
Nick Farr's 30c3 Jake Appelbaum story of abuse and harassment - rdl
https://medium.com/@nickf4rr/hi-im-nick-farr-nickf4rr-35c32f13da4d#.uzs72fnhp
======
elcapitan
I've been to quite a few C3s and always thought of Nick Farr as kind of part
of the inventory, he was so much part of the culture there. He was one of the
people introducing the main talks and always cheered up the crowd. I wondered
why he wasn't at the recent events, now I know and this really hurts to read.

His account and Meredith L. Pattersons, who has also given talks on most C3s I
went to, make these accusations very real and very credible. I hope there will
be more than just this internet campaign coming out of it (which I think is
really not doing any good there and puts a lot of people off because it really
looks like an attempt of character assassination).

~~~
busterarm
I don't know Nick very well, but I've seen him around and spoken to him at
hacker events for most of my life now. He's an incredibly stand-up dude and
when I think about it really the heart of the community. When you compare him
to other folks with any notoriety, he's drama-free and sqeauky-clean.

If he says this is what Jake did to him, I can't imagine it isn't just like he
says.

~~~
peterwwillis
I also agree, both Nick and Meredith are incredibly stand-up decent people.
But this is the danger of accepting "a story" based solely on your impression
of a person. Jake's been around a long time, and people respect his work, so
they either didn't believe or didn't care about the stories about him. Now
Nick has a story, and because we know and like Nick, we choose to believe
that. In the end, we're all just taking sides.

Here's the other problem with this whole scenario: there are accusations of
everything from "he made fun of me" to "he harassed and intimidated me" to
straight up rape. Now it just looks like people just don't like him, removing
credibility from the most serious accusations. And to be fair, i've known of
him being a douchebag for over 10 years. But that also doesn't prove or
disprove anything, it just makes things _seem_ more plausible. So while I
believe Nick's story, I don't know any of the other people with stories, so my
opinion of them is still undecided.

~~~
busterarm
You bring up great points, honestly.

It's hard for me to look past Nick's pattern of being awesome and past Jake's
pattern of being a dick.

------
Johnny_Brahms
I met JA at one of the C3 conventions . he's an extremely charismatic guy. you
get sucked in. But then after a while he started to behave very badly towards
one in the group. Shaming her and being a jerk in general, but with a smile. I
dont know if everyone got what he was doing because it was delivered in such
an underhanded way. I couldn't stand it and walked away, and I still regret I
didn't tell him to shut the fuck up. I just made an excuse for myself andhave
felt like a coward ever since.

~~~
fit2rule
I've seen this pattern of behaviour with him a number of times. I think he
sort of has a patter to how he approaches the weeding of his flock. I've named
the folks who follow him around at these events the "Applebaum Laugh Track"
and have seen a few of those bad apples fall from the tree for not laughing
hard enough/having the gumption to question Dear Leader in some critical way.

Essentially, what I think we all have to understand, is that "cult'ing" is
habit-forming and when you are the Hacker Messiah, nothing stands in your way
of adoration from the filthy masses. Nothing.

------
ryan-c
I was on the 2007 CCC Camp trip that Nick Farr organized. I do remember Jake
being an asshole on it, including making _many_ inappropriate sexual comments.
Since then, I have heard Jake trash talk Nick Farr quite a few times. Jake's
been on my "avoid" list for a long time.

------
danso
> _One person following this pattern submitted an LT proposal alleging that
> Jake was a US Intelligence Operative. I LOLed. After a few rounds of
> encrypted e-mail pestering and a few texts, they insisted on being put on
> the schedule. I did so to appease, as was my strategy at the time, with
> every intention of pulling them off after they inevitably failed to follow
> directions. You can go look at the wiki histories for any LT I organized to
> show this was what I often did with dubious presentations._

This doesn't excuse the level of JA's alleged continued hostility, but this is
an example of why, for conference-level situations, talks and topics should be
discussed by a group of people, rather than just having one person make the
decision. I could see why a talk accusing JA of being an informant might be
funny in a close-knit group, but it sounds like people actively hated JA by
this time, and this conflict, combined with the paranoia that is probably
natural in this field, would add to JA seeing this as an aggressive act of
hostility. With one decision-maker who has a quirky sense of humor and/or more
laid back attitude, such a talk could seem harmless. But I think if another
person had been part of the talk-filtering process, they would've seen the
proposed talk as unnecessary antagonism.

But while JA had a right to be angry about the proposal, that doesn't justify
harassing Farr, or demanding the private details of the proposer, or
obviously, any of the other allegations against JA. Good for Farr for standing
up for the privacy of the individual who proposed the talk.

~~~
nickfarr
I guess I didn't make this clear enough in the post, but I had no intention of
letting the talk go forward unless the presenter could bring up some really
solid evidence of some sort. Slides, some kind of visual element or
documentation were required to earn/keep your LT slot and, for understandable
reasons, some people wait until the last minute to submit the final draft of
those.

To be crass, I threw this person on the schedule and gave them a deadline with
every intention of removing them the next day to shut them up so I could go to
sleep. The LT schedules change up to and during the event itself and I've
rejected a lot of talks once it was clear that the slides or revisions
contained inappropriate material.

The goal of the event is to give everyone a chance to take the stage, the
point is to not curate beyond clustering similar topics together. People sing
songs, do dances and any number of crazy little things and sometimes will blow
you away with an amazing idea.

That being said, I started training my potential replacements for the LTs at
the 30c3 for the reasons you stated, among others.

I believe today, the talks are assembled by a team of three people with each
person taking the helm on a particular day.

