8 ms·

Tor/Appelbaum Separation Agreement [pdf]

76 points by aburan28 10y ago

datenwolf 10y ago
~~~~One thing that I think is extremely noteworthy is, that the slander site (and let's be frank, the site that went up on May 27th is slander in its purest form) links to site resources hosted at the GitHub pages of the user profile "ioerror". That would be the profile of Jacob Appelbaum himself, but it's unlikely that Jacob would volunteer his GitHub account for this. Which leaves the conclusion that Jake Appelbaum's GitHub account has been taken over and he no longer has control over it.~~~~ EDIT: I was wrong on that, it's actually on a profile ioerrror spelled with 3 'r'-s – sneaky.
- avree 10y ago
  It's hosted from the GitHub page of "ioerrror", not "ioerror". Spelling is important.
  - datenwolf 10y ago
    Ohh, I didn't notice that. Sneaky.
- jordigh 10y ago
  > let's be frank, the site that went up on May 27th is slander in its purest form I don't see why this is so immediately obviously slander. Why is it obvious to you?
  - datenwolf 10y ago
    Why obvious, hmm, let's see: - Public accusations of felony and/or misconduct - Person who's accused is named - Accusations are in part done anonymous (notable exception: Nick Farr) On a personal level I know Jacob Appelbaum about as good as I know Nick Farr. EDIT: means I've exchanged words with them on congresses and on occasion discussed technical topics; that's it. If the allegations agains Jake prove to be true then I hope he'll have to face the appropriate lawful consequences. There's a reason there is a legal court system and there's a reason for the principle "innocent until proven guilty". And even if one thinks that the court system was ineffective (and oh boy it often is) and a person could get away with crimes this in no way gives carte blance to put a person on a pillory. Everybody who does this immediately looses all credibility in my opinion. The mere fact that this site exists is a great disservice to the victims, assuming the allegations are true. Would this site not exist the termination of employment of Jake Appelbaum in the Tor Project would carry much more weight. But with this site in existence the whole issue gets a very, very bad taste. And in fact to everyone who has a fine tuned legal conscience this creates a lot of bias against the victims. And what's more important: Jakob Appelbaum is currently living in Germany, so and legal process would be in terms of German law. And in Germany there are several legal protections on personal rights in place. Among them there is "Strafgesetzbuch (StGB) § 186 Üble Nachrede" English Translation (by me): > Who makes or spreads allegations against another person, which the intent of depreciation or which has the potential to vilify the public opinion without these allegations being provably true, is to be convited with one year of imprisonment or monetary penality, if the act was public or by publishing of written word (§ 11 Abs. 3), with two years of imprisonment or monetary penality. The key point here is "provably true". At the moment none of the allegations have ben proven true. It's all hearsay. And it clearly has the potential to vilify Jakobs Appelbaum's public image. The site is not hosted in Germany. But its mere existence has relevance for any legal actions that may happen in the future.
avree 10y ago
Appears to be a fairly standard, boiler-plate separation agreement.
- dsr_ 10y ago
  With the very standard "we will pay you a month's extra salary if you agree not to sue us or disparage us" stanza that happens when someone is not leaving entirely voluntarily. IMO, if Tor thought that he had a reasonable case against them, they would increase that to substantially more.
  - sseveran 10y ago
    Maybe someone didn't want him to sign. $8333 pre tax seems a little low if they actually wanted the document to be executed.
    - dsr_ 10y ago
      No, it means that they don't feel he has a case against them. Without some compensation, there's no reason for him to sign anything at all. If they don't want it executed, they can just not offer any money: pay him what he's owed, and remind him of any outstanding agreements in either direction. If they offered him more than 6 months salary, I would expect that to be (a) an indication that they really want to avoid a court case and (b) in a document that laid out much more specific terms. One month of salary says "we don't think you have a case at all, but just in case you were thinking about it, take this and go". If it were a break-even for-profit business, that might go as far as two months of salary -- Appelbaum's been there for about 8 years. It's really not suspicious to me.
      - sseveran 10y ago
        I don't think its suspicious. I would say it indicates that they don't expect to be sued, not that it doesn't think it will win on merits. Simply calling up outside counsel to prepare for a lawsuit would cost way more than $8300. So it would seem that either they don't expect to be sued or don't care if he signs the document.
agd 10y ago
From the outside it's very difficult to know what's going on here. Maybe Appelbaum is a jerk. Maybe he's carried out sexual harrassment/rape. I don't know. But these things are not proven by a clearly orchestrated character assassination: aggressive twitter accounts, anonymous testimony, a website which is misleading and attempts to deceive people. These things don't help anyone and only undermine the claims by the alleged victims. Given who Appelbaum is, it's entirely possible that outside actors are also getting involved to exacerbate tensions. In summary: Applebaum has left. TOR can move on. If there are criminal matters, they can be decided in the courts. Witch hunts and character assassinations are not productive.
- jordigh 10y ago
  > aggressive twitter accounts, There appears to be some false flags in those accounts, as the main site with the rape allegations has claimed that they do not endorse the threats uttered in those accounts.
  - PavlovsCat 10y ago
    Don't endorse? That's first and foremost words -- the website, "TimeToDieJake" and the picture of the guillotine chopping of his penise, that's more real. Their plausible deniability doesn't translate into "confirmed false flags". It can't be confirmed either way, I'd say, since we can't read minds. "endorse" just means "not publically support", which in turn just means "we're not that insane". But you're right, it's AFAIK not entirely right to speak of aggressive twitter accountS, but I for one didn't buy their "we're not related" about TimeToDieJake for one second. Can't prove it, but it'll take you hard proof to convince me otherwise. I agree you can't blame people directly for all of anyone out there does now, I'm sure plenty of people enjoy stirring the pot. But you can blame adults at least partially for the storm they unleashed and the way in which they did it, and how unable they are to even see, much less acknowledge that. Stirring up hatred against someone and then saying you don't endorse hateful messages against them might be useful in a court, but beyond that? To me, generating hatred against Appelbaum was the whole and the sole point of the exercise. I mean, while we're at accepting "this seems plausible" as good enough, then that's a somewhat reasonable assumption I'd say. For me so far the claims of Appelbaum being a super psycho are hearsay, some of it plausible, sure, and nobody coming out for real against it - but I also see manipulation, using others to destroy someone, not wanting to lay it out in the open, and so on. Those are also red flags. And that's not because Appelbaum is playing his narcissist mind games on me, and makes me blame his doings on the victims, that's simply the stuff I see. I see a whole lot of disagreeing with downvotes instead of people using their words, too, and that is also a signal. For people who claim to be against abuse, some people are mighty abusive.
ordbajsare 10y ago
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2015/11/04/feminists-are-trying-to-frame-linus-torvalds-for-sexual-assault-claims-open-source-industry-veteran/ http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2015/11/04/feminists-are-tryin...
drcreed 10y ago
I thought this was an insightful blog post about how communities (don't) deal with abusers: http://pervocracy.blogspot.nl/2012/06/missing-stair.html http://pervocracy.blogspot.nl/2012/06/missing-stair.html It may be relevant here, maybe not, but an interesting read nonetheless. For the easily offended: it's regarding a BDSM community though it's not at all central to the post.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

76 points by aburan28 10y ago

