Biography

Jacob Appelbaum was born on April 1, 1983 in the USA. He is a writer, known for Honest Government Ads (2016), Soviet Unterzoegersdorf: Sector 2 (2009) and Traceroute (2016).

Documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras reveals in Risk (2016) that she was in a short sexual relationship with Jacob Appelbaum, who worked for the TOR project at that time and taught her how to use the technology. The sexual relationship was consensual and Appelbaum later moved on to other women. Poitras is now very critical of him in her documentary and decided to include in the released version unproven sexual misconduct allegations by two young American women, which some believe are designed by US intelligence agencies to discredit him. No official accusations or formal charges have ever been filed against Appelbaum in Germany, where he lives since 2013.

Director Laura Poitras was romantically involved with activist, journalist, computer security researcher and artist Jacob Appelbaum, who at the same time was a subject of her documentary film project about WikiLeaks which resulted in the features Citizenfour (2014) and Risk (2016). She often mentions Appelbaum in her book "Astro Noise" using the affectionate form 'Jake'. The opening photo in "Astro Noise" shows Poitras stretched out on a daybed in the sunlight and is credited to Appelbaum.

The birth date of Jacob Appelbaum is a questionable fact, since he himself is most likely the source of this data. This date was given in an Artlyst.com article from April 28th, 2015.