---------- Forwarded message ----------
   From: "Patrice Riemens" <[1]patrice@xs4all.nl>
   Date: Oct 15, 2016 3:53 AM
   Subject: <nettime> #jakegate explained ... by a Dummy
   To: <[2]nettime-l@kein.org>
   NB Two days ago, The Guardian newspaper published a long article
   about Jacob Appelbaum, the first text in mainstream media since
   the two pieces in Die Zeit Online (see refs below), and only the
   second publication I am aware of since the storm around 'Jake' abated
   somewhere in last Summer.
   [3]https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/11/jacob-
   appelbaum-tor-project-sexual-assault-allegations
   This post was largely written in Romania a few weeks ago, and hence
   is not informed by the article in The Guardian. It also looks at the
   whole affair from a different angle, less focused on the person(age)
   himself.
   #jakegate explained by ... a Dummy
   Well, since there are so many texts written for dummies, I thought
   it would be nice to have one ... written by one. And as you see, I
   carefully choose my subject ...
   The story going by the moniker #jakegate is, I assume largely known
   by nettime readers, but here's for an ultra-short ExecSum all the
   same: Jacob Appelbaum, aka ‘Jake’ is a prominent hacker-activist
   whose precipitous fall from grace and reputation has stunned the
   digerati scene. End May/begin of June this year (2016), organisations
   at the forefront of the battles for privacy and security like the TOR
   project, the CCC, Debian, and others, quite brutally scuttled him
   amidst accusation of (longstanding) sexual and social misbehaviour.
   But by now a backlash has also occurred as the same organisations
   stand accused of precipitate, non-transparent, and largely unfounded
   decision making - all this with 'Jake' himself largely disappearing
   from view.
   My reason for writing this piece is to try to understand - even if
   largely for my own sake – the circumstances and group processes
   that have been at work in creating this rather startling, though
   not totally unanticipated fracas. As a general disclaimer, I should
   reiterate that I am truly a dummy in this, in the sense that I am not
   an insider, even if I know a few ones. And all I do know stems from
   publicly available sources, of course supplemented by a few private
   talks – but don’t expect confidential information to be disclosed,
   since there was actually none. I do know Jake personally however,
   since 2003, and I have followed his activities ever since, be it
   from quite a distance. Also 'Jake' knows who I am and has always be
   very friendly to me, but we have always been distant acquaintances
   nonetheless. In short, my locus standi is situated at the 'core
   periphery' to the circles and activities Jake was or is related with -
   to use a swanky term Geert Lovink and I once made up.
   It may be needless to add and emphasize that ‘#jakegate’ is a very
   ‘complicated’ issue (as in Facebook), and that I tried to write
   about it, following Tacitus, ‘sine ira et studio’ ...
   I have structured this text in four sections (plus a concluding
   part): Jake’s persona(ge); his social circle, mostly in Berlin; the
   organisations he is (was) part of; and the the wider, bad world of
   surveillance and repression this constituency is facing and combating.
   These sections cannot, however, be strictly separated, they flow and
   must weave readily together towards the concluding remarks on the
   #jakegate backlash and beyond.
   On Jake’s persona(ge)
   It is self evident that Jake's character, as it appears to his social
   environment’s bystanders and to observers at large, provides a
   substantial, if by way insufficient, explanation of ‘#jakegate’.
   Even with some allowances, Jacob Appelbaum might be taken as
   exemplary for the phenomenon of a gifted, extrovert geek rising to
   prominence, not to say ‘rock star’ status, amidst the general
   hacker alternative, and mainstream, media hype. The by now fairly well
   documented mix of autism (-lite), mental (over)activity, sociopathy
   (-lite), maybe best captured by the German word ‘Drang’ - the
   ‘urge’ to do ‘something’ - can all be observed, and then in no
   small measure, with Jacob Appelbaum. Add precociousness and young age,
   and you have the potent combination which might largely – but again,
   not entirely – explain how 'Jake' ended up in the predicament that
   is now his.
   On Jake’s social environment and the groups he is/was in - in
   Berlin, mostly.
   Another tentative, partial explanation may be found in the nature
   and ongoings within the social circles 'Jake' has been moving in the
   past years in Berlin, that ‘poor but sexy’ capital which had
   overtaken Amsterdam as the place to be if you are young, worldly,
   engaged - and poor and sexy. From the early 2000's the city had
   become an international magnet to all sorts of creative people and
   voluntary organisations, eager to contribute to the “an other world
   is possible” idea. Berlin has obvious ‘locational’ advantages
   in terms of situation in the geographical and political centre of
   Europe and because of its convenience in terms of affordable housing,
   cheap food, and a dynamic cultural life (with a frothy night scene to
   boot). But it is also the political climate and constitutional set-up
   of Germany that had made Berlin a place of choice for ‘technological
   refugees’, mostly from the USA, and thanks to its thriving IT scene,
   also a hotbed of digital political activism.
