Bonum Certa Men Certa

Using Debian-Private to Leapfrog Due Process

Reprinted with permission from Debian Community News

In criminology research, between thirty and fifty percent of women surveyed typically indicated they have experienced sexual violence or rape.



Experience of the authorities also tells us that on average, over ninety percent of crime reports are true yet between five and ten percent of accusations are proven to be false, motivated by money, vendettas and women with mental illness.



In 2016, a small group of people came to the debian-private (leaked) gossip network to tell us what they thought about Jacob Appelbaum. Why did they choose to air stories from their friends in this way instead of going to the police to make a sincere statement under oath?



Subject: Re: Expulsion of Jacob Appelbaum <error>
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2016 12:56:58 -0400
From: Erinn Clark <erinn@debian.org>
To: debian-private@lists.debian.org

* Erinn Clark <erinn@debian.org> [2016:06:21 12:53 -0400]: > I disagree with the decision to make a public statement [...]

Should be: I disagree with the decision *NOT* to make a public statement



Why is Erinn Clark insisting on a public statement instead of making a police report? Clark disclosed in another message that she heard the story from friends, she never stated that she is either a victim or witness. Let's try paraphrasing it:



Dear Debian

Your software has a great reputation. Please use your famous name to add credibility to rape accusations. My friend doesn't want to go to the police so we are coming to debian-private for help.



This message appears to show a deliberate and malicious intention to cause the maximum amount of harm to another volunteer. Did anybody check if false accusations of rape and harassment could violate the Code of Conduct™? Clark never explains why it is necessary to make such a statement before a credible and independent trial takes place.



If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.... Joseph Gobbels


We encourage people to read the analysis by German magazine Die Zeit and think about the fact that in the last four years, not one person was willing to make a statement that they have to sign under oath. Why?



We have heard personal stories from several genuine survivors of abuse, people we believe. These people were not talking about Jacob Appelbaum. We notice that none of these people, who we consider to be a good point of reference, acted like the people running around the free software community with a vendetta, egging on leaders to publicly shame volunteers. We do not claim to be experts on abuse but we can't help noticing this enormous inconsistency between our observations of known victims and our observations of people who grandstand on social media.



While we feel these Debian vendettas have little resemblence to the behavior of known abuse victims, we find this builds on the similarities between Debian and the NXIVM sex cult. In particular, it was the pretty actress Allison Mack who convinced cult leader Keith Raniere to brand people, just as it appears a small group of feminist/anarchist women successfuly employed social engineering techniques on Debian to hack the justice system and publicly brand an innocent man as a rapist.



If Miss Clark is so concerned about helping genuine victims of rape and abuse, why doesn't she give up computing, study law and become a prosecutor?



From the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:



Article 5: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.



Article 7: All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8: Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 10: Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.



Why does Debian put so much effort into software licensing rights, as proclaimed in the Debian Free Software Guidelines, but ignore the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? After all, even software licenses are derived from UDHR Article 22, cultural rights.



We know for a fact that at least some of the accusations spread with Debian resources are false. The case of Dr Norbert Preining, expelled for Thought Crime™ just days before Christmas 2018, is one of the most well known.



The misuse of Debian's name and resources, denouncing people in a manner that achieves maximum damage to their reputation, is the only crime that has ever been proven by visible evidence.



Article 9: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.


Die Zeit notes a comment on the blog of Isis Agora Lovecruft



She writes in her blog that she wishes Mr. Appelbaum would go into exile, in Alaska or Siberia.


Many people feel the Debian Account Managers, Enrico Zini, Joerg Jaspert, Jonathan Wiltshire and formerly Christoph Berg have been bewitched. They set aside universal human rights that protect men and women equally. They chose one side over the other. They deceived Debian's community and the press, making misleading statements to placate a small and manipulative group of anarchist feminists.



If you have news about false accusations, vendettas and human rights violations like this, please contact the Debian Community News Team.



Editor's note: I am not claiming that Jacob Appelbaum is innocent; we just won't know until there's a trial (seeing what was done to his colleague Julian Assange for 7 years until the 'case' was thrown out). Debian-Private and Due Process aren't the same thing. The burden of proof is typically on the accuser (or: please file a report with the police, instead).

