7 ms·

I am very saddened to announce that I am quitting Tor

79 points by chmars 10y ago

PuffinBlue 10y ago
If anyone could take the time to break down what this is about and why it's significant for those like me who are very out of the loop I'm sure we'd appreciate it.
- zasz 10y ago
  I found this Wired article: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiWnu6j5cbOAhVCxmMKHfvjC5IQFggeMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wired.com%2F2016%2F06%2Ftor-developer-jacob-appelbaum-resigns-amid-sex-abuse-claims%2F&usg=AFQjCNHQFG5mkMDPLt05o461PoHVVwTq6Q&sig2=hEH0dZmdcNv4WAznNbF6lw https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c... Basically, multiple women accused Jake Applebaum, a big shot in the Tor community, of sexually assaulting them, and his ex-girlfriend (the OP) was made into a pariah for defending him. For what it's worth, if the accusations are true, it's not improbable that he would've refrained from being an ass to his ex-girlfriend. Brock Turner, the Stanford rapist, has a female friend who wrote a moving testimony to what a great friend he was.
  - TillE 10y ago
    > it's not improbable that he would've refrained from being an ass to his ex-girlfriend That's not what she says: "Still, I do have a weird feeling about many of these stories because they contain facts I know are wrong" Remember that time a couple people accused Appelbaum of sexually harrassing a woman, and then she said that's not what happened at all? Yeah. The sad thing is that I'm fairly confident that most of the stories are true. But they're mixed in with some real garbage from people who hate Jake for weird reasons, which makes them seem less credible. Awful tactics.
    - zasz 10y ago
      I'm responding to the part in her email where she said Jake was a great guy who had always treated her right.
      - gdy 10y ago
        You misrepresented it as a basis for her position.
  - zorpner 10y ago
    It's a pattern. See e.g. Alison Macrina's post, in which she cites an instance prior to her own assault where Jacob Applebaum used their relationship to recruit her into defending him regarding a situation she didn't personally witness: https://medium.com/@flexlibris/theres-really-no-such-thing-as-the-voiceless-92b3fa45134d https://medium.com/@flexlibris/theres-really-no-such-thing-a...
  - lawnchair_larry 10y ago
    Well that's not a very impartial summary.
    - zasz 10y ago
      It's pretty fair. Everything in that summary is a fact.
      - mejari 10y ago
        Only presenting facts doesn't make something fair. Deciding which facts to present can affect a statement's fairness.
- matthewowen 10y ago
  "Jake" is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Appelbaum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Appelbaum. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Appelbaum#Allegations_of_sexual_misconduct https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Appelbaum#Allegations_of...
- mcguire 10y ago
  [Edit] Nevermind: http://jacobappelbaum.net/ http://jacobappelbaum.net/ [2nd edit] For balance: https://ourresponse.org/ https://ourresponse.org/
  - exstudent2 10y ago
    That site is pure social media vigilantism. They specifically state that they don't need for him to be proven guilty in a court of law. Really bad for our industry and society to have stuff like this out there. EDIT since I'm blocked from further commenting: Not only are we as tech industry members told to believe all accusations (made by the "right" person) regardless of the lack of evidence. We are _encouraged_ to witch hunt the targets of these attacks and proactively destroy their lives. If we don't, we're labeled regressive. If we speak up and question the validity of the claims we're called all manner of X-ist labels. The courts exist for a reason, they can deal with punishing those who break the law. In most of the cases what we're seeing is fully legal activity being run through a kangaroo court of public opinion spearheaded by ideologs on social media. Scary times, but I'll continue to voice resistance on sites like this despite the inevitable wave of downvoting and semi-occasional censoring.
    - moomin 10y ago
      So if you were 90% sure (not enough to convict) a guy was going to murder someone you'd be happy with him hanging out with your friends? Of course you wouldn't, so stop using criminal law as your standard for identifying when someone's a bad hat.
      - exstudent2 10y ago
