[tor-talk] Any updates from Tor Project on ioerror?

[jacob appelbaum (ioerror) questions]

http://ethi.cx/forty.html

For Forty Years...

Joe Paterno – praised college football coach and idol to hundreds of thousands of people – continued in silence, allowing Jerry Sandusky to nurture a mechanism that leveraged the Penn State football program to prey on his victims, which totals 32 at the time of writing. Forty years, Paterno continued the conspiracy of silence until his dying days, disgraced in the eyes of the sane and a mistreated God to the idol worshipers, sycophants and zealots. They rioted in the streets, refused to listen to evidence, as more and more piled in daily. They screamed and cursed the victims, media and anyone calling Paterno an enabler.

In 2012 the famed Statue of Joe Paterno was taken down. After years of fighting, Penn State football fans took it into their own hands and made two replica statues: one to give to the Paterno family, the other to take to Penn State football games. One of the fans who constructed the statues commented, “We are creators. We are not in politics. We are not cops…this is who we are.”

This kind of idol worship is terrifying, but very real.

The comparison to the Jerry Sandusky scandal and Jacob Appelbaum's may be wild to some people, considering the formers grandiosity, however the similarities are astounding. The predatory behavior exemplified by both men is that of asserting themselves into places of power and exploiting their positions to take advantage of those who admired them or felt safe with. While the many people who have been hurt by Jake, either physically, sexually, emotionally, or professionally are ignored or even attacked by starry-eyed fans who believe their heroes can do no wrong. The statue of ioerror was being built through the myth of heroism in the face of tyranny and what better place to provide more building material than the Tor Project.

It hasn’t been forty years for the Tor Project, and I’m glad that under new management this issue was addressed and brought to light. While personally knowing a handful of people he has stolen research from or tried to squeeze his way into their research groups, I knew his m.o. and warned anyone that even brought him up. For years. I had no idea of the sexual abuse claims, but in retrospect it makes complete sense. Some people remained silent, while others spoke out and were quickly silenced by the "PROVE IT" brigade. For some people it's not that easy. Proving it isn't the hard part, but reliving the pain, shame, and loss is.

However terrible the alleged atrocities committed by Appelbaum, if they ever all come to light, there will still be a large contingent of naysayers, forever trying to pick up their fallen idol to some sort of irredeemable glory. There is no government agenda to discredit him, this isn’t JTRIG or the NSA running a disinformation operation against him, this is simply just a very bad person.

The conspiracy of silence is unravelling around Jake and luckily, it hasn’t been forty years.