
Jacob Appelbaum Leaves the Tor Project - ikeboy
https://blog.torproject.org/blog/jacob-appelbaum-leaves-tor-project
======
valarauca1
There appear to be rape accusations against Jacob Applebaum. But so far only 2
Tor developers have stated this. No outside verification. Hopefully more facts
surface as time goes on. This is very disconcerting.

[https://twitter.com/puellavulnerata/status/73523010215444889...](https://twitter.com/puellavulnerata/status/735230102154448898)

[https://twitter.com/puellavulnerata/status/73858143289374310...](https://twitter.com/puellavulnerata/status/738581432893743104)

[https://twitter.com/maradydd/status/738802983173922817](https://twitter.com/maradydd/status/738802983173922817)

~~~
towelrod
I can't believe this is still the top comment. If Jacob Applebaum is a rapist,
then that is horrible and of course he should step down. But this comment
links to 3 tweets that are all duplicates of each other.

Is there any reason to think that Jacob Applebaum is actually a rapist? I
would really like to see some proof of that, before jumping to any
conclusions.

~~~
mcantelon
Public rape accusations today from a female Tor core dev and her girlfriend
aren't relevant to Applebaum's sudden departure?

EDIT: Tor doesn't confirm or deny the allegations drove the departure.
[https://twitter.com/JackSmithIV/status/738857839402311681](https://twitter.com/JackSmithIV/status/738857839402311681)

~~~
hatsunearu
If the truth isn't known, Tor could be shooting itself in the foot if they
'decided' that it's one way or another. Makes sense that they would say that.

~~~
mcantelon
They've now confirmed.
[https://blog.torproject.org/blog/statement](https://blog.torproject.org/blog/statement)

------
weinzierl
This explains his tweet from a few days ago: "Changing of the guards."

[https://twitter.com/ioerror/status/736259103790632960](https://twitter.com/ioerror/status/736259103790632960)

I' sorry to see him leave. I had the opportunity to attend his talks in Munich
and Hamburg and he is a great explainer and so well spoken. I'm curious what
he is up to next.

------
rdl
I'm reluctant to pre-judge someone in a situation like this (having zero
facts, only allegations from people, some of whom I trust by default), but
stepping down when allegations like this happen, even if you dispute their
veracity, is often the best thing to do for the organization (and yourself).

This has to be tough for everyone involved. Tor is unpopular with a lot of
people, and there are both internal-to-scene and journalist-vs-securitypeople
historical dramas here, plus people often do bad things.

I'm confident the Tor Project will survive this; I hope justice for the people
involved is served as well.

~~~
tptacek
Serious, straightforward question: what was Appelbaum's operational role with
Tor, that his departure would be something they'd need to "survive"?

~~~
rdl
He was strongly associated with Tor from a PR/outreach perspective. Less
critical than a year ago, and not particularly operational. Hence my
confidence that Tor will survive.

------
redthrowaway
Meredith Patterson's pulling no punches:

[https://twitter.com/maradydd/status/738802983173922817](https://twitter.com/maradydd/status/738802983173922817)

------
hackuser
I hope The Tor Project and Appelbaum will make statements. Their reticence and
the suddenness of the resignation raises concerns that there are problems at
that very important project.

~~~
thaeli
Or this is FBI related, and they're barred from giving details. I'm not saying
his sudden resignation is a canary, but I'm also not sure that it isn't.

~~~
benevol
After what Snowden has shown us about the lengths the government is willing to
go (on our payroll, that is), how can you really trust any technology? To me,
the chilling effect is far stronger than we generally suspect.

~~~
jefurii
Seems oddly reminiscent of the Julian Assange case.

~~~
dfraser992
That's what I initially thought, but time will tell. If the media starts
hyping this like the Assange case, then yes, the alphabet mafia may have had a
hand... After going through some crap with an outright psychopath working for
a non-profit (the signs were there (classic ones), but it took a bit of time
to put together a comprehensive picture), I have some insight into how
organizations (or groups of humans, fundamentally) tend to deal with this
stuff. Tor's terseness does not surprise me - 'he said, she said's never go
well and it violates some unspoken social rules.