~~~
danso
Thanks for sharing your experience and speaking out. I'm sorry for sounding
overly critical of you...not all organizations have the capacity/resources to
be run in an ordered way, and some things are done ad-hoc until they're
popular enough for a more formal system (as lightning talks generally are in
various conferences). While I can see why JA would be offended/paranoid by the
very contemplation of the topic, I reiterate that does not at all justify the
level of continued hostility, or the demands for you to violate the privacy of
the proposal's submitter.

------
anc84
Nick was one of my favourite people at any hacker meeting I've been at. His
positivity and selfless support have been a huge inspiration to me. It pains
me to read this, people can suffer in silence so much and you never know until
they manage to share their dread. Get well Nick, I hope some day you will be
able to continue brightening up other peoples' lifes.

~~~
rdl
He's how I discovered CCC and started attending. Ironically even after he
stopped going to CCC events himself, still was able to make a bunch of
introductions and be super helpful, and it's obvious the people he's met
through these events were super appreciative of him. I hope he comes back into
the infosec scene!

------
colllectorof
It's disturbing that so many tech communities these days seem to be incapable
of handling such things without some kind of public showdown that involves
social media.

If the accusations are false, I wouldn't want to be at a conference where a
bunch of people would pile onto someone (for whatever reason) to ruin the
person's reputation. If accusations are true, I wouldn't want to be at a
conference where someone can be that abusive towards others -- for years --
with impunity. Either way, sounds like a bad place to be at.

~~~
forgottenpass
_incapable of handling such things without some kind of public showdown that
involves social media._

But there isn't any formal power structure. The only things "communities" can
base decisions on are legal records and social reputation.

If you don't want to be at a conference where someone can be abusive to
others, what exactly do you suggest they use to determine who can and can't
get in? An extralegal quasi-judicial system that weighs rumors and conjecture
to keep undesirables out? And how do you keep that process meaningfully
distinct from a conference where a bunch of people pile onto someone for
whatever reason to ruin a reputation?

tl;dr: It's not possible to have it both ways.

~~~
colllectorof
It's not about who can and cannot get in. It's about how people react to each
other within the community/organization. If the community needs some kind of
Stasi-like group to combat internal enemies than the environment is already
messed up beyond redemption.

------
brerlapn
Read this back to back with grugq's post today, although standing on its own
the level of vitriol Farr describes over the LT would give me pause:

[http://grugq.tumblr.com/post/145440005263](http://grugq.tumblr.com/post/145440005263)

"Why Misogynists Make Great Informants: How Gender Violence on the Left
Enables State Violence in Radical Movements"

Never met Farr, but it's always sad to hear stories where positive
contributors are ground down by this sort of unacceptable behavior.

~~~
lolc
Thanks, that was a very interesting read given the context I'm in. My
situation is nowhere near as bad as the experiences described, but it helps me
in understanding what I'm doing and why.

------
shava23
What we have here is a set of social engineers social engineering an ouster of
a fellow social engineer from the fellowship of his fellow social engineers.

Welcome to the snake pit.

No matter what all of you may think of the stand-up-ness of any of the folks
involved, there are strong agendas in whomever is presenting a case here.

I, for one, am no longer involved in the Tor Project, but I am the founding
executive director, and I haven't so much as spoken to Jake for years -- I
believe I ran into him very briefly at a Tor hackathon about three years ago
at the MIT Media Lab -- and haven't spoken him to any serious depth for a good
nine years. So I don't have a serious horse in this race. I care about the
project a good deal more but I've been retired, not on the board, and not
particularly volunteering due to a stroke a while back.

But this kind of thing bites.

Sit down, STFU, and wait for the courts, if any, to settle it out. We went
through this with Assange too. It divides people up.

There are a few things to say here.

The most radical thing you can do for a woman is to believe her. Fine. The
most radical thing you can do for an activist, is to believe him or her.
Applies to Jake and to Nick, amiright? But. To. Both. The best thing you can
do for your community is to stop tearing it up at the roots with gossip, like
archetypical old ladies. Which I feel qualified to say, as the local blue hair
(ok buzz cut battle ship gray) retiree. Opsec says, every one of these
reasonable sounding people is a liar with an agenda.

So, much as I would love to believe Jake, the women involved, Nick, and the
tooth fairy, all of them are hackers at hacker cons, and you are all my peeps,
and I love you. And there is no spoon, no truth, and no use to hacking this
out in an internet forum as a form of vigilante justice.

My gray haired thought is this is all prurient, for a loooong time.

Please chill.

This is just the kind of thing that regardless of who is in...error...makes a
community spin until it's sick and the good people fly away.

If we are wise we'll all work to de-escalate, not justify or discuss, until
things can go through normalized channels.

I don't expect for an moment that will happen, but I feel compelled to make
the appeal.

Shava Nerad founding exec dir, The Tor Project, retired 2007 but speaking
entirely for myself

~~~
nyolfen
At this point we have multiple respected members of various communities coming
out with accusations against JA. This isn't comparable to Assange's situation.
Appelbaum has repeatedly come out looking like a scumbag with no one on his
side besides mostly anonymous people asking for the benefit of the doubt, and
nothing but radio silence from Appelbaum for a week. A guy being a scumbag is
frankly much more likely than a conspiratorial multilateral attack on his
character.

