To some, WikiLeaks is seen as a beacon of free speech that is to be praised. But to others, including outraged Pentagon and White House officials as well as a number of governments the world over sees it as irresponsible and want the website taken down for what they call irreparable damage to global security.
The elusive public face of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange has been described by his mother as "highly intelligent". Not a surprising credence – even for a mom – seeing as Assange is an award-winning journalist was nominated as ‘Person of the Year’ by Time magazine which described him as a “new kind of whistle-blower… for the digital age”.
Assange’s act of exposing official top secret documents had catapulted to celebrity status but his notoriety did not stop there. Shortly after he released the Afghan War Diary, he became the subject of a sex crime case in Sweden.
So who is this lean, lanky, leather jacket-clad man with pale skin mop white hair we’ve been seeing a lot on TV and the internet lately?
Assange’s act of exposing official top secret documents had catapulted to celebrity status but his notoriety did not stop there. Shortly after he released the Afghan War Diary, he became the subject of a sex crime case in Sweden.
So who is this lean, lanky, leather jacket-clad man with pale skin mop white hair we’ve been seeing a lot on TV and the internet lately?
Young Julian
Assange was born in Townsville, in the Australian state of Queensland, and spent much of his youth living on Magnetic Island. The son of parents who ran a touring theatre company, he grew up constantly on the move. In 1979, his mother, Christine, remarried; her new husband was a musician who belonged to a controversial New Age band. The couple had a son, but broke up in 1982 and engaged in a custody struggle for Assange's half-brother. His mother then took both children into hiding for the next five years. Assange moved several dozen times during his childhood, attending many schools, sometimes being home schooled, and later attending several universities at various times in Australia.
He was just 13 when his mother bought him a Commodore 64 computer. At that time (1987) there were no websites. Assange attached a modem to his computer and began his journey through the growing world of computer networks.
"It's like chess," he told New Yorker magazine. "Chess is very austere in that you don't have many rules, there is no randomness and the problem is very hard."
Hacking
After his initial foray into computers, Assange delved into computer encryption and grew keen on computer security. At 16, Assange began hacking under the name "Mendax" and later formed a group which they named the International Subversives with two other hackers. He wrote down the early rules of the subculture: "Don’t damage computer systems you break into (including crashing them); don’t change the information in those systems (except for altering logs to cover your tracks); and share information".
Assange’s early hacking activities got him in trouble with the law for the first time in 1991 when the Australian Federal Police raided his Melbourne home. He was reported to have accessed computers belonging to the Canadian telecommunications company Nortel, an Australian university and other organizations, via modem. In 1992, he pleaded guilty to 24 charges of hacking and was released on bond for good conduct after being fined AU$2100. The prosecutor said "there is just no evidence that there was anything other than sort of intelligent inquisitiveness and the pleasure of being able to—what's the expression—surf through these various computers".
Assange later commented, "It's a bit annoying, actually. Because I cowrote a book about [being a hacker], there are documentaries about that, people talk about that a lot. They can cut and paste. But that was 20 years ago. It's very annoying to see modern day articles calling me a computer hacker. I'm not ashamed of it, I'm quite proud of it. But I understand the reason they suggest I'm a computer hacker now. There's a very specific reason.
In 1989, Assange started living with his girlfriend and soon they had a son. She separated from him after the 1991 police raid and took their son. A lengthy custody struggle followed and the two only agreed on a custody arrangement in 1999. The entire process prompted Assange and his mother to form Parent Inquiry Into Child Protection, an activist group centered on creating a "central databank" for otherwise inaccessible legal records related to child custody issues in Australia.
Assange’s early hacking activities got him in trouble with the law for the first time in 1991 when the Australian Federal Police raided his Melbourne home. He was reported to have accessed computers belonging to the Canadian telecommunications company Nortel, an Australian university and other organizations, via modem. In 1992, he pleaded guilty to 24 charges of hacking and was released on bond for good conduct after being fined AU$2100. The prosecutor said "there is just no evidence that there was anything other than sort of intelligent inquisitiveness and the pleasure of being able to—what's the expression—surf through these various computers".