Recent Techrights' Posts

IBM's Press Release About Results Mentions "AI" 10 Times, "Quantum" 4 Times
Blah blah blah AI"
Things We Could Do More Than Half a Century Ago But Can No Longer Accomplish
Newer is not always better
Linux Foundation an Enemy of the Planet, Proponent of Pollution and Global Heating
"could the "polluters pay" model be extended to the computing environment and used to take on Microsoft and Microsofters?"
Not Everything Can be Automated
not a new thing
 
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 22, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 22, 2026
Freexian & Debian: antitrust, unfair competition against joint authors and volunteers
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
IBM in the Red After Bad Results (Shares Down in After Hours)
Will the CEO step down, retire, of what else?
Gemini Links 22/07/2026: Fault Lines, the Dark Web and Beyond, and Why Substack is Awful
Links for the day
Insult and Injury: Getting Banned, Not Just Sacked, by Microsoft
A former insider spoke about this in public 5 hours ago
Links 22/07/2026: "Dumb Phones" Not Enough to Tackle Harmful Addition, "MPEG-4 Visual's Road to Being [Software] Patent-Free"
Links for the day
Top secret: Cults inquiry submission concealed from public
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
An Hour Ahead of Alleged 'Results' (Amid Investigation Into Fraud) IBM Falls Back to New Lows
Only cents away from a 52-week low
IBM Headed for Lowest "Value" in 2 Years
In a nutshell, Krishna "can't keep it up" and IBM is now investigated for fraud
Investigation Progressing
There is nothing "funny" about receiving mortal threats for merely reporting information in a civilised country
Anupa Ann Joseph & Debian defamation gang
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
State of the Invidious Project
Never forget how hostile Google can be towards freedom
Prioritising the Safety of Women is the Best Approach to Foster Diversity in Technical Communities
Debian was never "normative", but that does not mean Debian should have such low standards
IBM Will Report 'Results' Tonight (CET), It's Already Investigated for Securities Fraud
"Five of the biggest US tech giants are carrying $1.65 trillion in debt that does not show up on their balance sheets"
Hardware Has Gotten a Lot Worse, Not Just Far More Expensive
prices go up fast
Amid Claims of Microsoft Bing Layoffs It Seems Like Bing Cannot Even Hold on to Second Place
Yandex is sometimes bigger than Bing
Wikileaks Does Not Publish New Material Anymore, But Wikileaks Still Changes the World
Wikileaks has a legacy that will soon turn 20
Links 22/07/2026: Postal IRCs, PlayStation Kills Discs, Union Action Against Microsoft, "Judge Considers Tossing Databricks Patent Suit Under California anti-SLAPP Law"
Links for the day
Same 'Journalists' Who Published Fake News for IBM (Pump and Dump) Now Write Puff Pieces About the Stock Falling
the media is so compromised
They Called It "Social" and "Media", But It Turned Out to be Slop and Child Porn
Why do any sane people still use social control media?
Age of consent: DebConf26 registered sex offender in Argentina?
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: In the Pole Position Despite a Dismal Track Record
António Campinos is an old hand when it comes to such high-level institutional intrigue
Site a Bit Slower Due to Visitors' Load
We'll try to work out better speeds
Gemini Links 22/07/2026: Emacs, Astrology Clock, Arduino, and Rogallo v1.0.0
Links for the day
After Involvement by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) LibreTech and Quibble Gain More Participants
RMS expressed gratitude for people who worked on Quibble and improved LibreJS after many years of inactivity
The Lessons From the Assange Saga
This will not end well
Apple Will Increase Surveillance of Customers, Record Verbal Communications Under the Guise of "Hey Hi"
Apple now drinks that same Kool-Aid
Dave Winer, Blogging Pioneer, Sells Out, Spews Out LLM Slop to Readers
Another one bites the dust [...] Now it's a slopfarm of sorts
GNU/Linux OS in ComorOS
Now, as in recent years or the last year, the GNU/Linux "signal" is growing significantly
Microsoft Redefines "Layoffs" to Give Smaller Tallies