~~~
shava23
Generally, my friend, if there is a crowd with torches and pitchforks
approaching, it does not matter what the guilt is in the situation, one
retreats and does not show ones head for a long time, or one will lose it.

You are just lending yourself to number of the many judges of the court of
public opinion now, yes? Here, you may take up the torch and pitchfork of
office. Wield them proudly. If you can't catch Jake, who do you think you will
go after next, now that you are all dressed up and no where to go?

~~~
enimodas
That's a slippery slope fallacy. Did you read the link above in
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11842751](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11842751)
?

~~~
shava23
[https://www.google.com/search?q=slippery%20slope%20is%20not%...](https://www.google.com/search?q=slippery%20slope%20is%20not%20a%20fallacy&rct=j)

The "slippery slope" is not a logical fallacy, but calling it one is a great
rhetorical measure to shut someone up if you don't like their argument.

Similarly, the argument you cite above, if properly applied, is valid. How
about McCarthyism and such campaigns. You obviously have to protect our
precious bodily fluids. It is as easy to frame this as a way to put Jake in
the framing of one of the last remaining purity taboos, framed as an anonymous
anarchist group. How can an anarchist advocate of anonymity object?

Except that an anarchist would contract to confront a problem with all
aggrieved parties in the open, not like this witch hunt. So these people are
not acting like anarchists, they are just ducking state mechanisms and
summoning a mob.

This is what puts anarchy in ill repute with the general public. It's not what
anarchy calls for in these cases. So I am trying to act like a responsible
anarchist and picking up his advocacy. If someone from that crowd wants to
pick up their advocacy and Jake actually authorizes representation outside a
court (which he hasn't, btw) maybe we can have a moot.

Otherwise, this is a mob.

------
daxorid
The notes left on his hotel bed daily are the strangest part. Implying Jake is
a Fed, or his supporters were actively compromising his physical security?

~~~
lucb1e
Yeah I'm not sure whether to believe that part. If I found notes on my pillow,
I'd nope the fuck out of there and either go back to the conference or the
police station. In any case, that story would not have ended where it does
now.

~~~
nickfarr
I totally understand your skepticism there. Yes, I was totally an idiot for
not keeping the notes, not going to the police, etc. etc.

If I can offer anything, by the time it got to that point, I had already been
told to "stop making drama" about the whole thing and somehow just pacify Jake
by many people I trusted.

So I bring them a note! I bring them to my hotel room! Let's walk through the
scenario in my head: What's to make them believe me now because I have some
anonymous piece of paper. Who's to say I didn't make the thing up myself to
try to get back at Jake? Why would someone believe me just because there's a
shred of something.

My whole approach up until I couldn't take it anymore was to just ignore, to
let it slide, to not think about it and move on. THIS IS WHAT HARASSMENT
VICTIMS DO and yes, I should have recognized it at the time.

~~~
lucb1e
> What's to make them believe me now because I have some anonymous piece of
> paper.

I don't know anything about policework, but entering in a place illegally (I
assume Jake or one of his friends doesn't have legal free reign in random
German hotels) to intimidate someone into doing something is quite a thing. I
could imagine the police caring enough to try to get fingerprints off of the
piece of paper and perhaps come to the hotel room to check video footage and
other fingerprints.

I'm not saying I don't believe you, but someone mentioned something that
caught my eye as well, so I commented on it.

Up until now I hadn't doubted Jake's legitimacy. I also didn't agree with
everything he said (having heard him speak and answer questions in multiple
places, and briefly talking to him personally), but I figured it's just normal
not to agree with _everything_ someone says. Your article made me realize I
should listen better and judge whether the good intentions are really there,
and it made me much more hesitant when it comes to Jake and the Tor project in
general (another comment linked an article with similar things about the Tor
project as a whole). So thanks for sharing this.

------
9918819911
I get the impression that almost everyone in this space overreacts and throws
dirt at each other. Here is how others of the Tor project reacted in a similar
situation:

[https://pando.com/2014/11/14/tor-smear/](https://pando.com/2014/11/14/tor-
smear/)

~~~
nickfarr
This is why it took me so long to come out with this story. The last thing I
want to do is put myself out there only to be dismissed as part of a larger
smear campaign (as I was at the time.)

Further: This is a direct description of what I have come to know as Jake's
M.O. Not an isolated incident. This has to do with one person's behavior, it
has nothing to do with the projects that person was involved with.

Maybe what Jake did to me wasn't all that bad. Maybe I deserved it. Fine, call
me whatever form of coward or weakling you want but in the end, this was my
hobby and I found other things to do with my life where I didn't have to put
up with this level of stress.

~~~
nullc
Hi Nick. I'm sorry to hear you had a bad experience. :(

But your document contains serious allegations which the body of it does not
support:

> Jake has targeted, abused and silenced many close friends of mine, many of
> whom are researchers you probably know and respect. Whether it’s ripping off
> research or just harassing someone into submission, somehow we all felt
> powerless to do anything about it. He’s the perfect bully.

> Every criticism of him is met with suspicion, every accusation is some
> government-conspiracy-takedown.

> Those that tried to stand up to him were destroyed, one even took his own
> life after Jake stole his research. But that’s not my story to tell.

If you're not going to support these claims, you shouldn't make them. Now I
get to feel like shit for calling this out-- and potentially causing you
stress, because I am sympathetic to your experience...

I think your message would carry more weight if it was limited to your
message, rather than setting the framing with a large number of serious but
unsubstantiated claims.

