Our statement on the results of the Jacob Appelbaum investigation
blog.torproject.org
blog.torproject.org
Some will be swayed by the fact that the internal investigation turned up some legitimate claims, but if the judicial system disagrees then this guy's life is already ruined, and I don't think that's appropriate. The whole situation reflects poorly on everyone involved.
The victims involved in this have specifically asked this to not happen. I'm sure you can understand why the members of a community like this would have personal or political reasons to avoid a judicial investigation.
It is the right of most organizations in most states/countries to exclude people of their choosing. They have verified a couple complaints and decided he was enough like a person they wanted to exclude. Which it sounds like he was doing from his side as well.
So I'd say that legally, he is being considered innocent.
This is like 'I can say whatever I want without the consequences of my peers because of the first amendment.' The right to free speech and the right to be innocent until proven guilty apply to a citizens relationship with the government.
It wasn't the event that made him look bad, it was his actions. Don't be passive about this.
It was what somebody else claimed his actions were.
"The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right...to be confronted with the witnesses against him.
...
The Confrontation Clause has its roots in both English common law, protecting the right of cross-examination, and Roman law, which guaranteed persons accused of a crime the right to look their accusers in the eye. "
There should be an unbiased mediation system available to resolve this, but the judicial system is not that. This is a shift in society as we begin to care more about these types of allegations.
Just as these things were often unfairly ignored before they may now be addressed in ways that are potentially unfair to the alleged perpetrator.
It's an evolution of our society away from bias towards the agenda of dominant men. Like it or not, this is the direction we're heading.
Occam's razor, and straightforward root cause analysis -- via the weight of numerous (largely very credible) statements from multiple witnesses -- suggest that he ultimately ruined his own life by choosing to engage in a persistent pattern of aggressive and uncivil behavior towards others in his community.
Not that it was ruined "because of" the statements the Tor project made about his case.
In either case, however, I don't think Tor's actions would be very professional. How often do you see a company blog about why they fired someone?
That's an interesting position which you haven't presented much reasoning for; its not, however, what the US has generally decided, so if you want it to change, you should probably say why.
The decision the US has mostly come to is this:
(1) You can't impose legal sanction without proving something in court.
(2) If someone is harmed (including by accusation of criminal behavior) by something you say, they can challenge it in court as defamation (e.g., slander, libel). and they must show evidence that it is false.
Your proposal is a fairly radical restriction on free speech.
I don't know what the truth is here, but I can't trust anyone who won't make the investigation public by that very fact.
And just for the record, I have been severely sexually harassed, enough that the person responsible was fired. So it's not like I can't sympathize with victims of harassment. Yes, it really is uncomfortable facing them, but it's also the right thing to do.
EDIT: Not clear why this is so controversial, but that doesn't beget trust, either. But it's true and I'll stand by it.
by requesting NOT to have a judicial investigation the accusers are effectively saying "we are content to allow for trial by torch-wielding-mob in the court of public opinion and reputation" instead of allowing for a trial by an institution established specifically for impartiality and upholding the rights of both the accusers and the accused.
What you are arguing is that, in the absence of a trial by a government, people have the active right to participate in an organization that doesn't want them. That goes against every bit of the ethos of a project like Tor. (And if you won't believe any other argument, keep in mind that it's not fair to him: why would the state be inclined to treat him fairly, for everything he's done to oppose the state?)
https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence
You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim as an excuse to invade our precincts. Many of these problems don't exist. Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will identify them and address them by our means. We are forming our own Social Contract. This governance will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours. Our world is different.
I think you may have missed what the front-page of HN looked like when this was first happening. I won't bother re-quoting/linking things beyond previous discussions (since those contain the information) but your comment is entirely out-of-sync with what was happening.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11845338 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11837901
If you're referring to the "DieJakeDie" account, I acknowledge that it existed, but it was very clear that it had no involvement with victims or (as far as anyone can tell) anyone involved in the Tor community. The integrity of the Tor process was not compromised by its existence, any more than the integrity of a government trial is compromised by protesters outside calling for blood.
