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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

• TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
  OK, what would you do, then? If the people he's exploited stay silent, then he can keep doing it! Going through the legal system isn't much help in a community which is distrustful of it. Complaining to the person in question, well, they've tried that, and it did nothing. And if they don't group their stories together, then it's harder for people to find the accusations against him. There is strength, and more importantly in this case, credibility, in numbers.
  • reitanqild 10y ago
    Report it to the police for one. (Ref Assange.)
    • Sanddancer 10y ago
      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.
      • Sacho 10y ago
        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 not necessarily stable in the long run. If people do not need to produce any evidence and feel no fear of reprisal, it's likely the rate of false accusations will climb as people learn to use them as a tool to bludgeon their adversaries.
        • xyience 10y ago
          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 10y ago
            [deleted]
        • nickpsecurity 10y ago
          Exactly. Most of the problems they mention for police apply to other tactics. Only difference is that the police (a) might punish them if they're lying or (b) might protect people via locking the guy ip if they think they're telling the truth. Unsubstantiated claims in social media are so much safer. ;)
          • tptacek 10y ago
            The idea that rape victims who don't report crimes to law enforcement are illegitimate is horse-shit, and people who suggest otherwise should be embarrassed.
            • nickpsecurity 10y ago
              I'm talking about these people in the smear campaign which Ive referenced repeatedly here. Not arbitrary victims. It's these people that will "report crimes" to everyone on Internet but not to law enforcement. Even with hashes and shit. You know, like most rape victims trying to stop specific rapists from hurting others...
              • tptacek 10y ago
                Please stop assigning responsibilities to the victims of abuses.
      • zeveb 10y ago
        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.
      • mschuster91 10y ago
        > opening yourself up to claims of being a slut JA lives in Germany. German cops may be total assholes regarding anti-fascist activism, but they take rape very, very seriously.
        • DasIch 10y ago
          The problem is that the law regarding rape in Germany is awful. Lack of consent alone is not sufficient for something to be considered rape in Germany. In fact there is currently a fairly noteworthy case ongoing in Germany about a Gina-Lisa Lohfink. She's currently trying to repeal a court decision forcing her to pay money to her rapist. The rapist was considered innocent despite clear video evidence because she didn't use force to defend herself and there was no evidence of her being drugged (although the video clearly shows her being totally out of it). If you're a victim of rape in Germany, you really don't want to go to the police unless you're absolutely sure you fit all the boxes and you definitely don't want to call out a rapist under your real name.
          • nickpsecurity 10y ago
            Did this happen in Germany or US? And if in Germany to an American or Americans? Point being, would he be extradited here to be tried according to US laws. If so, the accusers are at an advantage. If not, German law might be legitimate gripe. Cant say more on that given it's not my expertise.
            • DasIch 10y ago
              I haven't seen anything to indicate where any of these incidents happened but given the number of accusations it seems you have to assume it happened in both Germany and the US.
          • germanier 10y ago
            > She's currently trying to repeal a court decision forcing her to pay money to her rapist. That's not true. She is fighting against a fine (for an allegedly wrong accusation) but that would go to the state and not another involved person.
  • DanBC 10y ago
    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.
    • TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
      What is that difference, exactly?
      • DanBC 10y ago
        It's just a difference of degree.
      • dfc 10y ago
        Good faith effort.
  • petertodd 10y ago
    > And if they don't group their stories together, then it looks like there's few accusations against him. As long as the accusations on that site are made anonymously, it doesn't look like there are any concrete accusations against him.
    • TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
      If the accusations weren't anonymous, then that puts the people making them at risk of reprisals. As with everything involved in talking about abuse, you are damned if you do, damned if you don't.
      • petertodd 10y ago
        Agreed. In cases like this with multiple alleged victims, if everyone goes public with allegations at the same time that can reduce the risk of of reprisals; I hope that's what's actually going to happen here, rather than this being a smear campaign.
