4 ms·

I agree with most of your points but one stands out. Tor is absolutely perceived as a threat to US national and general security. The silk road takedown put i

by brador 10y ago

I agree with most of your points but one stands out. Tor is absolutely perceived as a threat to US national and general security. The silk road takedown put it vividly on radar. The goal of an operation like this would be to replace the non compliant actor with a compliant actor. In this case, remove the guy and replace him with someone willing to insert code to compromise the codebase. We don't know if that's what happened/is happening here, but we don't know it's not either. And I personally don't subscribe to the stupidity/malice law that's regularly thrown around here on HN.

ikeboy 10y ago
Wouldn't they stop funding it if that was the case?
tptacek 10y ago
Tor is a product of the Naval Research Laboratories and is continually funded by the US Government.
cjbprime 10y ago
One of the accusers (Andrea Shepard) is a current and veteran employee and developer of the Tor project itself. Another (Meredith Patterson) has been working in the open source crypto field for decades. To believe in the conspiracy of this being motivated by anti-Tor forces, you would have to widen the conspiracy to believe that Tor already has been compromised from the inside by its own employees for many years. Conspiracies don't get that big without bursting.
- brador 10y ago
  There is a third possiblity - ADA/s-w. The accusers fit the stereotype in their interests. The alleged crime fits the ADA MO (sexual crime, he said she said no evidence, multiple victims coming out together, end goal of removal and replacement of a target, anonymous hit pieces (twitter, article, website, blog), police rarely notified). They have previously worked on similar projects with success (Github, Mozilla, Youtube). IMO the warning given to Linus last year gains further weight with this data point. If any of you work with anyone who fits the stereotype I recommend you take immediate steps to protect yourself against these accusations coming your way.
  - cjbprime 10y ago
    Okay, so you're moving from "I think it's a conspiracy of anti-Tor state forces!" to "I think it's a conspiracy of women Jacob worked with, who I will stereotype as feminists and therefore likely to make false rape allegations!". There are several remarkable things about these thoughts -- such as the idea that you've already decided there's a conspiracy and are just trying to pick which one. But I'll concentrate on the last point. Both Meredith Patterson ("Jake finally raped enough people that Tor as an organisation couldn't ignore it anymore.") and Andrea Shepard are literally anti-SJWs: http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/01/07/social-justice-warriors-wreaking-havoc-in-open-source-software/ http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/01/07/social-justice-warr... http://www.inc.com/tess-townsend/indiegogo-campaign-funding-tech-conference-white-nationalist.html http://www.inc.com/tess-townsend/indiegogo-campaign-funding-... https://status451.com/2016/04/11/against-blacklists/ https://status451.com/2016/04/11/against-blacklists/ .. which raises the question, at least to me: what kind of prejudice did you apply to come to the ridiculous conclusion that the accusers "fit the stereotype" that they've so publicly criticized, other than that they are women?
    - tptacek 10y ago
      Well said.
    - PavlovsCat 10y ago
      > Both Meredith Patterson ("Jake finally raped enough people that Tor as an organisation couldn't ignore it anymore.") and Andrea Shepard are literally anti-SJWs: Right, yet they don't mind this campaign now do they. So how does that have any more weight than Appelbaum speaking out against abuse on several occasions?
  - neilk 10y ago
    I'm assuming you don't mean the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). Perhaps you mean the alleged Ada Initiative sexual honeypot, which came from noted "personality who no longer matters" and general wingnut Eric S. Raymond and was AFAIK never verified by anyone. I used to work in an office shared by some members of the Ada Initiative (the Wikimedia Foundation). While I can never say there isn't a secret conspiracy – that's the thing, one can never prove a negative – I know these people & why they do what they do, and these allegations are ludicrous IMO. Furthermore, one of the accusers, Meredith L. Patterson, hates the Ada Initiative and its founders, passionately. She's also been a strong voice against similar rushes to judgment and what some term "SJW" activism. While I think she's misguided in her dislike of the Ada Initiative, there's no chance she would collude with them, and there's no chance she would take part in some sort of conspiracy. You attacking her with MRA-style conspiracies... there's many levels of irony here that I find difficult to unfold. For the record I like her personally, I think she's a cogent voice of criticism that needs to be heard if you're seriously concerned with diversity. And, let's not forget, she's a brilliant computer scientist. I personally think she's given too much credence to MRA-style conspiracy theory in the past, but here you (and the rest of the MRA internet) are hitting her with one. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. Sources: Her entire twitter feed, @maradydd https://status451.com/2015/12/21/totalizing-politics-and-insurance-rackets/ https://status451.com/2015/12/21/totalizing-politics-and-ins... And here she is in freaking Breitbart of all places. http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/01/07/social-justice-warriors-wreaking-havoc-in-open-source-software/ http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/01/07/social-justice-warr...