I stupidly hadn't asked enough questions about the back story of how this guy got involved with the previous incarnation of the organization - he came in, stirred up trouble, drove out the existing leadership and due to their missteps, was able to portray his behaviour as reasonable... when it became apparent he was losing some level of control over the current org, he did it all over again. My fault entirely for being not cynical enough and the other people for believing in his bullshit.
I understand your point of view, but until you have been in a real world situation where the legal system is COMPLETELY USELESS, you will never really understand how the world really works (aka reach 40, not a conservative, no brain etc). The amount of ambiguity inherent in evaluating human behaviour is a lot more than you think, and people like this use it to their advantage. And the legal system is very expensive, so trying to use it to achieve 'justice' tends to be, overall, not cost effective. The legal system is ONLY about monetary issues.
And people like Appelbaum know this - they know how to skate the line and to use the weaknesses of society, social relationships, the legal system ... to their advantage. Reading about Appelbaum triggered all my triggers about people who should be avoided. I really "get" this ideal of Solomon-like impartiality, but facts / evidence / scientific-ish attitude... you have to also understand people as well besides this to grok the truth and that requires actual wisdom. And over 40, you begin to understand that an awful lot of people have zero integrity, especially those whose primary goal is power of some sort.
The fact that psychopaths exist is not evidence of Applebaum's guilt. This torch wielding angry mob might have a legitimate grievance, or they might be a spontaneous torch wielding angry mob, they might even be stirred up by a psychopath like the one you describe.
That's why we need a process better than the torch wielding angry mob.
Perhaps the global 'social networking' phenomena / the democratization of the media / etc offers something - all in all, all the discussion around things like this is ultimately useful; it raises people's awareness.
So, since I have no idea what your point was, can you rephrase your post? What was your point?
It isn't really "shitty" to be under 40 or conservative.
I mistakingly assumed everyone has heard of the maxim attributed to Churchill. It's a bit flippant, but there is some truth to it if you look past the surface meaning. The world is fundamentally run by money and power, two things 'conservatives' are stereotypically obsessed with. When you see that 'liberals' can be driven by those two things as well, then how society really operates becomes a lot clearer.
As for my post, I was trying to say the legal system is inadequate for some things. In a small community, there are social mechanisms by which the group can deal with problematic people, if the group steps up to the task. Western society today is not a "small community" but perhaps the rise of social networking etc allows for this. The problem then becomes acting with integrity, and trying to deal with the issue evenhandedly - I am of course assuming the Tor Board did its best here. It's unfortunate those that things needed to get to the point where there was enough of a public outcry to finally address the issue - as I understand it, people have been complaining about Appelbaum for years (same as for Jian Ghomeshi in Canada). But that is how it usually works - people "knew" about Bill Cosby and Jimmy Saville for years but the issue never got addressed.
How can communities police themselves without having to rely on an external authority or hierarchy? Always relying on the legal system as the external authority is impracticable.
communities can police themselves about how well their members fit in with the group and obey social norms using whatever tools they like, up to a point.
up to a point.
the point where self-policing must end and external authority must take over is when criminal allegations are made against a member of the community. if someone is accused of sexual assault, that is a crime they can face prison time for. it is deeply inappropriate for the community to try and self-police a criminal allegation of that weight.
if the accuser is not willing to let the criminal justice system investigate a criminal allegation then I think there's something else going on. using criminal allegations for social-normative or political ends is a dangerous game though.
I don't need the certainty of a court verdict to convince me a bozo isn't worth my time. When there's no shortage of good people to work with, anything less than a "yes" is a "no".
Conversely, I also choose my own friends. I've befriended social pariahs many times, because having played that role many times myself, I get it.
These accusers only become "victims" after an impartial jury of Appelbaum's peers weighs the evidence and pronounces him guilty.
Not every judicial system uses juries.
"Victim" is not a predominantly judicial term, unlike "defendant" or "felon", so the everyday meaning of someone who suffered something applies. That's a factual thing, not procedural as you claim above.
The vast majority of accusations in our lives have no place in court.
Only the very gravest ones find their way there. And we're under no obligation to refrain from drawing our own conclusions.
No, its how the justice system determines whether fact claims are adequately supported to apply legal sanctions.
Individuals are free to determine and speak on their conclusions as to the truth of fact claims independent of judicial conclusions; this is a fairly fundamental freedom (reflected in the first amendment) and essential to the marketplace of ideas.