Giving people the benefit of the doubt, allowing for differences in
temperament and personality, amateur psychoanalyzing trying to understand a
person, compassion... these are all things normal healthy people do, in the
interests of co-operation - which psychopaths consciously take advantage of.
And overlooking things because person X is effective at their job... it is the
same sort of pragmatism that underlies the legal system - e.g. you may be
entirely in the right and the other person in the wrong, but the legal system
only cares about money and really, which one has more - and more lawyers. At
some point, the rational person decides this is stupid and a waste of time and
not worth it to their personal life, especially when society, as complex as it
is now, isn't going to care that much about a bad actor unless they are very
very notable.

E.g. Bill Cosby still has his supporters and Jimmy Saville got away with all
sorts of stuff for years while others consciously looked away - because the
cost of standing up and fighting the Establishment wouldn't have been worth
it. It's groupthink, plain and simple, and a lot of people can't jump that
hurdle.

Eventually, you realise how fundamentally corrupt humanity can be, and become
more conservative (re: that quote). But ... if you have integrity, you have to
realise why "conservatives" value hypocrisy so much because it is the
foundation of power, and then you begin to see the real Truth about the world.

------
tptacek
I don't even know what there would be to discuss with this story. It seems
like the only possible outcome of it is a lot of personalized Internet drama.
If there's an important story here, someone will eventually write it, and
maybe that will have a place on HN. But this one-line page isn't that, and I
flagged this story, and hope others do too.

~~~
djcapelis
Hmmm. Would you feel the same way if there wasn't so much ambiguity around his
departure? There's often HN stories when notable people depart notable
organizations/projects.

I definitely understand where you're coming from. This comment section
certainly isn't even remotely productive and I can understand and mostly agree
with your choice to flag it. But purely out of interest, I do wonder where you
feel the line is. I do find it interesting to know when various people change
their affiliations. It's one of the things I actually often find out about on
HN, since I otherwise wouldn't end up keeping up with any of it.

~~~
tptacek
I feel like most of the people commenting here probably don't know any other
Tor project members by name, including the founder's, and don't really know
what Appelbaum did or the project either. So the fact that we're off to these
ridiculous races on this thread based on this one-line post is _especially_
galling.

Speculation can on rare occasions be interesting, when it's done by informed
speculators. But that's not what we have here, is it?

~~~
nickpsecurity
The other comments had me rolling my eyes. But far as Tor and Appelbaum,
remember that Appelbaum was the public face of Tor and defender of Wikileaks
for many people. Also did lots of work on these issues. Was the fieldguy in
many countries deploying the tech. Justifies a specific interest in Appelbaum
over others where some, including me, were wondering if aomeone missed a
writeup somewhere about why he left and what's his next plans.

All this other stuff seems tabloid. Not what we need on HN.

~~~
atzpawn
Evangelist. Not developer.

"did lots of work on these issues" is misleading. He was an imposter and that
was precisely his official role in the tor project.

~~~
nickpsecurity
I didn't say developer. So, dont correct it. I also addressed broader issues
than merely Tor code. He did lots of outreach plus helped deploy Tor in a lot
of rough areas. Post Snowden, he took a role both informing and being an
evangelist.

You can't unroll years of video presentations and writeups by one comment. So,
please cite reputable sources saying all that was a hoax in his official job
duty on Tor to hoax people.

~~~
atzpawn
ok. I am neither a fan nor a foe of jake.

His role was evangelism, he was successful with it, but it does not affect the
technology in any way. Just as the death of your car salesman would affect
your customer experience but not the way Ford builds cars for you.

I have no idea what "deploying Tor" means, but apparently it means loading an
installation package on a machine. So come one, you could impress non-techies
with that but...

