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Software engineer, Debian developer, and recognized Free/Open Source Software innovator Daniel Pocock scratches the surface on the 2016 explusion of journalist, security researcher, and hacker Jacob Appelbaum from Debian. He asserts that the leadership in Debian at the time falsified evidence and hid conflicts of interest when dealing with the allegations against Appelbaum.
In 2016, there was an enormous amount of noise about Jacob Appelbaum from the Tor Project and winner of the Henri Nannen Prize for journalism.
An anonymous web site had been set up with allegations of harassment, abuse and rape. Unlike the #MeToo movement, which came later, nobody identified themselves and nobody filed a police complaint. It appears that the site was run by people who live in another country and have no daily contact with Appelbaum. Therefore, many people feel this wasn't about justice or immediate threats to their safety.
Long discussions took place in the private mailing lists of many free software communities, including Debian. Personally, as a I focus on my employer, clients and family and as there are so many long email discussions in Debian, I don't follow most of these things. I've come to regret that as it is now clear that at least some claims may have been falsified, a serious injustice has transpired and this could have been easily detected.
I don't wish to discount the experiences of anybody who has been a victim of a crime. However, in the correspondence that was circulated within Debian, the only person who has technically been harassed is Jacob Appelbaum himself. If Appelbaum does have a case to answer then organizations muddying the waters, inventing additional victims, may undermine the stories of real victims.
He then goes on to provide supporting evidence — including what was falsified and how the falsifications were used by the press — and then, from there, used against Appelbaum.
Previously:
(2016) Jacob Appelbaum Leaves the Tor Project
(2014) Hackers Replicate NSA's Leaked Bugging Devices
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @12:12PM (4 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Murdock [wikipedia.org]
In the land where you have to sue to force an investigation deemed, "suicide."
I don't care what anyone says, the guy died under very strange circumstances.
There are a number of odd deaths, accidents and suicides, in the free software community.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Bot on Friday August 28 2020, @01:54PM
I have witnessed troll attacks to Usenet channels and a small online community of gamers. If somebody spends resources for such insignificant targets you can guess what things can be done against the formerly best free software distribution.
Btw still using Deb based distro, antix and MX. They will have to put up with more and more B's from Debian, but they are still doing fine.
The latest episode, not earlier than two days ago. Install mx. Remove crust, samba avahi network manager, install ceni.
Ceni: command not found. Wat. Indeed I reinstall from Debian official packages, the Deb is missing the binary. Wow this would have not made past Sid in the good ol days, QA is asleep or more likely trying to nail a boot sequence. Installed from sntix repo, all ok.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by rleigh on Friday August 28 2020, @02:10PM (2 children)
It's not really germane to this particular discussion.
He may have suffered violence from the police, but equally he may have brought it upon himself--I've only read his side of the story. However, he was in a bad mental state before the police got involved, and he was in a bad mental state after, from what I've read. I've read more about it than I wanted to, but from the description he committed suicide in his house, entirely by his own hand. I don't think there's any real conspiracy here. But I do think he desperately needed help and it was over before any of his family or friends could reach him. As for what precipitated all of it, I doubt any but his close family know what personal problems he was dealing with, and we don't have any right to that information.
Given that his direct involvement with Debian had been over for at least a decade by this point, I don't think it's something that needs to be obsessed over as some wacky conspiracy theory.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @06:29PM (1 child)
> I don't think it's something that needs to be obsessed over as some wacky conspiracy theory.
LOL. That's what they count on, blacklisting curious minds and fact chasers and calling
them crazy, suggesting that it's all just a conspiracy theory.
I've seen enough deaths ruled, "SUICIDE" turned into serious investigation but usually it
requires SUING those who didn't do their jobs well enough in order to reopen the case.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by rleigh on Friday August 28 2020, @09:29PM
Please, stop. Just stop.
This isn't funny or clever. Stop and think about his family and his friends, and how perpetuating ridiculous theories affects them. Give them some peace. Take your nutty conspiracies and crawl back into the hole you crawled out of. They benefit no one.