   Yet at the same time it should be noted that these circles are not
   that large - in the low hundreds in terms of number of members –
   and that they are more close-knit and culturally, demographically,
   and socially homogeneous than is normally the case in the larger
   society. In short, young (20/30-ish), single, english speaking, sort
   of full time artists/activists in one way or another. Add to this
   the pressure of operating against, and hence enduring the special
   attention cum repression from the Surveillance Empire, which makes it
   easy to imagine a situation where one is living permanently at the
   edge, with all its accompanying features like red eye nights, sexual
   promiscuity, alcohol and substance (ab)use, and what have you. A
   perfect setting for a scenario whose script can easily veer into all
   kinds of, err, ‘configurations’ ...
   On the organisations Jake works or has worked for
   Following on the factual demise of parliamentary political parties,
   trade unions, and of the ‘quality’ press as avenues of criticism
   and influencing the governance process, the 'NGO-isation of advocacy
   and of politics at large has led to the rise of a large number of
   voluntary initiatives, whose common characteristics - for the majority
   of them - appears to be small in size, and to be run by far too few
   underpaid (or not paid at all) people chasing far too many issues at
   the same time. This often results in near-mandatory commitment to a
   24/7 work schedule, with its concomitant risks of stress, burnout,
   wayward behaviour, etc. This is especially the case with those
   outfits focusing on the variegated and nefarious manifestations of
   the 'deep state' (see below), and then more particularly in the realm
   of surveillance and repression. It is clear that such organisations
   and their personnel are themselves 'targets', not to say fair game,
   for the aforementioned deep state's agencies and services, and this
   equally on a 24/7 footing. Another aspect is that such outfits,
   despite their small size, 'enjoy' an inordinately large, and usually
   sensationalist media coverage every time they manage to uncover yet
   another 'scandal', enhancing at the same time their popularity among
   some sections of the public (academics, activists, 'progressive'
   people). This all makes for a very heady atmosphere, difficult both to
   avoid and to resist. And this has been Jake's 'natural biotope' for
   quite a number of years past.
   Their good work in exposing states' misbehaviour, and even crimes
   notwithstanding, such organisations have their dark sides also. Their
   small size results in a very limited number of people, or even a
   single person (as in a SPO, Single Person Organisation) acting without
   very much of an oversight, if at all. To this. organisations involved
   in the more 'sensitive' aspects of politics add an extra, justifiable
   but nonetheless secretive, opaque layer to their activities. Which
   in turn often leads to a permanent state of paranoia, a tunnel
   vision due to over-focussing on the outfit's specific issues (at
   the expense of looking at the world at large - or at life itself),
   and generally a form of dogmatism in both their internal and their
   external functioning. It had also as reverse a clear tendency to
   delusion of grandeur, exaggerating the importance and the impact of
   both the group(s) and the issues at stake among the general public.
   And then, also the effects of cut-throat competition in the permanent
   hunt for funding and attention among such outfits should not be
   overlooked. Finally, both their rhetorics as they working practices
   are essentially not that far removed from the modus operandi of
   commercial (IT) start-ups, with whom they appear to share (almost)
   the same recruitment demographics: young, bright, dynamic, hip - and
   single.
   The unhappy conclusion is that such organisations are always at risk,
   in the end, to veer towards becoming ineffective at best, and morally
   bankrupt at worst. Looking, for instance, at the recent management and
   political decision-making processes at the TOR foundation triggered by
   '#jakegate' don't make one overly optimistic.
   On the wider (and bad) world of big government, big corporation, and
   their oppressive practices of surveillance and control.
   First, I think we need to realize that, in society at large, the
   number of people truly concerned, and actively engaging, with the
   above issue is incredibly tiny (and shockingly so, even if it is
   slowly growing). To most citizens, this is a 'far-from-my-bed-show',
   and one they feel utterly powerless about at the same time. Activists
   and their organisations sometimes achieve a big media breakthrough and
   subsequent, but ephemeral, hype (Wikileaks, Snowden), but most of the
   time, awareness, concern, and hence political consequences remain at
   a low level, which might in part explain why measures progressively
   regulating and restraining citizen's rights and liberties end up so
   smoothly in the statute books.