        I wouldn't create a website named after the person accusing them of things the court didn't find them guilty of. Not hanging out with someone because you don't trust them? Fine. Publicly assassinating someone's reputation with no evidence, chance for rebuttal or formal hearing? Bogus.
        mcguire 10y ago
- rezashirazian 10y ago
  I am a woman, and I estimate that more than half of the Tor core people know I was dating him, or at least close to him. If Tor believed there was victims, why did no one ask if I had bad experiences with Jake? I have no idea what this is all about but it seems like high school drama and a total waste of time. If I'm missing something here I would like to be educated as well..
  - linkregister 10y ago
    I think it's a good lesson about making reputation management a priority. I don't know what to think of the entire situation. But undoubtedly everyone involved and the Tor project is significantly damaged by the affair. Appelbaum either: (1) engaged in wrongdoing, or (2) let personal and professional relationships languish to the point people wanted to sabotage him. Either way, it is a good lesson to exercise caution within such a tight-knit community.
- moomin 10y ago
  Jake was accused of multiple cases of sexual harassment, amongst other things. Tor held an investigation and found that the allegations held up. He was very popular and high-profile, but Tor decided it was best for the project to no longer be associated with him. The rest of this is the inevitable consequence of any split of this nature. FWIW I think they did the right, and the hard, thing.
  - belorn 10y ago
    According to the article here, one of the accusers was part of the group that held that investigation, determined that the allegations held up, and decided that tor should no longer be associated with him. If that is true, then really, that is one of the more devious uses of "anonymous" accusation followed by an "independent" investigation and "impartial" decision that I have ever seen. Would it be socially accepted if it was publicly known that the same person was an accuser, a investigator and a judge at the same time?
- throwaway6549 10y ago
  TOR developer gets accused of being a rapist in order to kick him out. Is he really a rapist or is this just the same playbook used against Assange and warned of by ESR? Regardless, there's nothing but he said/she said and tons of anonymous slander (on the accusing side).
- bleublanche 10y ago
  One of Jake's girlfriends is quitting Tor because people don't like her so much because she's supporting a rapist. She's also likely been behind the recent media smear against the victim. To be clear, it's rape.
parfe 10y ago
I read the whole drama bomb which could be a high school aged spat as easily as the adults involved in the Tor project, but this stood out: >To be clear I believe Jake has hurt people (which he has admitted himself) and didn't respect people's boundaries. I do not believe he is a rapist or a harasser and I am wondering what the people who started this campaign are trying to achieve. Admitting he's abusive and ignores boundaries while at the same time saying that behavior isn't harassing or rape is some Grade A dissonance. There wasn't some conspiracy. This woman even admits the guy hurts people and disrespects boundaries. The fact she doesn't have specific details about a rape or other harassment is irrelevant. She knows the guy has hurt others, and then thinks there is a campaign allied against him? I'd want any person like she describes removed from any communities I belong to, and not surprised the Tor Project decided the same.
- gozur88 10y ago
  >Admitting he's abusive and ignores boundaries while at the same time saying that behavior isn't harassing or rape is some Grade A dissonance. That depends entirely on what she means by "ignores boundaries".
- x3n0ph3n3 10y ago
  Hurting someone and being abusive are not the same. It also doesn't specify they he ignored physical boundaries (could he have been too clingy?)
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > Hurting someone and being abusive are not the same. Disrespecting boundaries and being abusive are the same. What boundaries differentiates between emotional and physical abuse, and in some cases between whether the abuse is merely an ethical issue or actually a legal issue, as well.
- unethical_ban 10y ago
  FTFY: This woman even admits the guy hurt people and disrespected boundaries.
- 10y ago