------
malandrew
FWIW, there is now a twitter account and website set up now dedicated entirely
to completely assassinating his character. Whether there are claims made that
are true or not, I'm not linking to either because I think the court of public
opinion is the most fucked approach to getting justice (I personally know of
one person sitting in prison now for 14 years for murder because his character
was systematically assassinated in public leading up to the trial. He ended up
pleading guilty to another crime that occurred while he was in solitary
confinement awaiting trial in order to avoid life in prison).

For those curious, you can probably find both if you look hard enough, but
there isn't anything substantiated or factual presented by either. If
anything, they make the accusers look incredibly desperate and vindictive.
Furthermore, the site references the "plagiarism" incident as one of the
offenses which feels absurd after reading the thread with all the drama
surrounding that "offense":

[http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.security.otr.devel/1546](http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.security.otr.devel/1546)

Gregory Maxwell's comment on there seems the best considered reply:

[http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.security.otr.devel/155...](http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.security.otr.devel/1554)

For those that found the site, I encourage you to file an abuse complaint for
libel at [http://publicdomainregistry.com/report-abuse-
complain/](http://publicdomainregistry.com/report-abuse-complain/)

For those that found the twitter account, I encourage you to report the
account to twitter.

This is not what justice looks like.

------
d33
Is he now going to get back to creating sex toys? ;)

[http://www.wired.com/2007/10/so-who-wants-
to/](http://www.wired.com/2007/10/so-who-wants-to/)

On a more serious note, sorry to see him leave. He seemed really deeply
engaged in Tor Project, I saw him on CCC (Chaos Communication Congress, a huge
hacker conference in Hamburg) a couple of times. See his talks here:

[https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=appelbaum+ccc](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=appelbaum+ccc)

------
nickpsecurity
Damn, that's a really short statement and notice. I was hoping for more
details.

------
mcantelon
I wonder what the backstory is on this.

~~~
masmullin
He's pursuing a PH.d.

Think this is simply him dedicating more of his time to schooling.

~~~
netik
As far as I know he never went to college, so he's going to have to pursue his
BaCS and MaCS first.

~~~
wnoise
There is generally no formal requirement to have earlier degrees; they're
helpful for admission, of course, but if you can convince admissions and an
advisor to take you on, you're in.

~~~
pen2l
As far as I know, there _is_ a formal requirement to have, e.g., a BSc to get
a PhD or a masters.

Put it this way: can you provide even a single example that proves this to be
false?

I know of just one instance actually (guy who is now a professor from Hong
Kong, whose incredible experience with farming was counted).

On the other hand, I do know some smart folks without college degrees whose
professors fought to get them in and to get them designated in certain higher
level positions but they lost that battle.

~~~
djcapelis
Well, Jake's listed as Tanja's PhD student, so there's one example right
there. If you google for a bit longer you'll find others who hold PhDs who
don't have undergraduate degrees. It's definitely rare to be admitted this way
and then not all these students end up successfully defending after admission,
but the formal requirement for an undergraduate degree does not exist at some
institutions, or can be waived with some uncommonly used paperwork at others.

Most people are surprised to find just how many things universities have a
form to do. There's very few rules at a university you _can 't_ get waived
with the right signatures on the right paperwork.

My own time in academia required a lot of paperwork...

------
nickysielicki
I wonder if this is related to the @isislovecruft story [1] from a couple
weeks back. [2]

[1]:
[https://twitter.com/isislovecruft/status/732593939719593984](https://twitter.com/isislovecruft/status/732593939719593984)

[2]: [http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/17/technology/tor-developer-
fbi...](http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/17/technology/tor-developer-
fbi/index.html)

~~~
masmullin
More likely this story.

