https://medium.com/@frabyn/decoding-jake-appelbaum-9fa75d060310
Franklin Bynum
I am a volunteer in the Tor community and watched with great interest as
allegations of sexual assault against Jacob Appelbaum surfaced last week.
His statement is carefully worded, and so I did my best to decipher it here.
"In the past few days, a calculated and targeted attack has been launched
to spread vicious and spurious allegations against me."
I can’t directly say the allegations are false.
"Given the way these accusations have been handled, I had little choice but
to resign from my position as an advocate at the Tor Project and devote my full
attention to completing my doctoral work on cryptography at the Technical
University of Eindhoven."
They were going to fire me if I didn’t quit.
"Vague rumors and smear campaigns against me are nothing new. As a longtime
public advocate for free speech and a secure internet, there have been plenty
of attempts to undermine my work over the years."
I need you to believe the government is behind this.
"Now, however, these unsubstantiated and unfounded attacks have become so
aggressive that I feel it’s necessary to set the record straight. Not only have
I been the target of a fake website in my name that has falsely accused me of
serious crimes, but I have also received death threats (including a Twitter
handle entitled ‘TimeToDieJake’)."
This one troll account mentioned my death in its handle, so now I am the
victim. If that account didn’t exist, I would have had to invent it.
"I think it’s extremely damaging to the community that these
character-assassination tactics are being deployed, especially given their ugly
history of being used against fellow members of the LGBT community. It pains me
to watch the community to which I’ve dedicated so much of my life engage in
such self-destructive behavior. Nonetheless, I am prepared to use legal
channels, if necessary, to defend my reputation from these libelous
accusations."
I can’t sue.
"I want to be clear: the accusations of criminal sexual misconduct against
me are entirely false."
I’ll never be convicted of a crime.
"Inevitably, there may have been moments in my professional or private life
when I may have inadvertently hurt or offended others’ feelings. Whenever I was
aware of these instances, I have, and will continue to, apologize to the
friends and colleagues in question and to continually learn how to be a better
person. Though the damage to my reputation caused by these allegations alone is
impossible to undo, I nonetheless take the concerns of the Tor community
seriously."
I’m not sorry.
"To dispel any further rumors, to the best of my knowledge, the Tor network
is not ‘compromised.’"
The Tor network is fine, I guess. I haven’t had a patch accepted in several
years.
"I’ve dedicated my life as a journalist, activist, and longtime member of
the Tor Project to advocating for the transparency of public processes and to
speaking out about the necessity of privacy, security, and anonymity. These are
ideals that I will continue to uphold, despite the vicious campaign that is
currently being waged against me."
Read this whole thing again; I never directly said that any of the allegations
are not true.
--
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