bitwize 10y ago
Yeah, and Camille Cosby stands by Bill. Hillary Clinton also stood by her husband, even though he criminally lied about the Lewinsky affair and has a long list of sexual liaisons some of which may cross the line into assault. Accept it: your ex-bf is a dick and everyone he was a dick to has a right to be pissed.
- exstudent2 10y ago
  Clinton and Cosby have nothing to do with these allegations. It's pointless to bring them up.
  - emocin 10y ago
    Disagree. It's a good parallel.
- mindslight 10y ago
  What a politically correct way to dismiss a woman's opinion!
- js8 10y ago
  I think this is the kind of bias that the OP is complaining about. If there is a doubt about you being biased when you like someone, why there shouldn't be a doubt about it when you don't like someone?
nomanisanisland 10y ago
this crypto-drama is giving me nausea
patrickburke 10y ago
Reminds me of the 4ds: Disrupt, Degrade, Deny, Destroy
Glyptodon 10y ago
Don't know if it's just me, but it seems like there is a bit of a trend lately to embellish or distort problems that can otherwise stand on their own as they are for reasons that seem anywhere from unclear to shortsighted to unnecessary.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
rjzzleep 10y ago
What we're doing in tech right now is extremely dangerous. We're mixing political correctness over fact finding (i.e. what she said as first shoot then ask) with technical competency. Remember when we shot Brendan Eich and replaced him with a marketing dude and then wondered why Firefox is suddenly driven by marketing decisions? The boundaries are pretty(I say pretty, because even here countries opinions differ) clear on what physical rape is, but the boundaries on what is considered harassment in a global world are EXTREMELY blurry. Don't ever forget that. And before you start shouting that I'm defending Jake, I'm not, I don't even like the guy.
- zorpner 10y ago
  Don't be ridiculous. Eich couldn't be CEO if for no other reason than that he didn't have a narrative ready for when people brought up his donation to a controversial cause. Seriously basic PR, and he wasn't up for it. No CEO. It's the same reason Yarvin can't run a technical organization -- not because he's not technically competent (he isn't, but that's a different conversation), but because he can't help himself from flaunting his violent racism and undermining whatever it is that he's involved in. If he could manage to turn off his bigotry faucet, maybe he could be trusted to run an actual project. Probably not. Don't blame an increasingly inclusive and considerate culture for the continued incompetence of a bigoted few. It's not hard to do good technical work, but apparently it's quite difficult for these particular white men to manage without funding/advocating/practicing bigotry and sexism. That's on them, and every time you feel oppressed by "political correctness" a dozen or more people are feeling like they can participate safely for the first time.
  - red_blobs 10y ago
    "That's on them, and every time you feel oppressed by "political correctness" a dozen or more people are feeling like they can participate safely for the first time." So you oppress hundreds and thousands for their personal beliefs in exchange for a dozen or more people to feel better? This isn't my idea of freedom. What we really need next is political diversity: Companies should be required to hire people with diverse political opinions. It would never happen because it doesn't extend and enhance the left-leaning narratives that are destroying society with emotion, mob-rule, bullying, and lies and completely disregarding statistics and facts. "It's not hard to do good technical work, but apparently it's quite difficult for these particular white men to manage without funding/advocating/practicing bigotry and sexism" Eich isn't sexist nor a bigot. Just because you don't agree with gay marriage doesn't mean you hate all gays and/or are bigoted towards them. I find it ironic that you have prejudice against an entire group of people while at the same time making the argument that we need to be less prejudice. I also remember reading Facebook during this time: The amount of bigoted comments and bullying toward anyone religious was astounding..and nobody lost their job over it. It's because it's not really about freedom, it's about taking power and control and oppressing another group of people.
jdright 10y ago
Why is this "flagged"?