Assange later commented, "It's a bit annoying, actually. Because I cowrote a book about [being a hacker], there are documentaries about that, people talk about that a lot. They can cut and paste. But that was 20 years ago. It's very annoying to see modern day articles calling me a computer hacker. I'm not ashamed of it, I'm quite proud of it. But I understand the reason they suggest I'm a computer hacker now. There's a very specific reason.
In 1989, Assange started living with his girlfriend and soon they had a son. She separated from him after the 1991 police raid and took their son. A lengthy custody struggle followed and the two only agreed on a custody arrangement in 1999. The entire process prompted Assange and his mother to form Parent Inquiry Into Child Protection, an activist group centered on creating a "central databank" for otherwise inaccessible legal records related to child custody issues in Australia.
University Days
Assange has reportedly attended six universities. From 2003 to 2006, he studied physics and mathematics at the University of Melbourne. On his personal web page, he described having represented his university at the Australian National Physics Competition around 2005. He has also studied philosophy and neuroscience.In 1993, Assange was involved in starting one of the first public internet service providers in Australia, Suburbia Public Access Network. Starting in 1994, Assange lived in Melbourne as a programmer and a developer of free software. In 1995, Assange wrote Strobe, the first free and open source port scanner. He contributed several patches to the PostgreSQL project in 1996. He later helped to write the book Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier (1997), which credits him as a researcher and reports his history with International Subversives. He also co-invented the Rubberhose deniable encryption system in 1997, a cryptographic concept made into a software package for Linux designed to provide plausible deniability against rubber-hose cryptanalysis; he originally intended the system to be used "as a tool for human rights workers who needed to protect sensitive data in the field. Other free software that he has authored or co-authored includes the Usenet caching software NNTPCache and Surfraw, a command-line interface for web-based search engines. In 1999, Assange registered the domain leaks.org; "But", he says, "then I didn't do anything with it."
WikiLeaks
The young hacker began to focus his attention away from network flaws to what he perceived as wrongdoings of governments.
In a 2007 blog post on IQ.org, he wrote:
"The whole universe or the structure that perceives it is a worthy opponent, but try as I may I can not escape the sound of suffering. Perhaps as an old man I will take great comfort in pottering around in a lab and gently talking to students in the summer evening and will accept suffering with insouciance. But not now; men in their prime, if they have convictions are tasked to act on them."
Among myriad topics addressed in the blog, Assange discusses mathematics versus philosophy, the death of author Kurt Vonnegut, censorship in Iran and the corporation as a nation state.
Driven by the conviction of an activist and the curiosity of a journalist, Assange founded WikiLeaks in 2006. He slept little and sometimes forgot to eat. He hired staff and enlisted the help of volunteers. In his essays, Assange wrote two essays setting out the philosophy behind WikiLeaks: "To radically shift regime behavior we must think clearly and boldly for if we have learned anything, it is that regimes do not want to be changed. We must think beyond those who have gone before us and discover technological changes that embolden us with ways to act in which our forebears could not." In his blog he wrote, "the more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. ... Since unjust systems, by their nature induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand, mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of governance."
Assange sits on Wikileaks's nine-member advisory board. While newspapers have described him as a "director" or "founder" of WikiLeaks, Assange has said, "I don't call myself a founder" though he does describe himself as the editor-in-chief of the website and has stated that he has the final decision in the process of vetting documents submitted to the site. Like all others working for the site, Assange is an unpaid volunteer. According to Assange, WikiLeaks has released more classified documents than the rest of the world press combined: "That's not something I say as a way of saying how successful we are – rather, that shows you the parlous state of the rest of the media. How is it that a team of five people has managed to release to the public more suppressed information, at that level, than the rest of the world press combined? It's disgraceful."
