https://www.dailydot.com/politics/jacob-appelbaum-sexual-assault-alison-macrina/
2 more people publicly allege sexual misconduct by Jacob Appelbaum
Dell Cameron and Selena Larson
Jun 15, 2016
Two individuals publicly identified themselves on Wednesday as victims of
sexual misconduct they say was instigated by former Tor Project developer Jacob
Appelbaum.
The new details, published in a pair of statements by Tor Project members
Alison Macrina and Isis Agora Lovecruft, add additional names and faces to
allegations previously made anonymously online.
Seven anonymous authors made allegations against Appelbaum on a website created
earlier this month. Macrina claimed authorship of the story attributed to
“Sam,” while Lovecruft claimed ownership of allegations made under the name
“Forest.” Four of the authors still remain anonymous.
Appelbaum and his friends and supporters have characterized the allegations as
part of a false smear campaign.
On the site, Lovecruft, a core developer at the Tor Project, described an
incident during which they platonically shared a bed with Appelbaum. In the
middle of the night, Lovecruft claimed under the pseudonym “Forest,” they woke
up to Appelbaum with his hands in their underwear. On Wednesday, Lovecruft
published this story about the incident publicly, along with further
accusations about Appelbaum’s behavior. Lovecruft also suggested solutions for
eliminating abusers from the community and said people should critique and
assess the institutions where this behavior is accepted.
isis agora lovecruft @isislovecruft
Jacob Appelbaum sexually assaulted me. I'm Forest on http://jacobappelbaum.net
. Here's my full story and what's next:
https://blog.patternsinthevoid.net/the-forest-for-the-trees.html 15 Jun 2016
Macrina, a core member at the Tor Project and founder of the Library Freedom
Project, was one of the first to vouch for the identities of the individuals
who have anonymously posted stories of abuse involving Appelbaum online. “I am
fortunate that my privilege shields me from some of the risks of public
exposure,” Macrina wrote in a statement claiming authorship for the “Sam” story.
Macrina’s alleges an encounter with Appelbaum, which she claims is part of a
larger pattern of “violative and often violent behavior.” She describes a
once-budding romantic interest between Appelbaum and herself that culminated in
an evening visit to his apartment, when the incident allegedly occurred.
“He told me he wanted to take a bath, and invited me into his bathroom to hang
out with him," she wrote. Macrina said she agreed under the condition that she
wouldn’t get inside the bathtub with him. She said she went into the bathroom
and sat down on the toilet where the two began chatting. “He immediately began
coercing me to get into his bathtub,” she writes.
“I kept saying ‘no’, and he kept asking,” she writes. Eventually, Macrina
claims, she agreed to stick her legs in the water, but without removing her
underwear or T-shirt. Although she repeated that she wasn’t interested in
getting in any further, Macrina claims, Appelbaum abruptly pulled her inside
the bathtub and began “washing” her.
“I was thinking, what the fuck, get out of this situation,” Macrina writes,
“why are you in this fucking bathtub with this man when you repeatedly told him
no.” After a minute or two of “nonconsensual washing,” Macrina says she jumped
out of the tub and started crying in the corner of the bathroom. Appelbaum
continued talking as if nothing had happened, Macrina writes.
Alison Macrina @flexlibris
Jake Appelbaum sexually assaulted me, too. Read about why I'm going public, and
what we can do now.
https://medium.com/@flexlibris/theres-really-no-such-thing-as-the-voiceless-92b3fa45134d
15 Jun 2016
Macrina says she began to quietly inquire about other incidents involving
Appelbaum among her circle of friends and colleagues. She says she discovered a
“pattern of violative and often violent behavior using manipulation,
humiliation, ignoring boundaries, and outright coercion.”
Shari Steele, executive director of the Tor Project, was approached by Macrina
and other employees with the allegations against Appelbaum. On May 25, Steele
dismissed him from his role as a core developer at the project. About a week
later, the anonymous website appeared online, detailing numerous accounts of
sexual assault, harassment, and rape.