~~~~One thing that I think is extremely noteworthy is, that the slander site (and let's be frank, the site that went up on May 27th is slander in its purest form) links to site resources hosted at the GitHub pages of the user profile "ioerror". That would be the profile of Jacob Appelbaum himself, but it's unlikely that Jacob would volunteer his GitHub account for this. Which leaves the conclusion that Jake Appelbaum's GitHub account has been taken over and he no longer has control over it.~~~~ EDIT: I was wrong on that, it's actually on a profile ioerrror spelled with 3 'r'-s – sneaky.

avree 10y ago
It's hosted from the GitHub page of "ioerrror", not "ioerror". Spelling is important.
- datenwolf 10y ago
  Ohh, I didn't notice that. Sneaky.
jordigh 10y ago
> let's be frank, the site that went up on May 27th is slander in its purest form I don't see why this is so immediately obviously slander. Why is it obvious to you?
- datenwolf 10y ago
  Why obvious, hmm, let's see: - Public accusations of felony and/or misconduct - Person who's accused is named - Accusations are in part done anonymous (notable exception: Nick Farr) On a personal level I know Jacob Appelbaum about as good as I know Nick Farr. EDIT: means I've exchanged words with them on congresses and on occasion discussed technical topics; that's it. If the allegations agains Jake prove to be true then I hope he'll have to face the appropriate lawful consequences. There's a reason there is a legal court system and there's a reason for the principle "innocent until proven guilty". And even if one thinks that the court system was ineffective (and oh boy it often is) and a person could get away with crimes this in no way gives carte blance to put a person on a pillory. Everybody who does this immediately looses all credibility in my opinion. The mere fact that this site exists is a great disservice to the victims, assuming the allegations are true. Would this site not exist the termination of employment of Jake Appelbaum in the Tor Project would carry much more weight. But with this site in existence the whole issue gets a very, very bad taste. And in fact to everyone who has a fine tuned legal conscience this creates a lot of bias against the victims. And what's more important: Jakob Appelbaum is currently living in Germany, so and legal process would be in terms of German law. And in Germany there are several legal protections on personal rights in place. Among them there is "Strafgesetzbuch (StGB) § 186 Üble Nachrede" English Translation (by me): > Who makes or spreads allegations against another person, which the intent of depreciation or which has the potential to vilify the public opinion without these allegations being provably true, is to be convited with one year of imprisonment or monetary penality, if the act was public or by publishing of written word (§ 11 Abs. 3), with two years of imprisonment or monetary penality. The key point here is "provably true". At the moment none of the allegations have ben proven true. It's all hearsay. And it clearly has the potential to vilify Jakobs Appelbaum's public image. The site is not hosted in Germany. But its mere existence has relevance for any legal actions that may happen in the future.

