Jacob Appelbaum leaves the Tor Project

It's on Ars now:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/06/tor-developer-jacob-appelbaum-quits-after-sexual-mistreatment-allegations/

I think it is very important not to get ahead of ourselves here... In the blog post https://blog.torproject.org/blog/statement we read many times many things like "allegations" "rumors" "We do not know exactly what happened here, we don't have all the facts"... Not a lot of evidence in my opinion, especially considering that for the last year, year and half, Jacob has been living in Germany and couldn't have harassed anyone back in Tor headquarters... so I am taking this with a grain of salt. IF he is found guilty of serious crimes, he should be taken out, but until then I see this as a bad move from the new Executive Director, Shari Steele.

Anyway, his contributions will surely me missed at the technical and out reaching levels.

I hope that investigations bring some clarity to this situation.
As much as "innocent before proven guilty" is important, sexual assault is something that is rarely and hard to prosecute.
We should believe the victims to a degree. Finding this balance is hard to do.
Yes, the website http://jacobapplebaum.com is a good thing. Yes, there should be investigations to these incidents of sexual assault.
He should've been forced from the Tor project without prejudice-- so that if the claims turn out fraudulent, he's proven innocent, or if no charges are filed, he could return to the project.
That could be a middle-ground to help balance the rights of the victims and the accused.

What is Appelbaum's own stand on this? I don't know if he's tried to repudiate anything. His only recourse seems to be suing.

His moving to Berlin in anticipation of something sinister is seen in another light now.

I remember Linus Torvalds was accused of foul language and harsh treatment of some volunteers but that never got anywhere. Torvalds is a family guy; it must've been to his advantage.

"Some people think I'm nice and are shocked when they find out different," Torvalds said in response (quoted via multiple Twitter accounts of the event). "I'm not a nice person, and I don't care about you. I care about the technology and the kernel—that's what's important to me." http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/01/linus-torvalds-on-why-he-isnt-nice-i-dont-care-about-you/

https://github.com/Enegnei/JacobAppelbaumLeavesTor/blob/master/JacobAppelbaumLeavesTor.md
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F7qKjkV07k

According to these, not only there was no additional evidence, but also some of the accusations were discredited by the "victims" themselves. So, more and more it looks like he was targeted with some kind of attack.
And the results were that a not-yet-proven-guilty-person:

- lost his place on Tor;
- lost his place on Cult of the Dead Cow;
- lost his place on Freedom of the Press Foundation;
- lost his place on Chaos Computer Club;
- had his apartment vandalized (on the outside);

basically had his life ruined. I think this is too fucked up. Even if he is guilty of something, the people doing this are just as guilty.
It reminds me of the persecution against Julian Assange. No one cares if he is guilty, only punishing him.

I hope truth is restored and Jacob's life might get back on his feet. If he has to answer for some crime, let him do so, but not this way.

I think it is unreasonable to be speculating about such serious allegations when we simply do not have anywhere near enough information to do so.

"sexual misconduct" Is this a narrow category? It seems broad to me. Depending on the details, we will have more or less sympathy for Applebaum. Some people here imply that he is being accused of rape. Unless "sexual misconduct" means "rape" I don't know how we can even have a good idea what happened. We can't even say whether anything has happened. The only facts that are agreed upon in these stories is that there are allegations of "sexual misconduct" and that Applebaum "quit".

Raped women, and battered and abused women, that are afraid to come forward to accuse their attackers, is unfortunately a common, serious, and sad problem and we should do all we can to bend over backwards to help these women. This means that there is a legitimate argument that extra weight be given to a woman that accuses someone of rape. Especially if false accusations are much less common than real ones. How much extra, I don't know. But this is due to empirical facts about women not coming forward and a large ratio of real to false accusations.

Are there patterns of similar magnitude and frequency in the LGBT community? If not, then this extra leeway should not necessarily be given. This is not to say that rape is not equally serious in the LGBT community. However, this argument for an exception to the law of innocent until proven guilty, is based on empirical data: Is it equally frequent for a man that is sexually abused by another man to not come forward. Are false accusations more or less common?

Let us not forget a reasonable alternative hypothesis which is that Applebaum is being set up. He is, after all, a leader in a field that is especially subject to spying and espionage. He has many, powerful, enemies.

In the end we just do not know enough to convict anybody or even to suspect anybody. I will suspend my conviction of Applebaum until I actually receive some evidence.