[geofft]

> Any scenario could be possible, from personal revenge to a smear campaign by an intelligence agency.

It's also worth being aware of the possibility that Jacob Appelbaum is himself an agent of an intelligence agency (either a plant, or someone turned informant once they realized they could blackmail him and that a creep is a useful informant), and his behavior is a way to maintain his power and in turn the intelligence agency's.

Argument 1: https://inciteblog.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/why-misogynists-...

Argument 2: https://medium.com/@nickf4rr/hi-im-nick-farr-nickf4rr-35c32f...

"But really, I thought, why would Jake be so defensive about some random [lightning talk] that might have otherwise gone completely unnoticed? If I were a government operative hell-bent on destroying the global hacker community, what would I do differently from what Jake is doing now?"

I don't think this is particularly likely over the simpler explanation that he's a non-government-affiliated creep, but if we're going to give credence to "A government agency that hates Tor was behind this," it's worth looking at all the possible ways a government agency might get an advantage out of the situation.

[Chris2048]

While conspiracy theory is a risky proposition, in this case the agencies involved are known for such things. COINTELPRO, prism etc, so it's no entirely implausible to raise such concerns.

[tptacek]

First: no, this is not plausible.

Second, a question: exactly what is it that people think Jacob Appelbaum did to make him Public Enemy #1 of any government? He's not an especially important Tor contributor. Tor is not only funded by the US Government, but it began as a project at the Naval Research Lab.

He's a spokesperson for Wikileaks, and Wikileaks has gotten itself engaged in serious legal issues with the US Government, but he's far from the only person who's done that, and it's not at all clear why anyone should believe he's ever had an important operational role with WL (as opposed to being an advocate).

Why would Appelbaum be singled out for "black ops" like this while Glenn Greenwald is spared? Greenwald had an operational role in leaking intelligence secrets from the US Government; not only that, but he's still sitting on a large cache of documents and gradually leaking them out.

A Wired article today suggested that Appelbaum had "close to rock-star status" in the hacker community. Which community would that be? His reputation in the security hacker is minimal; he's known primarily for being known.

What's so important about Appelbaum that he'd be a state-level target? For any government?

[geofft]

I think you've conflated the conspiracy that I'm suggesting with the conspiracy suggested by the comment above me. To be clear, I don't think either of these conspiracies are plausible: the simplest theory that fits the evidence is "He's a creep". But I'm suggesting a very different conspiracy from one Appelbaum is insinuating: not that the government has beleaguered him with false accusations, but that the accusations are true, and that the fact that they are true is somehow related to him working for the government.

It's clear that his force of personality -- his "rock-star status", his "known for being known", etc. -- was able to censor talks at 30C3 (if Nick Farr's story is true, which I think it is). Is it so unlikely that this is the only time he did something like that? There are other reports of him passing off research as his own when it was actually by other people, and people being advised to let it go and not draw his ire. He's able to silence people in the security community, which is very powerful.

It's implausible that he himself is an enemy for his own work, but that's not what a mole or informant is for. It's somewhat more plausible (though, again, I think still unlikely) that he was a long-time informant, and his goal was to provide coercion about specific things being done in the security community and to silence specific voices.

[PavlovsCat]

> There are other reports of him passing off research as his own when it was actually by other people, and people being advised to let it go and not draw his ire.

Where are those reports though?

[geofft]

There's this one:

https://twitter.com/quinnnorton/status/739672273783652353

https://twitter.com/quinnnorton/status/739672512720576513

I recall seeing a few other claims along these lines on Twitter, but Twitter's ability to search your own timeline is atrocious.

[DanBC]

I tried using Google's search tools to set a date - "until 01/01/2016" - but that just returns a bunch of old articles that have this new story as a menu item.

Here's one: https://twitter.com/ioerror/status/302261054497509376

[tptacek]

There is perhaps no journalist on the entire Internet less trustworthy.

[morsch]

For what it's worth, I was under the impression that Appelbaum also has or had access to the Snowden documents and was instrumental in the whole thing (Laura Poitras approached him), and it's easy to find articles saying so, but of course you never know.

And a couple of months ago, Appelbaum talked about how he and others are unfairly characterised as "mere activists" and denied the protections journalists get[0]. I say talk, some would say he made a passionate plea, others a bride-burning rant (his demeanour towards The Guardian was vicious).

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJValv4YQcY

[wonkaWonka]

  Which community would that be?