[https://twitter.com/ioerror/status/638735997396774912](https://twitter.com/ioerror/status/638735997396774912)

~~~
zaroth
Please just quote the tweet;

    
    
      Today is my first day as a PhD
      student with @hyperelliptic and
      @hashbreaker at @tue_mcs. #pqc

------
Fej
Is it possible that this story was planted by the NSA/CIA?

I mean, I doubt it, but it's nowhere near beyond the realm of possibility.

------
Joof
Working on the tor project sounds dangerous which is rather sad.

------
whazor
I am going to guess that he is too busy being a Ph.D. student.

------
AlSweigart
Those who have worked with Jake won't be surprised at all by this. These are
accusations coming from multiple people in the tech/privacy/infosec crowd, not
from the government.

For those thinking these are government-sponsored lies, do you think [Meredith
Patterson]([https://twitter.com/maradydd](https://twitter.com/maradydd)) of
[Status 451 Blog]([https://status451.com/](https://status451.com/)) is working
with the government?

[https://twitter.com/maradydd/status/738801590333624320](https://twitter.com/maradydd/status/738801590333624320)

> [blog.torproject.org/blog/jacob-appelbaum-leaves-tor-project
> …]([https://blog.torproject.org/blog/jacob-appelbaum-leaves-
> tor-...](https://blog.torproject.org/blog/jacob-appelbaum-leaves-tor-
> project)) is a gross disservice to the Tor community. People deserve to know
> why Tor evicted its resident sociopath.

[https://twitter.com/maradydd/status/738802325565755392](https://twitter.com/maradydd/status/738802325565755392)

> Tor had the chance to nip this in the bud back when Jake was just a
> plagiarist. They ignored it, and he graduated to sexual assault.

[https://twitter.com/maradydd/status/738802983173922817](https://twitter.com/maradydd/status/738802983173922817)

> .@mmeijeri Jake finally raped enough people that Tor as an organisation
> couldn't ignore it anymore.

I worked around Jake around 2009ish in the early years of the Noisebridge
hackerspace in San Francisco. I've seen his charismatic pushiness routine that
he uses to get what he wants. I joked that if you ever wanted to find him in a
group photo, just look front and center. As time went on, I did hear more
uneasy things about him. His name came up with a person I met at PyCon last
year in Montreal, who then relayed a story that didn't go as far as sexual
assault, but was very troubling. He's one of those people that you step aside
and warn your friends about. Keep an eye on your intoxicated friends when he's
around.

The stories I read on [http://jacobappelbaum.net/](http://jacobappelbaum.net/)
fit exactly with the Jake that I knew. He is focused on his own wants and
laughs off people's boundaries. Reading the stories on that site doesn't make
me think of an elaborate conspiracy to discredit him but of how Cosby was able
to get away with his crimes for years.

Before people start saying I'm a shill: I don't have any connection to the
[http://jacobappelbaum.net/](http://jacobappelbaum.net/) nor do I know the
people who made it (or, at least, I don't know if any people I know made it).
[I wrote a book on cryptography, and 100% of the proceeds go to the Tor
Project, the EFF and Creative
Commons.]([http://inventwithpython.com/hacking/proceeds](http://inventwithpython.com/hacking/proceeds))

~~~
apecat
Latest developments:

"Three current Tor employees—two of which agreed to be named on the
record—have confirmed that they personally know the authors of the alleged
victim statements on the site, JacobAppelbaum.net. Although they continue to
maintain anonymity for the authors of the stories, these Tor employees are now
publicly vouching for the site’s authenticity, which Appelbaum has called into
question.

Andrea Shepard, a senior Tor developer, confirmed to the Daily Dot that she
was in touch with at least one of the victims on the website several months
ago. Alison Macrina, a Tor employee and advocate as well as the founder and
director of the Library Freedom Project, also vouched for the authenticity of
the anonymous victims' statements.

"It’s related to something that started happening in earnest about three or
four months ago," Macrina said. "Which is simply that people stopped being
afraid to talk to each other about Jake. That’s how I heard from some
victims.""