~~~
geofft
> _If you 're not going to support these claims, you shouldn't make them._

Why is that? I am personally willing to believe "Multiple generally-
trustworthy members of a community make accusations about a person P which, by
their nature, cannot be easily substantiated to the public, which if true
would imply that P is/has done X" as very strong evidence for "P is/has done
X" \- certainly enough to override my prior for "Most people are not/have not
done X". And therefore, I think that people _should_ make claims they believe
to be true even when they are unsubstantiable by nature, and I am glad that
these claims were made.

I'm not trying to make you feel bad for calling this out; you're just saying
something that I see a lot in technical communities, in a lot of contexts. I
would like technical communities to have a good, strong, evidence-backed way
of reasoning about things like this. It seems so often that we default to
reasoning about things the way the Anglo-Saxon legal system wants to reason
about things when considering whether to point its monopoly on violence at a
person. Especially for matters like harassment and sexual assault, we have
strong reason to doubt that the legal system is well-suited in its current
form at accurately making that judgment, let alone whether it is correct at
judging _truth_ , which it explicitly makes no claim to (Blackstone's dictum
is specifically about how the legal system should minimize harm on the
occasions it gets truth wrong). That default is baked into us by culture, but
I think it's a bad default, or more specifically, an irrational and often
erroneous default. Hearsay isn't allowable in a court of law, but that's not a
reason that hearsay shouldn't be allowed to influence the personal opinions of
community members who are making judgments for themselves and not for a
government.

~~~
nullc
Because they can't be defended against, and especially can't be defended or
questioned without being insensitive to the complaints which are supported.

It's a share of what Jake is accused of: making it impossible to criticize or
question.

From a perspective of statistics, these allegations are heresay-- and we've
heard them elsewhere. The results in well known cognitive biases where
evidence gets double counted when someone elses allegation is simply repeated
by someone else.

------
chinathrow
> One person following this pattern submitted an LT proposal alleging that
> Jake was a US Intelligence Operative.

Appelbaums reaction to this occurence seems quite strong. That other person
wasn't the only one thinking the same. Too bad that talk never happened.

~~~
fit2rule
I agree. One can only hope that this will be Streisand'ed out into the public
sphere eventually, however ..

------
zer00eyz
> I want to be part of a community where this kind of behavior isn’t tolerated
> from the inception. I want to be part of a community where incidents like
> this are addressed promptly and fairly and not dismissed as “drama”.
> Admittedly, I could have done more to make this happen...

First of all shit happens.

Second, anyone who ever finds them selves in these situations, STAND UP and
keep standing up.

Last, I hope Nick finds the will to go back... He seems to have the support of
the community, and has the opportunity to make more like what he wants, and it
should be. It is NOT too late.

------
djcapelis
Meredith and Andrea were, according to too many people yesterday:
untrustworthy and biased. Many comments here urged everyone to suspend
judgement, not rush to conclusions and not take allegations overly seriously.
(Not always a bad idea, but apparently much less important today.)

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. (Which of
course, Nick is pretty solid, so it likely is. Just as Meredith, Andrea and
many others are solid and 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 women who shared their stories yesterday,
but now can today.

This is why women come forward less often. People have a shocking tendency not
to believe them, no matter how credible or well known they are.

Please learn from this.

~~~
rdl
I was equally slow to fully believe Nick until he posted details (which he
did). In general I'll evaluate someone's own claims on their merit (including
personal credibility), but am a lot less likely to base actions on third party
hearsay. If any of the rape accusers posts a similarly detailed account with
verifiable facts (easier under his or her own name, but still can be
anonymous) those can be taken seriously too.

Nick's account isn't the end of the process; it is the beginning. Now you have
to evaluate, give the other parties a chance to respond, etc. Not pre-judging
doesn't mean never judging.

~~~
djcapelis
Hey Ryan,

Let me just start by saying I think you're a totally reasonable person and I
respect your thoughts,[1] so let's talk some more about why we've come down
seeing things a bit differently here.

So first off, I think that I've seen a lot more consistency from you than from
other parts of the Internet. And that's cool, consistency is worth doing and I
also agree skepticism is good. It's a value I hold. It's a value I know
Meredith holds too.

What is also true though, and I think anyone who examines this closely will
also come to the conclusion that claims women make get a much higher degree of
skepticism, accusations of bias and face a much higher bar before being
accepted or believed.

So even when you just compare responses to tweets people made (Nick tweeted
yesterday too) or longer form stories that people wrote (that one site has
collected a bunch now) you'll see the stark difference in how people respond
to things posted by women vs. things posted by men. It contributes a lot to
why being on the Internet as a woman is a much more problematic thing and why
women don't get taken seriously.

It's a real thing, and it'd be best if we were able to learn more from it.

Please feel free to spend some more time to examine various threads and
comments in various places. I'm sure you'll come to your own conclusions and
I'll be interested to hear what you think.