If he did rape someone, no due process means we're treating rape as a mere HR issue, and he's free to go rape more people.
If he did not rape someone, then at least some of the allegations being thrown around are false. No due process means that someone unconnected with this may reasonably assume all of it is false.
What do you mean "against all odds"? Unless you're connected with this personally, all you have to go on is their internal investigation, which did not mention rape. So apparently no one is even claiming that anymore.
Again, they can either turn this over to the police, or I'm going to assume it's all made up and I'm not going to care. Not that my opinion is worth any more than yours, which is to say it doesn't matter at all.
* The judicial system is the only system capable of determining facts.
* Our adversarial-driven judicial system is an effective way of determining facts.
Neither of those are true. The ability of any group of independent experts to collect information/evidence, analyze it, and come to a conclusion about a reasoned set of facts and inferences is something I am comfortable assuming. This happens all the time, and I can't help but think that the context here (i.e., a man harassing a women) has some influence on this point of view.
What TOR produced and published is in my eyes perfectly appropriate and reasonable. Bad conduct not always does, nor should it, necessitate a judicial investigation. Especially when that investigation is carried out by the state who have a significant tension with the TOR project. Not to mention that the victims have asked for that not to happen.
If they don't make up for the damage people cause, the easy way to remedy that is to up the remedies until they do.
SirCmpwn is right. If this guy is innocent, his life is ruined now. And we've seen this pattern elsewhere, outside of tech; teenagers/adults falsely accused of rape or worse. People pissing behind a bar with a permanent contextless "sex offender" mark on their record. Etc. Lives ruined - innocent people escaping justice.
I honestly think this can be taught: Respect for the presumption of innocence. Why people should be presumed innocent should be taught from a young age. A similar respect as the one america gives to freedom of speech (although I'd hope it would come with a better understanding of what it means).
PS: I don't want to sound partisan or anything - I have no idea what this TOR investigation and affair is all about. In fact that's what's scary; I have no idea about the facts of the case, yet I've now been told that Jacob Appelbaum is a sexual predator.
Edit: It looks like nobody in the replies understood what I was talking about. It's naive to assume that the public at large respects the presumption of innocence that the govenment grants this man and other people in his situation. The system is broken if the citizens don't understand why this is important. Unfortunately, it looks like a lot of people even in the comments here don't understand why it's important, so it looks like this is falling on deaf ears.
What exactly do you even mean by "his life is ruined"? There are no criminal charges. No pre-trial detention. No trial. No prison sentence. This is a loooong way from his life being ruined. In all likelihood he will move on with his life, with no connection to Tor project.
For them (US) defamation law doesn't dissuade people from being reckless, only malicious.
This is the POV of a lawyer who understands how the legal system works and can (financially) afford to sue.
> If they don't make up for the damage people cause, the easy way to remedy that is to up the remedies until they do.
If both parties lack resources, you can't really receive damages comparable to a reputation destroying event.
Tor has a financial pot big enough to actually pay damages if these accusations were malicious AND false. However, iirc, Tor is based out of the US and the standard is malice. Tor is clearly not being actively malicious and being honestly mistaken would still be enough to destroy someone's reputation.
Now, in this case, I'm pretty sure Jacob has the financial resources to sue for slander but since its pretty clear its not a malicious act on Tor's part...its a fool's errand and his reputation will remain destroyed. Now, its quite possible that such destruction is deserved given this was an independent 3rd party, my problem is with your proposed solution if it was false.
Slander laws and "increased penalties" are not an effective solution.
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sop8ps
EDIT: Curious why some here want to bury this again? The tweet was confirmed later by many people and you can get more sources about that on Jacob's Wikipedia article. It's highly relevant to this discussion, so leaving it out seems unusual.
All allegations of sexual abuse make third-parties confront a web of trust problem. Since the facts are most often not independently verifiable, there is little else for anyone to do than to evaluate who they trust more.
These days we are told this is best performed by taking the accuser's statements as-is, and refrain from interactive cross-examination and questioning the accuser's motives and behavior, as having our opinions swayed by such information can be construed as victim blaming, which we'd want to avoid. What I find puzzling is at the same time, we're encouraged to confront the accused, which further perpetuates an information asymmetry.