   But near-zero awareness is surely not what can be ascribed to the
   corporate intelligence contractors banding together with secretive
   government agencies, a complex best represented by the concept
   of 'deep state'(*). While the former 'partners' are primarily
   concerned with protecting and extending their business interests
   - which includes supporting, or at least not opposing, the most
   outlandish repressive measures by the state agencies when it suits
   them, the latter, on the other hand, will go in the end for outright
   elimination, physical if necessary, of their opponents and critics, be
   it individual or groups. These are the forces groups and organisations
   'Jake' works(/ed) for are confronting - making them clear targets.
   How precisely and to what extent is difficult to ascertain - beyond
   at points of obvious contact, in the form of protracted harassment at
   border crossings for instance. This gives rise to speculations fast
   drifting into conspiracy theories - something that is not entirely to
   the displeasure of aforementioned agencies. I neither wish nor can say
   very much more about this, save than to presume that the situation is
   both pretty much calamitous and also not amenable to any (re)solution.
   Resistance may be the answer to what has probably become the essential
   constitutional issue of our times, but I am afraid not to see a
   positive outcome evolving unless it mutates into a real law and order
   problem for the powers that be. And this is in my view exactly the
   point where the above mentioned organisations and their associates,
   supporters, and techie-activists fail to enact the effective mix of
   political strategy, street-level tactics, and technological fixes,
   usually by prioritizing the last option at the expense of the two
   others.
   In conclusion
   As could be read, I have not at all addressed the question of Jacob
   Appelbaum's (very?) possible culpability in the matter of sexual
   harassment and uncivil/a-social behaviour - the mainstay of the
   #jakegate brouhaha. This is on purpose, since all evidence, as evinced
   in various interventions by equally various parties, point, to use
   Facebook's inimitable phrase, towards a 'it's complicated' verdict.
   Nonetheless, what I think is more important at this stage, also in
   view of the above mentioned evidence, or alleged lack thereof, is the
   conclusions the groups and organisations involved, as well as 'Jake'
   himself will draw for the future, and how his personal situation
   will evolve as a consequence. Now that he has been expelled from
   pretty much all the outfits he was associated with (Wikilekas appear
   to be an exception, for reasons that may - or may not - be easily
   guessed) the question is one of what 'Jake' is going to do next.
   For better or for worse, what has happened is beyond recall. With
   his 'rockstar' status clearly revoked - a good thing - I believe
   it is important for 'Jake' to start afresh and find sustainable
   footing in a much more modest and withdrawn role, something that is
   also the responsibility of his (former) 'Umfeld to make possible,
   or at the very least not to try to thwart it in a senseless pursuit
   of revenge. I am thinking of his pursuance of a Phd at Eindhoven
   Technical University, something that could constitute a perfect
   opportunity for retreat and 'reconfiguration'.
   To people who feel they have been to have been aggrieved by 'Jake'
   one way or another, and they might have good reasons to feel so,
   I would suggest that some 'truth and atonement' get together be
   organised, say in one year from now. In the end, whatever the way one
   wishes to describe those concerned by or involved in '#jakegate' in
   terms of a community (and that might also include some people in the
   nettime readership), then that 'we' must strive, immo, to overcome the
   conflict by learning its lessons ("no more rockstars" would be a good
   starter), and not repeat the same mistakes, neither at the individual,
   nor at the collective level.
   ------
   (*) A good exposition is Mike Lofgren: Anatomy of the Deep State (2014)
   ([4]http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/)
   Patrice Riemens
   Amsterdam, October 7, 2016
   NB (but see the other NB at the head of this post)
   I started writing this story in Transylvania, 3 weeks ago. I dropped
   it till now, but nothing appears to happened in between, just his
   (quite empty) home page at Eindhoven T.U seem to have moved a few
   ranks. In fact nothing (afaik) happened since the #jakegate blowup
   in May/June (Jake's last Tweet is dated June 6), save for a long
   interview in Die Zeit Digital mid-August:
   [5]http://www.zeit.de/kultur/2016-08/jacob-appelbaum-rape-
   allegations-contradictions
   and
   [6]http://www.zeit.de/kultur/2016-08/jacob-appelbaum-rape-
   sexual-abuse-allegations
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References

   1. mailto:patrice@xs4all.nl
   2. mailto:nettime-l@kein.org
   3. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/11/jacob-appelbaum-tor-project-sexual-assault-allegations
   4. http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/
   5. http://www.zeit.de/kultur/2016-08/jacob-appelbaum-rape-allegations-contradictions
   6. http://www.zeit.de/kultur/2016-08/jacob-appelbaum-rape-sexual-abuse-allegations
   7. http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
   8. http://www.nettime.org/
   9. mailto:nettime@kein.org