[1] You may not know me, but we've got some mutual friends and I've generally
appreciated your commentary before being pretty on the level!

~~~
rdl
I'd generally agree that sexual claims are taken more skeptically, and that
the way they're dismissed tends to be different (and gendered). Ironically
while sexual claims are dismissed more, male-victim sexual claims are
dismissed even more than female-victim sexual claims (although female-victim
is more common, outside prison/military). I see this more as a
sexual/violence/sexual-violence vs. professional ethics/other difference.

In this specific case, I think you'll see non-sexual claims from men and women
treated the same (although trolls probably dismiss them in a gender-specific
way, i.e. going after Andrea's appearance and after Nick in other ways). I
don't think ethical issues other than sexual issues would be treated/believed
substantially differently based on the gender of the victim here.

(I also think a lot of people are uncomfortable discussing sexual violence
related problems, so while those certainly need to be addressed as well, if
some people only want to focus on the plagiarism/ethics/work-stealing/etc.
aspects, that seems like it could still be positive. Doesn't mean other people
can't pursue the sexual/violence related issues with a person.)

------
gravypod
> one even took his own life after Jake stole his research

Who was this?

~~~
rdl
Pretty obvious, although not my story to tell. Hint: not aaronsw. Fortunately
the set of hackers/computer security people in this social circle who have
killed themselves in the past 15y is still fairly small.

~~~
gravypod
I've not been involved or looked at anything in the tor or C3 circles up until
these allegations.

It isn't very obvious because I know no one involved.

~~~
kurotowa
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2723959](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2723959)

[https://twitter.com/maradydd/status/302264789311299585](https://twitter.com/maradydd/status/302264789311299585)

~~~
chris_wot
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8643924](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8643924)

------
rdl
I wish people wouldn't use JA as an abbreviation here; ambiguous with Julian
Assange due to overlap.

~~~
2close4comfort
I was thinking Jackass which seems to fit well. And now that you bring it up
they are strikingly similar...

------
nickpsecurity
This whole situation is disturbing to me as a solo operator always considering
getting deeper into the INFOSEC circle. Ok, here's what's happened in around
24 hours or so: weird tweet done in a style used for evidence; tweet mob
claiming the guy is a rapist; entire, styled site goes up with detailed
descriptions that he's _verbally_ an asshole + "Coming Soon" placeholders
(could be rape claims by now); people claiming claims are legit because people
doing smears are standup people; people agreeing its true because it's already
known to unknown people; all kinds of people making excuses for why they
should say and do everything except file rape charges with due process.

Another commenter used the word bizarre. To me, it looks both bizarre and like
smear campaigns by trolls that I've seen destroy people that were probably
innocent. Now, I know Jake is an asshole and we now have one credible witness,
Nick Farr, to extreme bullying. Yet, these are the exact kinds of tactics
liars, trolls, SJW's, and spooks use on innocent people. The targets get
"convicted by the media" without a trial or any real chance of defense. Many
people wrongly assume large number of accounts saying same thing means it's
open and shut.

They need to knock that stuff off to handle this right anyway. If one or more
rapes happened, they need to contact the authorities to give full details on
this. That FBI already wants to throw him in a cell with a number of witnesses
claiming rape and others claiming bullying should make this easy (read: barely
due process). In this case, Jake will be able to tell his side of the story,
bring in his witnesses, and so on rather than one side's media campaign being
sole decider of his fate. Plus, I find it hypocritical that the website
describes its existence is to protect the next community from a "sexual
predator." They'll tweet, accuse, make websites... all kinds of talk to
"protect" others from a "sociopath"... but won't go to the police to attempt
an arrest, conviction, and prison stay for same sociopath. Unheard of reaction
in my parts among liberals or conservatives. Always cops involved when it's
this public with people usually doing time.

I recommend people stay clear of both Jake Appelbaum and any of these idiots
in the smear campaign. You can bet they'll do the same shit to you if you piss
them off too much. Probably won't be rape claims but you'll be defending an
online shitstorm. Nick Farr seems to be an exception who I hope recovers from
any abuse he received and gets back to doing the good things people here
describe. Definitely hang with him sometime.

------
chris_wot
If you ever deal with a sociopath, just learn to accept that nothing you can
do will defeat them and get the hell away from this person as quickly as you
possibly can. I've dealt with three people in my life who I consider
sociopaths or pyschopaths. The first time I had no idea what to expect, so it
was a massive shock.

The second time, I watched them turn on me incredibly rapidly, and from going
from being supportive to being entirely bent on destroying me and my
reputation in a day, this time I wasn't shocked but just felt a sick feeling
inside: _it was happening again_.

This time I knew what to do though. I was pulled into a meeting after my 21st
day of non-stop work. The meeting was attended by my boss who the psycopath
had just been telling me he would "end" because of his sheer incompetence.
Durimg the meeting I was told that adding a synthetic key column was
unacceptable (the pysopath couldn't wrap his mind around why you would do
this) he told me he had countermanded my request for the change in the ETL
process but hadn't told me. When I pointed out I had proceeded under the
understanding from my then boss that this was an approved change, he called me
a liar, and when I protested that he hadn't told me he threatened to ensure
that everything would be sent to me in writing. Then he told me he would be
having a meeting with me and the CEO on the next day, a Monday.

I excused myself from the meeting. He had a smirk, because he felt he now had
power and I could be used as a pawn to destroy the CEO, who had recently
pretty much given the man's wife a nervous breakdown.

It was clear what the man's goal was: take down the CEO by any means
necessary, even if it meant destroying those who had actually made every
attempt to protect his wife (who was my manager before she left). I suddenly
realised that his plan to bring down the CEO was to remove all competent
employees and effectively neuter the CEO, which - truth be told - wasn't very
difficult as the CEO was an arrogant twerp who thought he knew about
management and IT, but in reality had no idea.