This process is awful for everyone involved, but doubly so for the actual victim, who faces an uphill battle to convince everyone that the abuse indeed took place. In this (and other) cases, the presence of multiple, independent accounts of abuse by the same perpetrator sways a rational actor's trust towards the accusers. The same may not have been true with just one report.
By going public, we have all been made third-parties forced to derive our own judgments about who to trust, but we're also not all stakeholders and don't participate in the same social circles as the people involved. Specifically, if a criminal investigation isn't desired, the discourse should take place within the affected social circles, as there is no compelling public interest to know that the alleged abuser is indeed an abuser. If, on the other hand, there is a compelling public interest, the justice system provides a better venue for the public -- us being the new parties to this discourse -- than simply making public statements.
Source: I actually did that to prove that a certain guy sexually harassed me. He was fired.
I don't have any answers for how you reconcile that with Jacob's presumed innocence or the risk that everyone got it wrong. Especially if the victims are unable or unwilling to bring legal charges. But I'm not sure how Tor would be able to move forward without some sort of public acknowledgement of Jacob's actions.
If there's been a crime, and the victims step forward, then yes.
Until then, "we" should wait and see. Dirty laundry has been aired, everyone's hyper vigilant. How do the actors behave from this point forward? Is Appelbaum more Anita Hill or Clarence Thomas? Time will tell.
"The investigation also identified two additional people as having engaged in inappropriate conduct, and they are no longer involved with the Tor Project."
Damn.
This effort feels like the kind of deep introspection that every organization should undertake. Every org has their bad apples. But as of yet, there's no norms for addressing them.
"code of conduct", etc
Thank you. This is excellent news. These types of innovations in governance will become the norm. Thank you for leading the way.
I'm not saying that's what's going on here.
But it comes to mind.
Stop with this Fox News bullshit. If you have a theory about what's happening here, own it - enough of these "I'm not saying... " non-accusation accusations.
Jake, on the other hand, talked at conferences and took credit for tech work. Then he raped some people. Plus, he's one dood. Sooooooo, no, no similarities at all, actually.
Some people claimed that Jake raped them. Up to now it is his word against hers.
It worked too . . .
Again, I'm not arguing that's what's going on here
Then why bring it up in the first place?
that said, it seems like we can dismiss the likelihood of a COINTELPRO-type operation happening right now. rather, it seems that Jake's a snake... sadly. Sad for the folks at tor who had to put up with it. Sad for all the chumps who are distracted from the importance of Tor, in favor of disputing the validity of claims about sexual harassment (or worse).
maybe Applebaum is a narc?
it's pertinent.
I don't know the facts around this case, and frankly, I don't particularly care: that's his business and the business of his victims. If Applebaum is a rapist, he should be in jail, if not he shouldn't. Either way, society has decided that rapists shouldn't be allowed to do good things like contribute to Tor. This means that accusing people of rape (truthfully or not) is a viable attack on projects such as Tor. There's no denying that this incentivizes actors who want to weaken Tor to accuse people such as Applebaum of rape.
I think that at this point, keeping Applebaum involved in the Tor project would be bad for Tor, regardless of whether he did it or not, so conversations about whether or not he did it are rather academic.
If we're going to engage in academic speculation, I do think Applebaum did it. The other members of the Tor project seem to have investigated and concluded that (admittedly it's not 100% clear), and have little reason to lie about it.
However, this doesn't in any way mean that there wasn't foul play. Even if most rape accusations were true, that doesn't mean they all were, or that people came forward for altruistic reasons.
We do need to come up with defenses against the attack where people accuse people of rape to damage the projects they contribute to. One such defense is to not have any players in a project feature so prominently that a hit to their reputation is a hit to the reputation of the project.
Agreed. It's a weaselly way of obfuscating one's real argument: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophasis
[EDIT: still I upvoted, because every other top-level comment is bonkers.]
Best example? Apple.
Maybe Appelbaum bucks this trend by not having the talent to balance his flaws. I don't know. But I'm pattern-matching against the phenomenon I described above, and so far, it looks like a perfect match.
Although it may shock you: the world doesn't revolve around the startup scene in San Fransisco.