[http://www.dailydot.com/politics/jacob-appelbaum-tor-
project...](http://www.dailydot.com/politics/jacob-appelbaum-tor-project-
suspension-sexual-misconduct-victims/)

~~~
narrowrail
As an outsider, I don't know what is going on at all, but since you linked to
some people that are notable that are willing to go on the record, it seems
appropriate to quote some of what they said,

"Andrea Shepard, a senior Tor developer, confirmed to the Daily Dot that she
was in touch with at least one of the victims on the website several months
ago. Alison Macrina, a Tor employee and advocate as well as the founder and
director of the Library Freedom Project, also vouched for the authenticity of
the anonymous victims’ statements."

I feel like a conspiracy theorist by saying there are far too many rape
allegations against people associated with wikileaks. Cui bono?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cui_bono](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cui_bono)

Edit: As someone that has almost exclusively hung out with educated/privileged
people, I am just not used to anyone that would tolerate _any_ assault
occurring around me. People have never even joked about it around me, and I am
the most crude person IRL. I am aware that I could be wrong, this story just
sounds difficult to believe.

------
Raed667
ioerror is one of most amazing activists I have ever met. This is definitively
a loss for Tor.

~~~
pdkl95
> activists

While I'm sure you intended this to be a compliment, you should know that
ioerror has strong opinions (which I agree with) about the word "activist".
From a recent talk[1][2] he gave about journalism and the media:

    
    
        "Activism" is used as a pejorative term in order to suggest
        that participation in a democratic society is somehow 
        outside of the normal behavior.
    
        Fuck that. That is wrong.
    

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJValv4YQcY#t=78](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJValv4YQcY#t=78)

[2] I _strongly_ recommend everyone watch [1] - it's shorter than most of his
talks (only 20m), and it has surprising revaluations about e.g. The Guardian.
Jacob doesn't pull his punches, and he burns a few notable bridges.

~~~
Raed667
I completely agree. However, the reality of things is that some people are
more engaged than others when it comes to defending freedoms, advocacy, etc...

Edit : I have found this Tweet [0] I shared with ioerror himself about this
same subject exactly a year ago.

[0]
[https://twitter.com/Raed667/status/608297894651772929](https://twitter.com/Raed667/status/608297894651772929)

------
redkeen
bs.. so these people decided to tweet about it simultaneously ? k

~~~
RickS
1) no:
[https://twitter.com/puellavulnerata/status/73523010215444889...](https://twitter.com/puellavulnerata/status/735230102154448898)

2) waiting to comment until after your org has made an official statement is,
if anything, erring on the side of being professional

3) Attempting to downplay rape accusations with an account that's 58 minutes
old is not a good look.

------
AceJohnny2
Interesting to see the second response put his name in triple-parentheses.
(ref: [https://mic.com/articles/144228/echoes-exposed-the-secret-
sy...](https://mic.com/articles/144228/echoes-exposed-the-secret-symbol-neo-
nazis-use-to-target-jews-online) )

~~~
redthrowaway
It's an alt-right thing. Called an "echo". It's used to highlight Jews.

~~~
zymhan
Oh is this why Andrea's reply to someone asking about the rape allegations is
"fuck off Nazis"?

------
reallifestuff
And nothing of value was lost. Those who know, know he's all talk and no
skill.

~~~
unlinker
Then share what you know.

~~~
reallifestuff
As outlined elsewhere he's an "activist." He talks a lot but he's not a coder.

~~~
byoogle
Having had several technical discussions with Jacob, I’m certain he’s
technically skilled.

(I’m a former Google engineer, have worked on privacy and security software [I
created Disconnect, have contributed to HTTPS Everywhere].)

~~~
sounds
I will second the statement that Jacob is an able and skilled developer.

I have worked with him on projects long ago, however, so he can certainly have
chosen where to focus his time and attention. Just because you don't see him
code, don't assume he can't (replying to Grandparent of course)

