Jacob Appelbaum: “But he does good work.”

https://medium.com/@violetblue/but-he-does-good-work-6710df9d9029

by justcommenting • 10 years ago

10 6 10 years ago

medium.com

PavlovsCat3• 10 years ago

So the plagiarism stuff is now not even getting mentioned anymore? "But he's a rapist", or what?

edit:

Daily Dot has since raised significant questions for the people involved in this website.

Is it normal for "journalists" to publically announce on Twitter a set of questions they are sending to other people? Is that regular practice, in what other cases has this been done? As for the questions themselves

#1 Out of the 12 women who initially signed the solidarity letter, have any expressed a desire to retract their names, given that these new witnesses have come forward?

Why would they? What on that site is incompatible with there being real victims? Take this for example

we are observing – beyond the allegations, that are not for us to comment on specifically – an egregious character assassination is being played out with numerous defamations online and offline.

Are there witnesses for "rapist, sociopath, plagiarist"? Is there even anyone willing to seriously discuss the latter two? No? Then it's still a campaign of character assassination, day N and counting.

#2 Your letter claims the “mainstream media” -- I presume that is a reference to the Daily Dot and Gizmodo -- is reporting on uncorroborated rumors. Could you specify how many witnesses to an incident your group believes is necessary to corroborate its occurrence?

Does he believe that time machines exist, does this "journalist" think that even a million witnesses coming forward will change the initial days of the blitz as they happened?

#3 With regards to “Phoenix,” her allegations of sexual harassment have been corroborated by two witnesses -- Lee and Budington. Do you consider these witnesses, as your letter describes, as part of a “one-sided attack on [Appelbaum’s] character and work”?

Are you denying it's one sided? If not, has that journalist asked any hard questions about the plagiarism claims? Has anyone on HN, or elsewhere? As for the coordination, if it's true that TimeToDieJake tweet hours before the site went live, as it's claimed on cryptome, of course it's coordinated. And when a coordinated attack happens, and then some more stuff gets added that wasn't part of that, that doesn't mean a coordinated attack didn't happen.

#4 If not, does your group plan to update its website (ourresponse.org) to include a statement regarding this substantiated claim of sexual harassment?

Again, why would they? The wording does absolutely account for that possibility.

We do not claim to know what happened in precise situations that we were not present for, and we do not want to trivialise and minimise any pain that may have been caused.

But that's not enough, is it. Maybe someone can make a Chrome plugin that just appends (rapist, sociopath, plagarist) behind any mention of Appelbaum's name, on any website.

#5 Sources say some of the people who signed the document were aware of allegations months ago and refuted them at that time as well. Is that accurate?

Finally, an actually significant question.

#6 Can you say whose idea it was to draft a statement in support of Appelbaum?

Which brings me back to the question whether this kind of modus operandi is normal for journalists.

dalke3• 10 years ago

You wrote: "So the plagiarism stuff is now not even getting mentioned anymore?"

It's definitely "mentioned" even in this essay. At the end of the piece is:

Jake also benefited greatly — and I can’t stress this enough — from journalists who did not check their facts, reporters who bought into his bullshit persecuted-hacker narrative, and blogs like Boing Boing who breathlessly starfucked his appropriated hacks and docs and reprehensible behavior into credibility.

PavlovsCat3• 10 years ago

Oh, the irony. So, where is documentation for the super broad plagiarism claims? Nobody wouldn't just buy them at face value, right? No wait, not only did that happen already, also no questions about that have been answered yet. So far we only have this one mailing list bit, that has Meredith talking about how serious plagiarism and then not even acknowledging having been refuted in that instance, as far as I can tell.

How come there seems to be only interest in attacking Appelbaum, and keeping it so murky as to simply strip him of anything he ever did -- and no interest in restoring proper credit to the people he plagiarized from? You can see how that's kind of an elephant on the couch, right? Especially in light of all this posturing about never again looking the other way.

Effectively, this filters out anyone who minds bullshit mixed in with something serious, and doesn't just swallow packages as a whole. This is when sophistry, obedience, blinders and formalized abuse were officially accepted by some -- under the pretense of intelligence, free thought, not looking the other way, and being against abuse. By the time the thunder arrives a connection to this flash of lightning may not seem immediately obvious, but where something like this goes up, fallout must come down.

And I simply don't see how any of that would have been necessary to stand up against abuse and Appelbaum. It didn't have to be this campaign and it didn't all these red flags and fucked up bits. So even if it does help in a way in some respects for some people, as a whole, I find this incredibly immature, fraught with double standards and callousness, entitled and self-righteous -- while calling someone else a narcissist, as if next to narcissist, nothing can be shitty. When you're a victim, you must not be criticized, do not place any obligations yadda yadda. The courts are broken, this is not a mob, we're just sharing.

People say they're not wearing armbands, but then how come they're wearing armbands?

bullshit persecuted-hacker narrative

Just watching his talks, is anyone honestly claiming he wasn't inconvenient? As a mere "pop hacker"? What talks do you like? Who do you think is playing in that league?

Jacob Appelbaum: “But he does good work.”

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