“Jake was my friend, and it took months to be honest with myself about what
happened,” Macrina said. “As I recount in my previously anonymous story, when I
approached him about it he would redirect the conversation to tell me why he
was the real victim.” Macrina says Appelbaum tried to convince her that the
allegations against him were part of a “political smear campaign” and that, as
his friend, she was obligated to defend him. As for her personal experiences,
those were merely “aberrations,” Macrina says he told her.
The effect of the website was two-fold: As more accounts became public,
organizations affiliated with Appelbaum began cutting ties. The Freedom of the
Press foundation removed him from its technical advisory board; the Cult of the
Dead Cow hacker collective threw Appelbaum out, a first for the organization;
and San Francisco-based hackerspace Noisebridge said he is no longer welcome.
Organizations also allegedly prevented Appelbaum’s participation before recent
public accusations against him. Last year, the Internet Freedom Festival in
Valencia, Spain, decided in advance that Appelbaum would not be allowed at the
conference or inside the venue and had a contingency plan in place in case he
tried to participate, according to Tom Lowenthal, a former Tor Project
employee.
But those closest to Appelbaum had the opposite reaction. A letter of
“solidarity” was published and initially circulated by 12 women who described
themselves as friends, colleagues, co-workers and partners of the 33-year-old
hacker. Allegations of misconduct raised against Appelbaum were described as a
“coordinated and one-sided attack on his character and work,” which mirrored
Appelbaum’s own assertion that he was being targeted by character assassins
spreading “vicious and spurious allegations.”
In a statement on June 6, Appelbaum compared the accusations against him to
those tactics used in the past “against fellow members of the LGBT community.”
The statement by Appelbaum supporters was similar to his own in another way: It
painted his behavior as eccentric, and while occasionally insulting, never
dangerous in their eyes. “We do understand Jake can be outspoken and
provocative regarding a number of issues,” it said, “however, we have never
found Jake to be as is being alleged.” Appelbaum himself stated that he had
“inadvertently hurt or offended others’ feelings.” For that, he said was sorry.
He would continue to “learn how to be a better person.”
The solidarity letter—signed by WikiLeaks editor Sarah Harrison and Courage
Foundation board member and lawyer Renata Avila—was uploaded to a website where
others could attach their names. At time of writing, 27 people had come to
Appelbaum’s defense.
The Daily Dot reached out to solidarity group using the email provided on their
website, ourresponse.org. We received no response.
Late last week, Micah Lee, a journalist at the Intercept, and Bill Budington, a
software engineer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, came forward as
witnesses to another allegation of sexual harassment, which which posted under
the pseudonym “Phoenix.” The story details allegations against Appelbaum that
include propositioning the woman for sex at a dinner table surrounded by six of
her colleagues. She described the alleged incident as horrifying and “the most
uncomfortable meal of [her] professional life.”
The testimonies of Lee and Budington followed public accusations against
Appelbaum by security engineer Leigh Honeywell, who in an online post described
a “profoundly upsetting” incident of alleged physical violence that left her
feeling "afraid and violated." Technologist Nick Farr, who published his story
on the anonymous site after identifying himself by name on Medium, claimed
Appelbaum aggressively harassed and intimidated him to the point that he
withdrew from the hacker community and stopped attending events.
More than a dozen people have reached out to the Daily Dot regarding
Appelbaum’s alleged behavior. Women who say they’ve personally witnessed or
experienced assault or harassment on the part of Appelbaum describe living in a
state of fear. “We’re all afraid,” said one of the women, who asked not to be
identified by name. She and others have described an underground network of
that include “easily” a dozen victims.
Many of the people who say they are victims believe going public would cost
them their jobs because the organizations they work for have business and legal
ties to Appelbaum resulting in countless conflicts of interest.
Bill Budington @legind
On abuse verification: I personally witnessed the testimony of Phoenix, and
heard first-hand accounts of numerous other reports from victims 10 Jun 2016
In other cases, women said they were frightened by the prospect of becoming
targets of online harassment by the individuals who have publicly casted doubt
on the allegations of those who have already come forward. In an encrypted
message last week, one woman, a well-known privacy advocate who asked not to be
identified, explained to the Daily Dot her fear of making public accusations
against Appelbaum: “He knows where I live.”