avree 10y ago

Appears to be a fairly standard, boiler-plate separation agreement.

dsr_ 10y ago
With the very standard "we will pay you a month's extra salary if you agree not to sue us or disparage us" stanza that happens when someone is not leaving entirely voluntarily. IMO, if Tor thought that he had a reasonable case against them, they would increase that to substantially more.
- sseveran 10y ago
  Maybe someone didn't want him to sign. $8333 pre tax seems a little low if they actually wanted the document to be executed.
  - dsr_ 10y ago
    No, it means that they don't feel he has a case against them. Without some compensation, there's no reason for him to sign anything at all. If they don't want it executed, they can just not offer any money: pay him what he's owed, and remind him of any outstanding agreements in either direction. If they offered him more than 6 months salary, I would expect that to be (a) an indication that they really want to avoid a court case and (b) in a document that laid out much more specific terms. One month of salary says "we don't think you have a case at all, but just in case you were thinking about it, take this and go". If it were a break-even for-profit business, that might go as far as two months of salary -- Appelbaum's been there for about 8 years. It's really not suspicious to me.
    - sseveran 10y ago
      I don't think its suspicious. I would say it indicates that they don't expect to be sued, not that it doesn't think it will win on merits. Simply calling up outside counsel to prepare for a lawsuit would cost way more than $8300. So it would seem that either they don't expect to be sued or don't care if he signs the document.

agd 10y ago

From the outside it's very difficult to know what's going on here. Maybe Appelbaum is a jerk. Maybe he's carried out sexual harrassment/rape. I don't know. But these things are not proven by a clearly orchestrated character assassination: aggressive twitter accounts, anonymous testimony, a website which is misleading and attempts to deceive people. These things don't help anyone and only undermine the claims by the alleged victims. Given who Appelbaum is, it's entirely possible that outside actors are also getting involved to exacerbate tensions. In summary: Applebaum has left. TOR can move on. If there are criminal matters, they can be decided in the courts. Witch hunts and character assassinations are not productive.

jordigh 10y ago
> aggressive twitter accounts, There appears to be some false flags in those accounts, as the main site with the rape allegations has claimed that they do not endorse the threats uttered in those accounts.
- PavlovsCat 10y ago
  Don't endorse? That's first and foremost words -- the website, "TimeToDieJake" and the picture of the guillotine chopping of his penise, that's more real. Their plausible deniability doesn't translate into "confirmed false flags". It can't be confirmed either way, I'd say, since we can't read minds. "endorse" just means "not publically support", which in turn just means "we're not that insane". But you're right, it's AFAIK not entirely right to speak of aggressive twitter accountS, but I for one didn't buy their "we're not related" about TimeToDieJake for one second. Can't prove it, but it'll take you hard proof to convince me otherwise. I agree you can't blame people directly for all of anyone out there does now, I'm sure plenty of people enjoy stirring the pot. But you can blame adults at least partially for the storm they unleashed and the way in which they did it, and how unable they are to even see, much less acknowledge that. Stirring up hatred against someone and then saying you don't endorse hateful messages against them might be useful in a court, but beyond that? To me, generating hatred against Appelbaum was the whole and the sole point of the exercise. I mean, while we're at accepting "this seems plausible" as good enough, then that's a somewhat reasonable assumption I'd say. For me so far the claims of Appelbaum being a super psycho are hearsay, some of it plausible, sure, and nobody coming out for real against it - but I also see manipulation, using others to destroy someone, not wanting to lay it out in the open, and so on. Those are also red flags. And that's not because Appelbaum is playing his narcissist mind games on me, and makes me blame his doings on the victims, that's simply the stuff I see. I see a whole lot of disagreeing with downvotes instead of people using their words, too, and that is also a signal. For people who claim to be against abuse, some people are mighty abusive.

ordbajsare 10y ago

http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2015/11/04/feminists-are-trying-to-frame-linus-torvalds-for-sexual-assault-claims-open-source-industry-veteran/ http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2015/11/04/feminists-are-tryin...

drcreed 10y ago

I thought this was an insightful blog post about how communities (don't) deal with abusers: http://pervocracy.blogspot.nl/2012/06/missing-stair.html http://pervocracy.blogspot.nl/2012/06/missing-stair.html It may be relevant here, maybe not, but an interesting read nonetheless. For the easily offended: it's regarding a BDSM community though it's not at all central to the post.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]