79 points by chmars 10y ago

If anyone could take the time to break down what this is about and why it's significant for those like me who are very out of the loop I'm sure we'd appreciate it.

zasz 10y ago
I found this Wired article: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiWnu6j5cbOAhVCxmMKHfvjC5IQFggeMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wired.com%2F2016%2F06%2Ftor-developer-jacob-appelbaum-resigns-amid-sex-abuse-claims%2F&usg=AFQjCNHQFG5mkMDPLt05o461PoHVVwTq6Q&sig2=hEH0dZmdcNv4WAznNbF6lw https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c... Basically, multiple women accused Jake Applebaum, a big shot in the Tor community, of sexually assaulting them, and his ex-girlfriend (the OP) was made into a pariah for defending him. For what it's worth, if the accusations are true, it's not improbable that he would've refrained from being an ass to his ex-girlfriend. Brock Turner, the Stanford rapist, has a female friend who wrote a moving testimony to what a great friend he was.
- TillE 10y ago
  > it's not improbable that he would've refrained from being an ass to his ex-girlfriend That's not what she says: "Still, I do have a weird feeling about many of these stories because they contain facts I know are wrong" Remember that time a couple people accused Appelbaum of sexually harrassing a woman, and then she said that's not what happened at all? Yeah. The sad thing is that I'm fairly confident that most of the stories are true. But they're mixed in with some real garbage from people who hate Jake for weird reasons, which makes them seem less credible. Awful tactics.
  - zasz 10y ago
    I'm responding to the part in her email where she said Jake was a great guy who had always treated her right.
    - gdy 10y ago
      You misrepresented it as a basis for her position.
- zorpner 10y ago
  It's a pattern. See e.g. Alison Macrina's post, in which she cites an instance prior to her own assault where Jacob Applebaum used their relationship to recruit her into defending him regarding a situation she didn't personally witness: https://medium.com/@flexlibris/theres-really-no-such-thing-as-the-voiceless-92b3fa45134d https://medium.com/@flexlibris/theres-really-no-such-thing-a...
- lawnchair_larry 10y ago
  Well that's not a very impartial summary.
  - zasz 10y ago
    It's pretty fair. Everything in that summary is a fact.
    - mejari 10y ago
      Only presenting facts doesn't make something fair. Deciding which facts to present can affect a statement's fairness.
matthewowen 10y ago
"Jake" is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Appelbaum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Appelbaum. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Appelbaum#Allegations_of_sexual_misconduct https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Appelbaum#Allegations_of...
mcguire 10y ago
[Edit] Nevermind: http://jacobappelbaum.net/ http://jacobappelbaum.net/ [2nd edit] For balance: https://ourresponse.org/ https://ourresponse.org/
- exstudent2 10y ago
  That site is pure social media vigilantism. They specifically state that they don't need for him to be proven guilty in a court of law. Really bad for our industry and society to have stuff like this out there. EDIT since I'm blocked from further commenting: Not only are we as tech industry members told to believe all accusations (made by the "right" person) regardless of the lack of evidence. We are _encouraged_ to witch hunt the targets of these attacks and proactively destroy their lives. If we don't, we're labeled regressive. If we speak up and question the validity of the claims we're called all manner of X-ist labels. The courts exist for a reason, they can deal with punishing those who break the law. In most of the cases what we're seeing is fully legal activity being run through a kangaroo court of public opinion spearheaded by ideologs on social media. Scary times, but I'll continue to voice resistance on sites like this despite the inevitable wave of downvoting and semi-occasional censoring.
  - moomin 10y ago
    So if you were 90% sure (not enough to convict) a guy was going to murder someone you'd be happy with him hanging out with your friends? Of course you wouldn't, so stop using criminal law as your standard for identifying when someone's a bad hat.
    - exstudent2 10y ago
      I wouldn't create a website named after the person accusing them of things the court didn't find them guilty of. Not hanging out with someone because you don't trust them? Fine. Publicly assassinating someone's reputation with no evidence, chance for rebuttal or formal hearing? Bogus.
      - mcguire 10y ago
rezashirazian 10y ago
I am a woman, and I estimate that more than half of the Tor core people know I was dating him, or at least close to him. If Tor believed there was victims, why did no one ask if I had bad experiences with Jake? I have no idea what this is all about but it seems like high school drama and a total waste of time. If I'm missing something here I would like to be educated as well..
- linkregister 10y ago
  I think it's a good lesson about making reputation management a priority. I don't know what to think of the entire situation. But undoubtedly everyone involved and the Tor project is significantly damaged by the affair. Appelbaum either: (1) engaged in wrongdoing, or (2) let personal and professional relationships languish to the point people wanted to sabotage him. Either way, it is a good lesson to exercise caution within such a tight-knit community.
moomin 10y ago
Jake was accused of multiple cases of sexual harassment, amongst other things. Tor held an investigation and found that the allegations held up. He was very popular and high-profile, but Tor decided it was best for the project to no longer be associated with him. The rest of this is the inevitable consequence of any split of this nature. FWIW I think they did the right, and the hard, thing.
- belorn 10y ago
  According to the article here, one of the accusers was part of the group that held that investigation, determined that the allegations held up, and decided that tor should no longer be associated with him. If that is true, then really, that is one of the more devious uses of "anonymous" accusation followed by an "independent" investigation and "impartial" decision that I have ever seen. Would it be socially accepted if it was publicly known that the same person was an accuser, a investigator and a judge at the same time?
throwaway6549 10y ago
TOR developer gets accused of being a rapist in order to kick him out. Is he really a rapist or is this just the same playbook used against Assange and warned of by ESR? Regardless, there's nothing but he said/she said and tons of anonymous slander (on the accusing side).
bleublanche 10y ago
One of Jake's girlfriends is quitting Tor because people don't like her so much because she's supporting a rapist. She's also likely been behind the recent media smear against the victim. To be clear, it's rape.

parfe 10y ago

I read the whole drama bomb which could be a high school aged spat as easily as the adults involved in the Tor project, but this stood out: >To be clear I believe Jake has hurt people (which he has admitted himself) and didn't respect people's boundaries. I do not believe he is a rapist or a harasser and I am wondering what the people who started this campaign are trying to achieve. Admitting he's abusive and ignores boundaries while at the same time saying that behavior isn't harassing or rape is some Grade A dissonance. There wasn't some conspiracy. This woman even admits the guy hurts people and disrespects boundaries. The fact she doesn't have specific details about a rape or other harassment is irrelevant. She knows the guy has hurt others, and then thinks there is a campaign allied against him? I'd want any person like she describes removed from any communities I belong to, and not surprised the Tor Project decided the same.