Faced with a situation where I was being undermined by my immediate manager,
whose incompetence was literally destroying the company, and caught between
the anger of a man I consider to be a psychopath, and on the other side
dealing with an arrogant, unethical and unheeding CEO, I realised that with my
level of burnout and exhaustion my mental health was going to suffer very
badly. For me, this was unacceptable - at my most stressed I get thoughts of
suicide, but I have a young family who I love...

Faced with this, I quietly wrote my resignation letter, ensured it said
pleasant things and wasn't critical of anyone, printed it out, put it on the
CEO's desk and left the building.

If you get targeted by a psychopath, know that as you aren't one yourself they
are almost impossible to fight back against because, unlike you, they have no
guilt and no compunction against using other people as tools to achieve
whatever means they deem necessary. If their best option is to be nice to you,
then that's what they'll use. If they realise that you can be used to destroy
an enemy, then they'll do whatever it takes to manipulate you into undertaking
their actions. They will be very effective at this, and often you won't know
till too late you've become entrapped in their machinations. They certainly
won't hesitate to drop you at the first sign you can't be manipulated or you
have realised what they are up to.

So if you meet such a person, you probably have not much realistic chance of
beating them at their own game - they are much, much better at it than you.
Don't feel bad about this though: the reason they are better at it than you is
because they have no sense of guilt or shame, and have almost zero empathy.
There is something deeply wrong with them, but they either don't know it or
don't care. They are a cancer on society, and you should feel happy you aren't
them. But what it does mean is that to beat them, and protect yourself, you
must starve them of oxygen, and to do so you must remove yourself from their
presence as quickly and abruptly as possible.

In my case, I'm glad I did. Six weeks later the incompetent manager was forced
to resign when it became apparent that it really was him who destroyed
everything. Nine month later, and through his own unethical behaviour and
sheer incompetence, arrogance and stupidity the CEO has been sacked. The one
who engineered this is now in charge and has taken over the CEO's position -
just as I predicted. My former colleagues are in shock, but seem amazed at
what I predicted has come to pass.

~~~
1024core
Thanks for sharing.

I left a sociopath 10 years ago... and I still have angry feelings towards
him. That bastard would be so charming and nice to your face; meanwhile, he
was sabotaging my career behind my back, while I trusted him completely. His
goal was to replace the CTO of our small company; and he knew that as long as
I was around, the CEO wouldn't give in to his blackmail. So he set about
poisoning the CEO about me.

We worked mostly on government contracts. The CEO had cofounded another
company (with blessings of the directors), and wanted some source code that we
had worked on. I wasn't sure if it was legal to share the code, so I went to
the Sociopath and asked him (since he had been there longer than me). He told
me, in clear terms, that we were not supposed to share the code. So I tried to
ignore the CEO's order, buying time, putting him off. Little did I know that
Sociopath had gone to the CEO and told him that, for whatever reason _I_ did
not want to give him the code, despite his repeated requests for me to do so.
Things simmered for a few weeks, until one day the CEO dresses me down in
public: why are you not giving me the code, when Sociopath has also told you
to? I was shocked; and then things started falling into place. I realized that
for the last year or two, he had been slowly poisoning CEO against me. Little
incidents that seemed strange now suddenly started making sense.

Fuck this shit, I said, and quit after a few weeks. After taking some time off
to heal, I found another job and washed my hands off that shitty gig.

------
Fej
At first I considered that the accusations were planted by some three-letter
agency. This has seriously changed my opinion.

At one point I sorta considered ioerror a personal hero of mine. Not so much
anymore.

------
saizai
Jake's response:
[http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1soorlp](http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1soorlp)
/via
[https://twitter.com/ioerror/status/739731362404536320](https://twitter.com/ioerror/status/739731362404536320)

I note that he does not deny any of Nick's factual claims. The denial is only
of "criminal sexual misconduct", which is a legal claim (what misconduct
counts as criminal?) rather than a denial of the specific factual allegations
made @ [http://jacobappelbaum.net/](http://jacobappelbaum.net/) (however they
may be legally construed).

I can understand why Jake may not want to engage with them in detail — doing
so would almost certainly raise more questions than it answers — but AFAICT,
this is functionally a non-denial denial.

One thing I don't understand from Nick's piece (etc.) is whether the
referenced "plagiarism" means only Jake insisting on alphabetical author order
(thus making it seem like he did most of the work when he didn't) or something
else.

<s>It's also saddening to read of yet another of us committing suicide,
whatever the circumstances.</s> Having read other comments, I now realize what
this referred to. I suppose it's fortunate that it is not yet another, but
that loss is no less saddening for the time passed since. (FWIW, I've stayed
with that person's partner at one point. They were incredibly kind to me at
time that was difficult for both of us.)

…

Repeating two comments I made on Nick's Medium article:

1\. Nick: in my limited experiences with you, you’ve been one of the most warm
& welcoming people in the hacker community. I hope that at some point you get
back your health and manage to resume attending conferences. Take care of
yourself.

2\. Jake espouses very hard line principles of source protection, right to
speak, fighting bad speech with more speech, etc. I generally agree with him
on those principles. (I’d rather not go into my opinion on his personality.)

If Jake had gotten the kind of threats from Nick that Nick describes getting
from Jake, there’s no way in hell he’d comply. He’d probably have an aneurism,
irretrievably commit the documents to public view after thoroughly anonymizing
them, and make it very, very public.

Kudos to Nick for both protecting his source and trying to handle this issue
with tact. It’s indefensible that Nick was treated this way for doing so, and
a loss to the community for him to have come to harm for it.

------
PavlovsCat
What exactly did he plagiarize, and where is the documentation of that? If
it's about giving credit where credit is due, I don't see how just destroying
Appelbaum as a "plagiarist" really helps there.

I guess my problem is: even assuming all charges are true, the way this is
done, and the way it's nodded off by people in the name of being decent (less
questions asked = more decent?), while others dismiss it as some SJW stunt or
conspiracy or whatever, is just a horrible precedent to me. This all out
attack on the totality of a person, this "creating facts on the ground", and
this binary dichotomy of "only one party can ever be in the wrong", the
extreme polarization.

For what it's worth, I know how being gas-lighted feels, I know how it is to
see someone go from friendly to snarling with utmost hatred back to friendly.
I don't feel like sharing all that, but that's kind of how I know a bit about
sociopathy and narcissism to begin with, I had to learn.

But that's also why that website kind of struck me as kind of weird, since it
talks about sociopathy yet seems not only kind of devoid of compassion, but
also reckless, seeing how the destruction of Appelbaum seems to be intended to
be total and forever. As in, just because he's no good as a "community
leader", who cares what happens to the human being - he didn't care either, he
started it after all. No fair judge and no psychologist worth crap would talk
like that, and that's why such things should be left to both ultimately.

Even sociopaths are people, even after having been clinically diagnosed. Human
rights apply even to those who don't afford them to others. This is a
principle that is more important than anything else. EVEN if you have to
disarm a person, set boundaries, and so on, there is never a point where
they're just fair game for _anything_. You know how free speech is about
protecting the speech you despise? Same goes for human rights. Believing in
due process for the innocent is easy, believing in due process of a serial
killer, now that's where it starts to become more adult, and there is _no_
crime so atrocious the perpetrator loses their status as human being. We know
this is hard to grasp for many people, but when "hackers" start forgetting
that as well, that's troubling.

So I am really not liking this whole thing as it stands, and am also not
liking this dichotomy of "either you believe it or don't", since I'd still
have all the above questions or objections even granting every claim is 100%
true.

And the shaming of people who reserve judgement or ask for any evidence, or
more substance in general, in light of such a huge, all out attack, also
sucks. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, people can
"command" their personal friends to "not question, just hug" when that's all
they can take (and I don't mean that snarkily, honestly), but that's not
something a society or justice can operate on. His character has been
effectively assassinated, no matter what comes of this most people who saw
that may never see the follow-up, and we can't even ask _questions_? You can't
take abuse seriously and then say "nothing you do to an abuser is ever abuse",
that's not justice.

