Jacob Appelbaum (born April 1, 1983)[5] is an American independent journalist, computer security researcher, artist, hacker and teacher.

Appelbaum, who earned his PhD from the Eindhoven University of Technology, first became notable for his work as a core member of the Tor Project, a free software network designed to provide online anonymity.

[20] German press outlet Die Zeit defended Appelbaum (who is a resident of Germany), citing the lack of formal charges by accusers, also inconsistencies and contradictions in the allegations.

[22] These women launched an online appeal for support to contest the allegations, voicing concerns about due process, trial by social media, and questioning the claims.

Appelbaum was among several people to gain access to former NSA contractor Edward Snowden's top secret documents released in 2013.

[30] On 23 October 2013, Appelbaum and other writers and editors at Der Spiegel reported that their investigations had led German Chancellor Angela Merkel to confront the U.S. government over evidence that it was monitoring her personal cell phone.

[32] The Der Spiegel team reported on the resulting controversy and detailed a further claim that the Embassy of the United States, Berlin, was being used as a base of operations for electronic surveillance of its German ally.

An investigative team at Der Spiegel, including Appelbaum, simultaneously published their findings,[42] along with a descriptive list of the surveillance devices making up the NSA ANT catalog.

[44][45] On 28 December 2014, Der Spiegel again drew from the Snowden documents to assess the NSA's ability to crack encrypted Internet communications.

[46] In a separate article, they described how British and American intelligence used covert surveillance to target, often inaccurately, suspected Taliban fighters and drug smugglers for killing.

[52] In 2005, Appelbaum gave two talks at the 22nd Chaos Communication Congress,[53] Personal Experiences: Bringing Technology and New Media to Disaster Areas, and A Discussion About Modern Disk Encryption Systems.

At the 2006 23rd Chaos Communication Congress, he gave a talk with Ralf-Philipp Weinmann titled Unlocking FileVault: An Analysis of Apple's Encrypted Disk Storage System.

Appelbaum has taken part in a number of art projects with dissident artists including Laura Poitras, Trevor Paglen, Ai Weiwei, and Angela Richter.

[73] Appelbaum appeared in Laura Poitras's Academy Award-winning film Citizenfour (2014),[74] which documents the public emergence of NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden and the political circumstances leading to his actions.

[4] In August 2013, Appelbaum delivered Edward Snowden's acceptance speech after he was awarded the biannual Whistleblower Prize by a group of NGOs at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

[82][83][84][85] In 2010, the US Department of Justice obtained a court order compelling Twitter to provide data associated with the user accounts of Appelbaum, as well as several other individuals associated with WikiLeaks.

[101] An anonymously leaked letter that the Tor Project's human resources manager had written to Appelbaum in conjunction with his March 2015 suspension for unprofessional conduct was published on 7 June.

[91][92][102] On 15 June, Alison Macrina (the director of the Library Freedom Project) and Isis Lovecruft (a Tor developer) publicly announced that the website's anonymous accounts of sexual abuse, under the pseudonyms of "Sam" and "Forest", respectively, were their own.

[108] On 17 June 2016, activists, journalists and legal professionals supporting Appelbaum signed a document defending his right to due process, and deploring the story's treatment by social media.

[24][23][22] In June 2016, the façade of the building in which Appelbaum's Berlin apartment is located was defaced in English and German with graffiti directly referencing the allegations.

[21] A change in attitude in the information security community towards calling out known abusers and believing reports of sexual misconduct was partially credited to Appelbaum's precedent.