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Re: NSA, state actors, billion dollar budgets... I think you're giving Appelbaum way too much credit here. While he's been splendid at marketing himself, consid

by rhblake 10y ago

Re: NSA, state actors, billion dollar budgets... I think you're giving Appelbaum way too much credit here. While he's been splendid at marketing himself, consider that he might not actually be that important to the causes he's been championing. As others have pointed out: if said state actors wanted to hurt Tor and related projects, he'd be pretty far down the list of targets.

petertodd 10y ago
Creating drama in a community is harmful to the community as a whole by discouraging outsiders from joining, and encouraging people to leave. Those are all plausible goals of an attack regardless of the direct importance of Jacob Appelbaum himself. Regardless of whether the allegations are true, false, or a mixture of both, the Tor community needs to find better ways of handling situations like this in the future to better protect both victims of abuse, and victims of false accusations, to make sure people in that community feel safe and can focus on their work.
pdkl95 10y ago
Did you forget that Appelbaum was involved in the release of the NSA ANT catalog[1], or his involvement with Laura Poitras and the Snowden documents? Never mind his involvement with Tor (which has been a recent target of various state actors). I'm sure many intelligence community want Appelbaum only slightly less than they want Snowden. Or do you want to argue that the NSA doesn't care about the person that revealed a catalog of their tools to the public? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_ANT_catalog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_ANT_catalog
- syngrog66 10y ago
  agreed. I forgot to mention Tor and Snowden explicitly in my OC but agreed that these facts are all relevant to how we need to interpret events in this space. because it gives even more motive for certain actors to smear Applebaum.
- rhblake 10y ago
  No, I didn't forget that he was one of three people involved in writing stories about the NSA ANT catalog, nor that he worked with Poitras (after she, Greenwald and MacAskill had done the most important part). I also did not forget that while he's been good at marketing Tor -- I've seen him at CCC in Berlin/Hamburg a bunch of times 2009-2015, he's become a good speaker -- he's never been important from a tech/operations point of view, from what I understand. So, yeah, I maintain that there are plenty of juicier targets that Jacob Appelbaum. I'm also sure that he'd like you to think otherwise.
  - mtgx 10y ago
    He was on the short list for having all of Snowden's documents. If that doesn't make him a primary target for the US government, I don't know what would. Remember Greenwald's partner was harassed and detained all the way in UK at the request of the US government because he was close to one of the people on this short list of Snowden documents holders.
    - rhblake 10y ago
      What short list? I know he's had access to some of them, along with other journalists, but I've never seen anything about him having all of them.
  - pdkl95 10y ago
    > (after she, Greenwald and MacAskill had done the most important part) They are also targets. I made no claim about the relative importance of Appelbaum's involvement, which is completely off-topic. He gave the talk at 30c3, which makes him a figurehead and thus a target. > he's never been important from a tech/operations point of view So what? That doesn't make him any less of a target from agencies that are pissed off about their documents being leaked to the public. The TLAs would love to make an example out of any of the people involved. > I'm also sure that he'd like you to think otherwise. That's your interpretation. To be clear, I haven't stated my interpretation, as my only point was that Appelbaum is absolutely on the short list of people we know are the target of state agencies so dismissing the possibility of their involvement is foolish.
mtgx 10y ago
> "When I flew away for an appointment, I installed four alarm systems in my apartment," Appelbaum told the paper after discussing other situations which he said made him feel uneasy. "When I returned, three of them had been turned off. The fourth, however, had registered that somebody was in my flat - although I'm the only one with a key. And some of my effects, whose positions I carefully note, were indeed askew. My computers had been turned on and off." http://www.dw.com/en/snowden-ally-appelbaum-claims-his-berlin-apartment-was-invaded/a-17315069 http://www.dw.com/en/snowden-ally-appelbaum-claims-his-berli... And other similar and very recent account of the US gov harassing Tor developers: https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/fbi-harassment.html https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/fbi-harassment.html
- rhblake 10y ago
  > And other similar and very recent account of the US gov harassing Tor developers: > https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/fbi-harassment.html https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/fbi-harassment.html It could be noted that the core Tor developer (@isislovecruft) who wrote that post has also spoken out against Appelbaum.
  - syngrog66 10y ago
    can you link to something specific that @isislovecruft said? A specific statement, by him/her, first-person, as an independent direct witness, against Applebaum? because I did a quick search and saw nothing in their blog or Twitter stream. Instead... I saw a lot of what I expected to see: smoke, emo-drama, innuendo, rumor and SJW brigading. I'd love to have my views corrected by facts and something concrete. It would help everybody involved in the discussion.
asuffield 10y ago
There's a more compelling argument: if any of the large state actors were involved, they'd probably have done a more competent job of it. This all sounds pretty amateurish to me.

