Jacob Appelbaum (born April 1, 1983)[6] is an American independent journalist, computer security researcher, artist, and hacker.
Appelbaum studied at the Eindhoven University of Technology and was a core member of the Tor Project, a free software network designed to provide online anonymity, until he stepped down from his position after multiple victims came forward with sexual abuse and rape allegations in 2016.[7][8][9] He was among several people to work with NSA contractor Edward Snowden's top secret documents released in 2013.[10] His journalistic work has been published in Der Spiegel and elsewhere. Appelbaum is also known for representing WikiLeaks.[5] He has displayed his art in a number of institutions across the world and has collaborated with artists such as Laura Poitras, Trevor Paglen, and Ai Weiwei.[11]
Many of these organizations, as well as his employer Tor, ended their association with Appelbaum in June 2016 following allegations of sexual abuse.[12][15][16][17][18][19] After a seven-week investigation led by an outside investigator, Tor concluded that many of the allegations of misconduct were accurate.[20][21] Appelbaum has denied the allegations.[22] Various activists and others publicly supported Appelbaum, voicing concerns about due process, trial by social media, and questioning the claims,[23][24][25] while others credit the incident with changing the information security community's attitude towards sheltering known abusers.[4] The affair has had repercussions in the online privacy advocacy world.[26] U.S. news media treated the allegations as credible,[20][21] and reactions in Germany were mixed.[27][28]
^ abcRich, Nathaniel (1 December 2010). "The American Wikileaks Hacker". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 17 March 2015. Retrieved 3 July 2014. An anarchist street kid raised by a heroin- addict father, he dropped out of high school, taught himself the intricacies of code and developed a healthy paranoia along the way.
^Trevor, Timm (8 June 2016). "Statement on Jacob Appelbaum". Freedom of the Press Foundation. Archived from the original on 8 June 2016. Retrieved 8 June 2016.
^Cite error: The named reference 'Sam' and 'Forest' Reveal Identities was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Riegel, Tobias (13 June 2016). "Die Presse und der Pranger" [The press and the pillory]. neues deutschland (in German). Archived from the original on 14 June 2016. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
^Fuchs, Christian; Weisbrod, Lars; Mondial, Sebastian (13 August 2016). "Jacob Appelbaum: What Has This Man Done?". Die Zeit. zeit.de. Number 34. Archived from the original on 13 August 2016. Retrieved 13 August 2016.