by brador 10y ago

ikeboy 10y ago

Wouldn't they stop funding it if that was the case?

tptacek 10y ago

Tor is a product of the Naval Research Laboratories and is continually funded by the US Government.

cjbprime 10y ago

One of the accusers (Andrea Shepard) is a current and veteran employee and developer of the Tor project itself. Another (Meredith Patterson) has been working in the open source crypto field for decades. To believe in the conspiracy of this being motivated by anti-Tor forces, you would have to widen the conspiracy to believe that Tor already has been compromised from the inside by its own employees for many years. Conspiracies don't get that big without bursting.

brador 10y ago
There is a third possiblity - ADA/s-w. The accusers fit the stereotype in their interests. The alleged crime fits the ADA MO (sexual crime, he said she said no evidence, multiple victims coming out together, end goal of removal and replacement of a target, anonymous hit pieces (twitter, article, website, blog), police rarely notified). They have previously worked on similar projects with success (Github, Mozilla, Youtube). IMO the warning given to Linus last year gains further weight with this data point. If any of you work with anyone who fits the stereotype I recommend you take immediate steps to protect yourself against these accusations coming your way.
- cjbprime 10y ago
  Okay, so you're moving from "I think it's a conspiracy of anti-Tor state forces!" to "I think it's a conspiracy of women Jacob worked with, who I will stereotype as feminists and therefore likely to make false rape allegations!". There are several remarkable things about these thoughts -- such as the idea that you've already decided there's a conspiracy and are just trying to pick which one. But I'll concentrate on the last point. Both Meredith Patterson ("Jake finally raped enough people that Tor as an organisation couldn't ignore it anymore.") and Andrea Shepard are literally anti-SJWs: http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/01/07/social-justice-warriors-wreaking-havoc-in-open-source-software/ http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/01/07/social-justice-warr... http://www.inc.com/tess-townsend/indiegogo-campaign-funding-tech-conference-white-nationalist.html http://www.inc.com/tess-townsend/indiegogo-campaign-funding-... https://status451.com/2016/04/11/against-blacklists/ https://status451.com/2016/04/11/against-blacklists/ .. which raises the question, at least to me: what kind of prejudice did you apply to come to the ridiculous conclusion that the accusers "fit the stereotype" that they've so publicly criticized, other than that they are women?
  - tptacek 10y ago
    Well said.
  - PavlovsCat 10y ago
    > Both Meredith Patterson ("Jake finally raped enough people that Tor as an organisation couldn't ignore it anymore.") and Andrea Shepard are literally anti-SJWs: Right, yet they don't mind this campaign now do they. So how does that have any more weight than Appelbaum speaking out against abuse on several occasions?
- neilk 10y ago
  I'm assuming you don't mean the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). Perhaps you mean the alleged Ada Initiative sexual honeypot, which came from noted "personality who no longer matters" and general wingnut Eric S. Raymond and was AFAIK never verified by anyone. I used to work in an office shared by some members of the Ada Initiative (the Wikimedia Foundation). While I can never say there isn't a secret conspiracy – that's the thing, one can never prove a negative – I know these people & why they do what they do, and these allegations are ludicrous IMO. Furthermore, one of the accusers, Meredith L. Patterson, hates the Ada Initiative and its founders, passionately. She's also been a strong voice against similar rushes to judgment and what some term "SJW" activism. While I think she's misguided in her dislike of the Ada Initiative, there's no chance she would collude with them, and there's no chance she would take part in some sort of conspiracy. You attacking her with MRA-style conspiracies... there's many levels of irony here that I find difficult to unfold. For the record I like her personally, I think she's a cogent voice of criticism that needs to be heard if you're seriously concerned with diversity. And, let's not forget, she's a brilliant computer scientist. I personally think she's given too much credence to MRA-style conspiracy theory in the past, but here you (and the rest of the MRA internet) are hitting her with one. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. Sources: Her entire twitter feed, @maradydd https://status451.com/2015/12/21/totalizing-politics-and-insurance-rackets/ https://status451.com/2015/12/21/totalizing-politics-and-ins... And here she is in freaking Breitbart of all places. http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/01/07/social-justice-warriors-wreaking-havoc-in-open-source-software/ http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/01/07/social-justice-warr...