~~~
PavlovsCat
So I get several downvotes, but not a single response so far, neither to this
nor here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11839033](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11839033)

Also not one word about what might be wrong about what I said or asked. This
is quite incredible.

And even if more substance comes forth, which I hope -- and I mean that,
because it's not that I don't believe the claims at all -- that precedent kind
of remains. When I say I find this, in the way and excess it's done, wrong
even assuming the claims are true, I do mean that -- and if you disagree, then
you should argue the point, ignoring and downvoting me just substantiates it.

~~~
werthersOrigin
As a total stranger on The Inernet, I'll reply.

So, people saying things on the internet, in the press, out in the world, in
many ways are permitted to speak freely. Anecdotes and personal opinions are
permitted in civilized discourse, when the context is not a legal court of
law.

All this is just so much gossip, and it's people blowing off pent up steam,
and airing out frustration. Big deal. Reputations are on the line, and not
much else.

    
    
      this "creating facts on the ground"
    

That's how it works, when a person is telling their own tale, about their own
experiences. That person says what they saw. That they've claimed facts to be
true, is a fact on its own, and there's nothing earth shattering in any of
these sour grapes getting squished.

The real world doesn't actually operate on justice and ratios. Shit floats by.
People get over it.

Dialog is not transactional. Conversations are not permanent and destroying.
Not all statements are clinical diagnostics. As a dippy-doo in the peanut
gallery, I don't feel very polarized. The internet flops about, and flippity
floops, and so what?

~~~
PavlovsCat
> That's how it works, when a person is telling their own tale, about their
> own experiences.

That's hardly describes all that is going on here.

> Reputations are on the line, and not much else.

"Not much else", right. Can you tell me what would be at stake for the people
to actually argue like adults, instead of ignoring and downvoting and
handwaving? With any random technical subject any remotely valid question gets
discussed, and now you're trying to tell me this is normal, that this isn't a
shit show?

> he real world doesn't actually operate on justice and ratios. Shit floats
> by. People get over it.

So you're essentially saying you don't care because you don't care. You can
call that a reply, if you want. Something you signed up for with a spooky name
relating to a literary figure who killed himself, "inspiring" a wave of
suicides. The only signal sending is a bit of creepyness, the rest is just
noise.

> Dialog is not transactional. Conversations are not permanent and destroying.

What does that even mean? Is it really so much to ask to have at least the
plagiarism claims backed up? You see, ignoring that, while claiming he ruined
so many people, including someone who killed themselves (as a result? as
result of completely unrelated things?), that also says something.

> People get over it.

People would also get over having haven answered in earnest, or not not
downvoting things they can't or don't want to address. HN would totally
survive having one story about this that doesn't get flagged, you know? So
don't tell me to take this virtual lynching lightly, while you don't mind
people apparently having huge issues with very simple questions.

~~~
werthersOrigin

      a spooky name relating to a literary figure who 
      killed himself
    

Ha! Oh man, talk about a stay-puft marshmallow moment.

The name was supposed to be borrowed from an absolutely harmless carmel candy.
Something that could do no wrong, but I had to truncate it into something that
would fit into HN's 15 character namespace.

No good deed goes unpunished.