Being an insightful guy and a good public speaker has value. Especially in a technical field. Your talks on things like elliptic curve cryptography are solid talks. Like it or not, you could probably trade on giving those kinds of talks alone, and never have gotten your hands dirty doing the work, to prove the theory correct in your own mind.

It's not hand-wavey to be able to give a voice to ideas, provide insight through speaking and interacting with a crowd, and people make careers off of this sort of activity in many fields, and not just technology. It's the same sort of dichotomy you'll see in other hard sciences, where there are experimentalists and theorists.

So he's not shocking audiences by injecting malicious payloads and keylogging the shit out of people, or deploying wi-fi pineapples or pen testing corporate clients. There are other vectors into the field, and sometimes skill sets are multi-disciplinary Venn diagrams.

You'd suggest that he's a Paris Hilton, but there's more to it than that.

[tptacek]

My talks on ECC are an interesting example, as they're talks on research that I didn't myself do (Sean Devlin wrote the challenges for them, and we got the ideas for those challenges from lots of other people).

[lawnchair_larry]

What's so important about Appelbaum that he'd be a state-level target? For any government?

We don't have to speculate about this, because we already know that major social networking sites received court orders (with gag orders) to turn over his information.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks-related_Twitter_cour...

I don't buy the conspiracy angle myself, but I don't really know enough that I'd place a bet either way. Clearly he is targeted by state-level actors, however.

[nickpsecurity]

Great analysis. He's seriously among the least likely people to be a sanctioned spy. Maybe potential to be a CI one day ratting on people to avoid time. Anybody is capable of that. Can't imagine anything more.

[tptacek]

It's not a great analysis. It's a superficial recitation of details about Appelbaum from someone with just a casual acquaintance of who he is. That it would seem to anyone like a great analysis is extremely worrying.

It suggests to me that this particular cohort of Internet message board nerds shouldn't be trying to debate this particular topic.

[hackuser]

> It suggests to me that this particular cohort of Internet message board nerds shouldn't be trying to debate this particular topic.

Agreed. I wish a banner was at the top of the page: Unless you have well-substantiated information to add, don't add any information.

[nickpsecurity]

I assumed you did research on the man and topic before posting about it. Turns out it's accidentaly great as it matches detailed write-ups Ive read from multiple authors. Only difference is claimed amount of field-work he did deploying Tor. Some say a lot, some a little. That would make him important in privacy circles but again I get conflicting reports.

I studied spooks and black ops a long time, though. They wouldn't waste effort on him.

[Chris2048]

"research" that extends beyond google?

[marshray]

> What's so important about Appelbaum that he'd be a state-level target?

Uh, maybe because he could roll over on Assange?

I have personally witnessed mysterious people engage Jake in conversation, try repeatedly to get him to admit to committing fraud in the course of his security research, and even try to literally hand him incriminating evidence presumably to get his prints upon it.

[tptacek]

What does "roll over on Assange" mean? What is it that Appelbaum would know about Assange that would mean anything to any government anywhere?

There are quite a lot of people in the security research field (or whatever you want to call it) that really dislike Appelbaum, so I am not at all surprised that he gets messed with.

[marshray]

> What does "roll over on Assange" mean?

Testify against him. Have you never seen a cop show? :-)

[tptacek]

For what purported crime? Are we just positing that there might be some arbitrary crime Appelbaum could accuse Assange of? Doesn't the same logic then apply to, like, anyone else in the world? Are people trying to do the same thing to Trump?

I ask because Assange seems to be just about as implicated in the Manning leak as it is possible to be without being Chelsea Manning, and it's still unclear (read: unlikely) that any of that involvement leaves him culpable for any crime in the US.

[nickpsecurity]

His tactics have been to further publicize things they rely on while also pissing off community members to point that subversion is less likely. I'd say he's doing opposite of what CIA or FBI would want him to do. Whereas, Tor is actually funded by an organization connected to CIA propaganda groups and is used by military intelligence.

One is working for spooks, whether harmlessly or not. It's just not Jake that's the one. Strange the conspiracy theories focus on him instead of Tor.

[artichokeheart]

Lately I've been thinking that the whole MRA/gamergate/anti-sjw movement was some kind of PsyOps meant to undermine the Internet, but it felt too crazy conspiracy theoryish. That inciteblog post and this article (http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jun/24/undercover-police-...) makes me wonder if I'm right.

[jubalfh]

That being a conspiracy would be actually quite comforting, wouldn't it?

Unfortunately, I think the simpler explanation – that humanity fails at being both human and humane – is more probable.