It's not just calling them "buyouts" or saying people are merely "leaving" or "retiring"
IBM is Not Done Destroying Red Hat, Wait Till October 1st 2026 (More Layoffs and Bluewashing)
It's not bluewashing 'til it's 100% done
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 21, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 21, 2026
"LF Sex", Nothing to Do With Linux
a lot of explaining to do this week
Gemini Links 21/07/2026: Nostalgia, Shogi, and New Gemlog System
Links for the day
Guyana: GNU/Linux Rises to New High, 7%
Guyana is part of the trend
Oman: GNU/Linux Up to 7%
It was 5% last year
The Solution is Never 'Free Hosting' in Proprietary GitHub (Microsoft), the Solution is Self-Hosting
Third parties never care about your projects as much as you (yourself) care about them
Only a Matter of Time Before IBM Drops to $199 or a Lot Lower Than That
How long can IBM overload empty shells?
From GAFAM's Perspective, Jeremy Bicha Did Nothing Wrong
All is OK as long as he does not criticise monopolists and billionaires
Bluesky Was Such an Utter Failure That After 18 Months Mozilla Goes Hug a Nazi Platform That Produces Child Porn
What compels Mozilla to come back there? The child pornography scandal? The adorable leader?
GNU/Linux at Grenada Measured at 14% This Month
GNU/Linux was stuck at 0% for a long time
In WordPress, Newer is Not Better (Maybe Better Off With No WordPress at All)
To Hell with bloat and feature churn
As Slop Bubble Implodes (Inevitable), the Dishonest, Corrupt, Compromised Media Tries to Blame "China" Again (Like it Did With "DeepSeek" in Past Years)
Here we go again. We've been there before. Same spin, this time not "DeepSeek" though.
Lots of Microsoft Just Loses Money, Not Earning Money
Due to profitability challenges it's hard to believe Microsoft will ever find a buyer for XBox
Red Hat (IBM) Has Long 'Reassigned' (Bluewashed) Red Hat Staff to Ruin Fedora, Now It Does the Same to GNOME
What next from IBM's Krishna?
Links 21/07/2026: Google Stagnating, Slop 'Apps' Are "Flooding Apple’s App Store"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/07/2026: OPNSense Upgrade Problems, Zilog Z80 at 50, and Lessons From Terminator
Links for the day
IBM Lawsuits Over Alleged Fraud Are Piling Up
We'll keep an eye on the lawsuits
Arianna Taite on Odds of Australian (Daniel Pocock) Winning Clacton By-Election
His detractors somehow try to twist or frame him (Pocock) as an impediment to women while the exact opposite is true
This Coming Weekend Marks 4 Years Since We Dumped Content Management Systems (CMSs) in Favour of Static Site Generators (SSGs)
the first page dated July 25
Slop's Latest Casualty: The Credibility of Linus Torvalds
If you care about millionaires and billionaires, follow Torvalds (he is already in that "club")
Techrights Will Become More Productive (More Output) Over Time
Big stories about to land
Touch Grass
Happiness involves what humans have evolved to appreciate, not what humans create to sedate the mind (like skinnerboxes)
The Cyber Show on Technology Having Become a Tool of Mass Psychosis, Not Enablement or Emancipation
Technology as mass psychosis
The Rumour Said That a Second Wave of Microsoft Layoffs Would Come This Week (Ahead of Fake 'Results'), Maybe Tomorrow
Let's wait and see how "MSM" unfold
To Wikipedia, "Notability" is Just an Excuse to Hail People Who Serve Billionaires While Marginalising or Defaming the Rest
Wikipedia is an advertising space
Our Series About Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and SLAPPs Will Resume Soon
Originally, in 2025, we gave ourselves 6 years (until 2031) to cover these issues, but we've seen since extended that to 10 years (until 2036) because of the amount of material we have
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: The EPO Transparency Gap
Despite the "European" tag in the organisation's name, the European Union has no jurisdiction over the European Patent Organisation
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 20, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, July 20, 2026
Links 20/07/2026: Lashes for Songs in Iran, Kurdish Language at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/07/2026: The Boss Baby (2017) and 2026 Old Computer Challenge Epilogue
Links for the day