gozur88 10y ago
>Admitting he's abusive and ignores boundaries while at the same time saying that behavior isn't harassing or rape is some Grade A dissonance. That depends entirely on what she means by "ignores boundaries".
x3n0ph3n3 10y ago
Hurting someone and being abusive are not the same. It also doesn't specify they he ignored physical boundaries (could he have been too clingy?)
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > Hurting someone and being abusive are not the same. Disrespecting boundaries and being abusive are the same. What boundaries differentiates between emotional and physical abuse, and in some cases between whether the abuse is merely an ethical issue or actually a legal issue, as well.
unethical_ban 10y ago
FTFY: This woman even admits the guy hurt people and disrespected boundaries.
10y ago

bitwize 10y ago

Yeah, and Camille Cosby stands by Bill. Hillary Clinton also stood by her husband, even though he criminally lied about the Lewinsky affair and has a long list of sexual liaisons some of which may cross the line into assault. Accept it: your ex-bf is a dick and everyone he was a dick to has a right to be pissed.

exstudent2 10y ago
Clinton and Cosby have nothing to do with these allegations. It's pointless to bring them up.
- emocin 10y ago
  Disagree. It's a good parallel.
mindslight 10y ago
What a politically correct way to dismiss a woman's opinion!
js8 10y ago
I think this is the kind of bias that the OP is complaining about. If there is a doubt about you being biased when you like someone, why there shouldn't be a doubt about it when you don't like someone?

nomanisanisland 10y ago

this crypto-drama is giving me nausea

patrickburke 10y ago

Reminds me of the 4ds: Disrupt, Degrade, Deny, Destroy

Glyptodon 10y ago

Don't know if it's just me, but it seems like there is a bit of a trend lately to embellish or distort problems that can otherwise stand on their own as they are for reasons that seem anywhere from unclear to shortsighted to unnecessary.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

rjzzleep 10y ago

What we're doing in tech right now is extremely dangerous. We're mixing political correctness over fact finding (i.e. what she said as first shoot then ask) with technical competency. Remember when we shot Brendan Eich and replaced him with a marketing dude and then wondered why Firefox is suddenly driven by marketing decisions? The boundaries are pretty(I say pretty, because even here countries opinions differ) clear on what physical rape is, but the boundaries on what is considered harassment in a global world are EXTREMELY blurry. Don't ever forget that. And before you start shouting that I'm defending Jake, I'm not, I don't even like the guy.

zorpner 10y ago
Don't be ridiculous. Eich couldn't be CEO if for no other reason than that he didn't have a narrative ready for when people brought up his donation to a controversial cause. Seriously basic PR, and he wasn't up for it. No CEO. It's the same reason Yarvin can't run a technical organization -- not because he's not technically competent (he isn't, but that's a different conversation), but because he can't help himself from flaunting his violent racism and undermining whatever it is that he's involved in. If he could manage to turn off his bigotry faucet, maybe he could be trusted to run an actual project. Probably not. Don't blame an increasingly inclusive and considerate culture for the continued incompetence of a bigoted few. It's not hard to do good technical work, but apparently it's quite difficult for these particular white men to manage without funding/advocating/practicing bigotry and sexism. That's on them, and every time you feel oppressed by "political correctness" a dozen or more people are feeling like they can participate safely for the first time.
- red_blobs 10y ago
  "That's on them, and every time you feel oppressed by "political correctness" a dozen or more people are feeling like they can participate safely for the first time." So you oppress hundreds and thousands for their personal beliefs in exchange for a dozen or more people to feel better? This isn't my idea of freedom. What we really need next is political diversity: Companies should be required to hire people with diverse political opinions. It would never happen because it doesn't extend and enhance the left-leaning narratives that are destroying society with emotion, mob-rule, bullying, and lies and completely disregarding statistics and facts. "It's not hard to do good technical work, but apparently it's quite difficult for these particular white men to manage without funding/advocating/practicing bigotry and sexism" Eich isn't sexist nor a bigot. Just because you don't agree with gay marriage doesn't mean you hate all gays and/or are bigoted towards them. I find it ironic that you have prejudice against an entire group of people while at the same time making the argument that we need to be less prejudice. I also remember reading Facebook during this time: The amount of bigoted comments and bullying toward anyone religious was astounding..and nobody lost their job over it. It's because it's not really about freedom, it's about taking power and control and oppressing another group of people.

jdright 10y ago

Why is this "flagged"?