
My Letter to the Tor Project - Kristine1975
https://www.oneeyedman.net/?p=2581
======
segphault
Back when I was a tech journalist, I always felt uncomfortable speaking with
representatives of the Tor project. Their approach to communicating always
seemed needlessly accusatory and combative. It left me with the strong
impression that they are more interested in shouting down criticism and
downplaying the extent to which Tor is abused rather than educating the public
and engaging with the broader tech community in good faith.

The poor way that the organization and its members have dealt with the
allegations made against Applebaum over the years seems emblematic of the
broader problems with their culture and the inept way that they handle
criticism and internal failures.

I think a lot of us, particularly open source enthusiasts and civil
libertarians, are inclined to give them a free pass because we value the
underlying ideas that the Tor project ostensibly represents. But it's
increasingly clear that not holding the organization to higher standards of
accountability was a disservice to the ecosystem.

------
dmvaldman
It took many thousands of years for humans to create a judicial process with
rights for the accused. It's sad to see how quickly we can all fall back to
mobs with pitch forks, with justice decided on platforms like Twitter.

------
makepanic
related (flagged) thread of the zeit.de article
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12303927](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12303927)

~~~
phaser
Why it was flagged?

~~~
tptacek
Because it is drama, just like this post.

(A more precise answer would be that your question is impossible to really
answer, since it's the users of the site who flag stories; it's like asking
why something was upvoted.)

~~~
kwerner
It is not drama if two German equivalents of the New York Times and the
Washington Post both slam the Tor foundation's behavior. This is the other
one:

[http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien/jagd-auf-
jacob-...](http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien/jagd-auf-jacob-
appelbaum-das-tor-projekt-laviert-14378139.html)

The FAZ and the Zeit are two of the most serious newspapers in Germany. FAZ is
conservative/business friendly.

~~~
tptacek
I'm afraid these particular authorities aren't meaningful enough to me to make
compelling appeals to them. This all sure looks like drama to me. That is at
least why I flagged them.

For what it's worth, I flagged a bunch of anti-Appelbaum stories too. For the
same reason. Drama.

~~~
918891212
Neither you or the Tor foundation are authorities to me either. The story is
not only Appelbaum, but how a bureaucratic authority can affect someone's
life, how much power OSS devs should give to foundations.

Most people here are of course safe, since they don't do OSS and just leech
other people's work.

~~~
tptacek
Comments like this are the reason I flag anything that looks like it will
generate drama. Thanks for helping me make my point.

------
nzjrs
All stories that aren't in favour of a good old fashioned lynching get flagged
and then removed.

~~~
Kristine1975
>lynching

Last I heard Appelbaum is still alive, though?

~~~
elevensies
Lynching is an epithet for Social Justice, and vice-versa.