Not every organization with an affiliation with Appelbaum has moved to dismiss
him or otherwise distance themselves from the allegations. According to its
website, Appelbaum remains an advisor to the Centre for Investigative
Journalism (CIJ), a nonprofit founded in 2003, which was later registered as a
charity. The Daily Dot reached out to CIJ Director Gavin MacFadyen and other
board members on multiple occasions over the past four days. Although our
emails were acknowledged on Tuesday, the group did not address the allegations
against Appelbaum.
Disbelieving the capacity for someone to exhibit inappropriate or violent
behavior is a common feeling when a beloved person in a community, a friend, or
a family member is accused of something like sexual assault or rape. Even when
a jury finds a person guilty, there are still people who don't believe it—for
instance, earlier this month, a childhood friend penned a widely-shared and
criticized letter of support for Brock Turner, the high-profile Stanford
swimmer convicted sexual assault. She later apologized after the backlash.
Thirty-nine people in total wrote letters of support for Turner.
Valerie Aurora, co-founder of inclusion and diversity consultancy Frame Shift
Consulting and author of the example code of conduct now used by hundreds of
conferences globally, said she views the letter of “solidarity” for Appelbaum
as tone-policing, and she was surprised that a community that values anonymity
would criticize those who choose to stay anonymous when telling stories about
alleged sexual assault, rape, and bullying behavior.
“I have a lot of compassion for the signatories of this letter,” Aurora told
the Daily Dot in a phone interview. “It is really difficult when someone you
respect and look up to turns out to have been abusive towards others. It's even
harder when your personal experience with someone has felt so positive. In this
situation, many of us would prefer to focus on the people reporting abuse and
find some reason to disbelieve or discount them. We often don't react in ways
that we are proud of later on, and in ways that really harm victims, who
deserve our solidarity far more.”
Victims don't report harassment, sexual assault, or other harmful behaviors
because there is a culture of fear that surrounds coming forward, a feeling of
powerlessness to report abusers because people don't want to be ostracized
within their own communities. And as a group, privacy and security communities
are inherently distrustful of law enforcement.
Just 2 to 8 percent of rape accusations are false, according to the National
Center for the Prosecution of Violence Against Women, and yet police frequently
don't believe victims when they report rape. In Germany, where Appelbaum lives,
prosecution of sexual assault and rape focus on the force of the perpetrator;
individuals must show bruises and injury as evidence that they fought back in
order for the actions to be considered a crime.
Yan Zhu, a senior software engineer at Brave, said she knew about stories of
Appelbaum's alleged sexual harassment for years, and that it was something of
an “open secret” in the community.
“I suspect because Jake is powerful and well-respected, so anyone who spoke out
against him would be faced with a lot of skepticism and intimidation from him
and his friends,” Zhu said in a message.
Honeywell, the software engineer who wrote about Appelbaum's sexual misconduct
towards her, responded to the letter in a message to the Daily Dot:
Abusive people are rarely abusive to everyone in their lives. The
‘solidarity’ statement authors' positive experiences with Jacob do not negate
my negative ones, nor those of the anonymous accusers. To ignore first-hand
corroborated accounts of abuse like my own is the very definition of apologism.
As Aurora explains, women develop something of a “victim's' network,” a whisper
system that shares information about particular people within a community who
are known for bad behavior. This type of network exists beyond just the tech
and security world; women in industries from journalism to sports to law to
academia to high school and college campuses have something similar.
Aurora describes learning to speak in coded ways to say what you really mean to
say. Words of warning could be: “Don’t be around him when he’s drinking,” or
“Only go there with a friend.”
The letter, she said, seems to assume that all women have the same experiences,
and yet, for a variety of reasons, some women don't experience harassment as
much as others. Factors like being high-profile or powerful within a community,
having a powerful sponsor, being a certain age, height, or presenting in
different ways could impact the amount of harassment people receive.
“I will freely admit and believe these women when they say they’ve had positive
experiences with Jake,” Aurora said. “And what they need to do is return that
favor and say ‘I believe your experience is different.’"
Appelbaum has not responded to multiple requests for comment.
Correction: Nick Farr posted his story publicly to Medium before adding his
allegations to the anonymous site. Alison Macrina is a core member of the Tor
Project. We regret the errors.
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