i went back and checked and it looks like this took place in 2016; appelbaum had two accusers, one of whom later accused a bitcoin core dev of sexual assault and was sued, which i believe settled out of court for an apology. afaict appelbaum has completely dropped off the net in the years since
Weren't two guys removed from Linux kernel development that uncovered the NSA trying to put a backdoor in it multiple time?
That is why you need some fervent believers in some arbitrary COC. Worked for the church, why shouldn't it work for intelligence agencies. Just get some crazy something to stick it to the patriarchy. You always find tools like that.