (Classically even being like, 20 years ago, we don't need to go back to Old Testament views.)

[deleted]

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

#47

Post by dfc »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #17
DanBC wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Good faith effort.

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

#48

Post by gohrt »

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.

> "@DieJakeDie" social media efforts are doing more harm than good

That is obvious form the name, before considering the content at all.

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

#49

Post by zeveb »

Sanddancer wrote: post #38
reitanqild wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Reporting it to the police is an amazingly stressful process that requires you to relive it again and again, being tried in the public eye, opening yourself up to claims of being a slut, etc. Just being able to admit you were raped is a strength a lot of victims don't have.

If you're going to request that the State take someone's money, freedom or life because he has victimised you, then yes — you have to put in some effort. But it's worth it if he has, indeed, victimised you.

The accused has the right to face his accusers and to bring evidence of his innocence or their perjury.

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

#50

Post by djcapelis »

peterwwillis wrote: post #35
dang wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was flagged by users and set off some software penalties. I'm not convinced that this story belongs on Hacker News. The mandate of the site is "stories that gratify intellectual curiosity", and it seems pretty clear that both the curiosity and gratification here are more voyeuristic than intellectual. Arguably the appropriate scope for the story would be the smaller online community of people who are personally an…

But this doesn't have anything to do with Tor. A story that says "X is no longer working for Tor" would be fine, but this is clearly just dragging out the Paparazzi nature of famous people in a scandal.

If you go back to the submission where it was just the "X is no longer working with Y" story, then a good portion of the commenters on that story felt that it wasn't a good story for HN and if there was a real story to share it would be in follow up posts.

I can't imagine what a story on this topic would look like for everyone to agree it belonged on HN.

Maybe that means that none of them do, but I'm not sure that conclusion is right. I think it is best to generally prefer sunlight to silence, even when the sunlight doesn't produce as much value as we'd like to see.

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