~~~
PavlovsCat
Stay puft? You just commented to say you don't care, you addressed nothing,
and if that's the only thing you respond to, that _also_ is another signal. No
good deed, right.

~~~
werthersOrigin
That's the only thing I responded to, because it shows me that you are looking
for things where they don't exist, and deciding that you found them anyway.

I've rarely seen other people attribute malice to my actions at times when I
know I'm being anything but, but when it does happen, the person is lashing
out at any stranger.

Pretty much means the person I'm dealing with is isolating themselves, and it
won't be possible to do anything right for them, regardless of any objective,
rational information one might try to present.

In the 1984 movie, Ghostbusters, one of the main characters, Ray Parker
(played by Dan Aykroyd), accidentally selects a childhood memory of a
marshmallow mascot for the "stay-puft" marshmallow company. He imagines, in
his own mind that this was a representation of harmlessness, only to find it
transformed into something horrible, and used against him.

~~~
PavlovsCat
> but when it does happen, the person is lashing out at any stranger.

I responded to a comment and to a "personal account". Zilch replies, downvotes
instead. I moan about that, I get your non-replies. So yeah, excuse me for
lashing out at a throwaway who doesn't care about something I care about, and
feels the need to tell me that.

> Pretty much means the person I'm dealing with is isolating themselves,

Awww, I'm so hurt. From whom though? From people I'm criticizing who can't
deal with that honestly? From a throwaway? From "peers" who don't bat an eye
to join a mob, all with their own plausible deniability? I never joined, you
could not _pay_ me enough to not want to distance myself from that kind of
stuff. So you're exactly right, int he meaning of the word, I am isolating
myself, putting on an ABC suit, say _" whoa wtf is this, are you people crazy?
well, I spoke my piece, the rest is on you."_

> In the 1984 movie, Ghostbusters, one of the main characters, Ray Parker
> (played by Dan Aykroyd), accidentally selects a childhood memory of a
> marshmallow mascot for the "stay-puft" marshmallow company. He imagines, in
> his own mind that this was a representation of harmlessness, only to find it
> transformed into something horrible, and used against him.

That explains that then, thanks, but I don't find it so terribly monstrous to
"lash out" at something needlessly during adressing everything else in a
comment, too. That's just a bonus you can ignore, instead of fixate on.

> it shows me that you are looking for things where they don't exist, and
> deciding that you found them anyway.

Right, and you're telling yourself that being slightly annoyed by getting
essentially mocked with a non-reply, and to then make ONE demonstrably false
guess, that this somehow can be applied to everything else, and of course
retroactively, too?

You're simply demonstrating the "type of character" kind of stuff I'm
denouncing. Read Arendt, that's exactly how totalitarianism "thinks". Jake's a
"rapist, sociopath, plagiarist", the victims are "victims", I'm someone who
"is looking for things where they don't exist", and you're someone who is
being "anything but malicious". Nothing of substance at all. The punishment
"proves" the "guilt" for the thoughtcrimes, the type-of-person-crimes, as well
as bestowing the appropriate immunity from criticism to others, and the
sentences are nilly-willy and the hands of the executioners free of all guilt.

Instead of me asking some valid and uncomfortable questions, which don't get
good responses because nobody HAS a good answer, it's now my fault,
_obviously_ because mentioning that I got no responses, and noticing that you
then respond with nothing but "I personally don't care, that's how it is, if
you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen [ _which you 'd never say about
some of these stories about a creeper even in cases where he stopped when
asked to, then tried again, am I correct?_]", and getting something about your
throwaway handle wrong, which is the _only_ thing you respond to -- all that
somehow means I'm "looking for things that aren't there" and "isolating
myself" and ladiblah. It's not you avoiding things and blaming that on me,
nah. It's not you who prefers to talk about people rather than facts, and then
looks kind of bad even when talking about people, in your mind.

Anyone who has ever been mobbed or dealt with a narcissist will find that kind
of strategy very, _very_ familiar. You saying you're not malicious is just you
saying things. But this string of comments, in content, for those paying
attention, is what it _is_.

------
fit2rule
This, to me, is a lesson in just how destructive narcissistic self-importance
can be for the culture of creative technology.

I've met and engaged both Jake and Nick at various times during their visits
to Europe, and I've been left, each time, with the sense that - in both cases
- there is a huge desire to create a cult of personality. In Nicks' case, it
seems relative benign and harmless - he is a loud, funny guy, very boisterous
and entertaining. Jake, also: loud and boisterous, but not so entertaining.
Jake seems to travel with a laugh track everywhere he goes (fawning sycophants
whose job it is to fill in the gaps between Jake's sentences with laughter)..

The point is, these are the kinds of characters that our scene attracts. It
should come as no surprise that they are locking horns .. imagine if we were
somehow able to harness all the power which either personality cults' provide
and somehow channel it for the good of the hacker scene. Jake could do
whatever it takes to set himself up as the Hacker Messiah, and Nick could keep
the Circus from burning down/feeding itself to the lions.

Alas, this won't be the end of it, I'm quite sure. This sort of public dissing
is precisely the sort of thing few are really capable of dealing with sanely
.. perhaps the mob will just eat itself.