by rhblake 10y ago

petertodd 10y ago

Creating drama in a community is harmful to the community as a whole by discouraging outsiders from joining, and encouraging people to leave. Those are all plausible goals of an attack regardless of the direct importance of Jacob Appelbaum himself. Regardless of whether the allegations are true, false, or a mixture of both, the Tor community needs to find better ways of handling situations like this in the future to better protect both victims of abuse, and victims of false accusations, to make sure people in that community feel safe and can focus on their work.

pdkl95 10y ago

Did you forget that Appelbaum was involved in the release of the NSA ANT catalog[1], or his involvement with Laura Poitras and the Snowden documents? Never mind his involvement with Tor (which has been a recent target of various state actors). I'm sure many intelligence community want Appelbaum only slightly less than they want Snowden. Or do you want to argue that the NSA doesn't care about the person that revealed a catalog of their tools to the public? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_ANT_catalog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_ANT_catalog

syngrog66 10y ago
agreed. I forgot to mention Tor and Snowden explicitly in my OC but agreed that these facts are all relevant to how we need to interpret events in this space. because it gives even more motive for certain actors to smear Applebaum.
rhblake 10y ago
No, I didn't forget that he was one of three people involved in writing stories about the NSA ANT catalog, nor that he worked with Poitras (after she, Greenwald and MacAskill had done the most important part). I also did not forget that while he's been good at marketing Tor -- I've seen him at CCC in Berlin/Hamburg a bunch of times 2009-2015, he's become a good speaker -- he's never been important from a tech/operations point of view, from what I understand. So, yeah, I maintain that there are plenty of juicier targets that Jacob Appelbaum. I'm also sure that he'd like you to think otherwise.
- mtgx 10y ago
  He was on the short list for having all of Snowden's documents. If that doesn't make him a primary target for the US government, I don't know what would. Remember Greenwald's partner was harassed and detained all the way in UK at the request of the US government because he was close to one of the people on this short list of Snowden documents holders.
  - rhblake 10y ago
    What short list? I know he's had access to some of them, along with other journalists, but I've never seen anything about him having all of them.
- pdkl95 10y ago
  > (after she, Greenwald and MacAskill had done the most important part) They are also targets. I made no claim about the relative importance of Appelbaum's involvement, which is completely off-topic. He gave the talk at 30c3, which makes him a figurehead and thus a target. > he's never been important from a tech/operations point of view So what? That doesn't make him any less of a target from agencies that are pissed off about their documents being leaked to the public. The TLAs would love to make an example out of any of the people involved. > I'm also sure that he'd like you to think otherwise. That's your interpretation. To be clear, I haven't stated my interpretation, as my only point was that Appelbaum is absolutely on the short list of people we know are the target of state agencies so dismissing the possibility of their involvement is foolish.

mtgx 10y ago

> "When I flew away for an appointment, I installed four alarm systems in my apartment," Appelbaum told the paper after discussing other situations which he said made him feel uneasy. "When I returned, three of them had been turned off. The fourth, however, had registered that somebody was in my flat - although I'm the only one with a key. And some of my effects, whose positions I carefully note, were indeed askew. My computers had been turned on and off." http://www.dw.com/en/snowden-ally-appelbaum-claims-his-berlin-apartment-was-invaded/a-17315069 http://www.dw.com/en/snowden-ally-appelbaum-claims-his-berli... And other similar and very recent account of the US gov harassing Tor developers: https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/fbi-harassment.html https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/fbi-harassment.html

rhblake 10y ago
> And other similar and very recent account of the US gov harassing Tor developers: > https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/fbi-harassment.html https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/fbi-harassment.html It could be noted that the core Tor developer (@isislovecruft) who wrote that post has also spoken out against Appelbaum.
- syngrog66 10y ago
  can you link to something specific that @isislovecruft said? A specific statement, by him/her, first-person, as an independent direct witness, against Applebaum? because I did a quick search and saw nothing in their blog or Twitter stream. Instead... I saw a lot of what I expected to see: smoke, emo-drama, innuendo, rumor and SJW brigading. I'd love to have my views corrected by facts and something concrete. It would help everybody involved in the discussion.

asuffield 10y ago

There's a more compelling argument: if any of the large state actors were involved, they'd probably have done a more competent job of it. This all sounds pretty amateurish to me.