      • PavlovsCat 10y ago
        If the stories are true, then wouldn't he know who told them anyway? And in that case, only he would know, putting the victims at more risk, not less. On the other hand, if the story is false, he'd know who made it up. And while I understand that there may be a million valid reasons for people not wanting to attach their name to something like this, there's not just the identity of the people who posted the account, there's also the lack of dates and locations. > As with everything involved in talking about abuse, you are damned if you do, damned if you don't. And how does this not go both ways, being accused of abuse? You're damned if there is evidence, you're damned if there's none, because it's your fault there is none. That's what you said means. As that tweet goes: > Tick Tock. Your time has come rapist. Tick tock. "shit is complicated, this is too important for any due diligence or details, chaaarge!", that's how I would sum a lot of this up. Saying the website is not linked with this account is just something to save legal butt - in spirit the site and that message and acount handle are the same, it's ultimately just "he's doubleplusungood and must be destroyed". Literal death threat or not, Appelbaum obviously was supposed to be discarded with any huge interest in proof, even for the plagiarism. Which, by the way, are very unlike abuse in that if someone backs them up, they win (as does the originator who gets the credit they deserve), if they don't, that's weird. edit: Especially considering the possibility or even likelihood he's a real piece of work and an abusive person, I would be more thorough, not more sloppy. The heavier the accusations, the more precise you have to be, not the other way around, which is what internet justice seems to look like. To write about how he "makes people think you're the problem", and then not even trying to not come across like a virtual lynch mob, is just about the worst way to go about this. Then when some people actually do believe that this might not be entirely fair, one can't just say "see? you side with the abuser, it's always the same!". And then there is the fact that abuse breeds abuse. If you acknowledge to have been abused, you absolutely do have to watch out for being abusive yourself. Wanting to destroy a person while saying they're someone who destroys people is not healthy. Understandable, but people who aren't directly affected can't be expected to just go "makes sense". From the outside perspective, this is probably two parties being in the wrong in various ways. It's hard to tell who is worse atm.
  • wfn 10y ago
    > OK, what would you do, then? Something like this, perhaps: https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2016-June/041112.html https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2016-June/04... TL;DR: neutral court of arbitration hears the case with all the private details; does not disclose those private details; hears defense etc etc.; makes a judgement; everyone else acknowledges and adheres to that judgement. Disclaimers: (1) not that there aren't problems and points of weakness with this approach, of course; (2) personally I am very much inclined to trust what Andrea Shepard and Nick Farr say - I'm just saying that some separation of powers and being careful with smear campaigns (note, I don't think that what Nick Farr said is anything akin to smear, though, and I applause his courage here) may do more good in the end.
  • nickpsecurity 10y ago
    What a cop out. Actually, the legal system does help many rape victims when they have plenty of eyewitnesses backing up multiple accounts plus testimony from people like Nick Farr about character in general. Tweets, a smear site... these dont stop rapists. Cops and courts regularly do. Not always but many times. This is a police matter but treated as an internet game.
    • bcg1 10y ago
      Unfortunately, neither of your statements is entirely true. There are many cases where law enforcement and the legal system fail victims in a variety of ways (e.g., blaming the victim, improper handling of rape kits, police themselves might be predators looking for victims to target, etc). To put ones faith and protection entirely in the hands of 'the authorities' would be a dogmatic insistence on a single point of failure. And an awareness campaign (or "tweets" and a "smear site" as you put it) can have merit. Consider predators such as Bill Cosby or Jerry Sandusky, who were powerful and had enough gravitas to cover up their crimes for decades. It was only when there was a public awareness campaign that numerous witnesses and victims had enough courage to come forward and actual charges could be filed.
      • nickpsecurity 10y ago
        There is a risk where the law might fail. I could see an awareness campaign as an alternative strategy. Yet, tptacek already showed it works to tune of 60,000+ convictions a year here. Their stated goal is protecting people from him along with getting the truth out. So, legal system should be first consideration.
        • hackuser 10y ago
          > There is a risk where the law might fail. It's easy to dismiss the risk and the costs from our position, talking about it on an Internet bulletin board. It's a very serious consideration for rape victims.
• moyix 10y ago
  For what it's worth, the web site denies involvement with the twitter account: > I SAW SOME DIFFERENT TWITTER ACCOUNTS CLAIMING TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS SITE. IS THAT YOU? > No. Since it is no longer possible to create a Twitter acocunt without a phone number and because we believe anonymity is important, we opted to boycott direct Twitter presence for this site. We don't have a Twitter account. > We have seen the accounts you're talking about and they aren't associated with us. We don't know who is running them, and some of us are disturbed by their incendiary statements and graphics. We don't condone calls for violence or for Jake to self-harm.
  • nickpsecurity 10y ago
    This is a claim by one member in a smear campaign saying they're not working with others despite everything happening in a day or so. Their claim isn't worth anything.
    • Fricken 10y ago
      Of course their claim is worth something. Everybody is suspicious now of Jacob Applebaum, which is exactly the intended outcome of a smear campaign.
  • tacone 10y ago
    > No. Since it is no longer possible to create a Twitter acocunt without a phone number Really?
    • imrehg 10y ago
      And also one phone number seems to be allowed to be tied to one Twitter account. (Last time I tried). Sucks if I want to make some twitter bots to do a service / data stream, or set up a Twitter account for an organization... https://support.twitter.com/articles/15348 https://support.twitter.com/articles/15348
      • tacone 10y ago
        I mean, really? Do you have to give them your phone to get an account? So much for growth.
• gohrt 10y ago
  > "@DieJakeDie" social media efforts are doing more harm than good That is obvious form the name, before considering the content at all.