Assange advocates a "transparent" and "scientific" approach to journalism, saying that "you can't publish a paper on physics without the full experimental data and results; that should be the standard in journalism." In 2006, CounterPunch called him "Australia's most infamous former computer hacker." The Age has called him "one of the most intriguing people in the world" and "internet's freedom fighter."
WikiLeaks has been involved in the publication of material documenting extrajudicial killings in Kenya, a report of toxic waste dumping on the African coast, Church of Scientology manuals, Guantanamo Bay procedures, the July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike video, and, more recently, the US diplomatic cable gates among other documents.
In a 2007 blog post on IQ.org, he wrote:
"The whole universe or the structure that perceives it is a worthy opponent, but try as I may I can not escape the sound of suffering. Perhaps as an old man I will take great comfort in pottering around in a lab and gently talking to students in the summer evening and will accept suffering with insouciance. But not now; men in their prime, if they have convictions are tasked to act on them."
Among myriad topics addressed in the blog, Assange discusses mathematics versus philosophy, the death of author Kurt Vonnegut, censorship in Iran and the corporation as a nation state.
Driven by the conviction of an activist and the curiosity of a journalist, Assange founded WikiLeaks in 2006. He slept little and sometimes forgot to eat. He hired staff and enlisted the help of volunteers. In his essays, Assange wrote two essays setting out the philosophy behind WikiLeaks: "To radically shift regime behavior we must think clearly and boldly for if we have learned anything, it is that regimes do not want to be changed. We must think beyond those who have gone before us and discover technological changes that embolden us with ways to act in which our forebears could not." In his blog he wrote, "the more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. ... Since unjust systems, by their nature induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand, mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of governance."Assange sits on Wikileaks's nine-member advisory board. While newspapers have described him as a "director" or "founder" of WikiLeaks, Assange has said, "I don't call myself a founder" though he does describe himself as the editor-in-chief of the website and has stated that he has the final decision in the process of vetting documents submitted to the site. Like all others working for the site, Assange is an unpaid volunteer. According to Assange, WikiLeaks has released more classified documents than the rest of the world press combined: "That's not something I say as a way of saying how successful we are – rather, that shows you the parlous state of the rest of the media. How is it that a team of five people has managed to release to the public more suppressed information, at that level, than the rest of the world press combined? It's disgraceful."
Assange advocates a "transparent" and "scientific" approach to journalism, saying that "you can't publish a paper on physics without the full experimental data and results; that should be the standard in journalism." In 2006, CounterPunch called him "Australia's most infamous former computer hacker." The Age has called him "one of the most intriguing people in the world" and "internet's freedom fighter."
WikiLeaks has been involved in the publication of material documenting extrajudicial killings in Kenya, a report of toxic waste dumping on the African coast, Church of Scientology manuals, Guantanamo Bay procedures, the July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike video, and, more recently, the US diplomatic cable gates among other documents.
His Arrest
On 30 November 2010, Interpol issued a red notice against Assange on behalf of Sweden for questioning on allegations of "sex crimes", at Sweden's request. Although Sweden's charges included rape, sexual molestation, and unlawful coercion, Assange and some media accounts say that the dispute arose from incidents of consensual but unprotected sex. A lawyer for Assange said "It is highly irregular and unusual for the Swedish authorities to issue a red notice in the teeth of the undisputed fact that Mr Assange has agreed to meet voluntarily to answer the prosecutor's questions" outside Sweden and said Assange would fight extradition attempts due to the possibility that it could lead to the Swedish handing him over to the US.39-year-old Assange, was arrested in London by the Metropolitan Police on 7 December by appointment, after a voluntary meeting with the police. Later that day, Assange was refused bail and held in custody on remand. He is currently in Wandsworth prison and will be remanded in custody until 14 December.
Weeks before his arrest, Assange's mother said that she feared her son had become "too smart for himself."
"I'm concerned it's gotten too big and the forces that he's challenging are too big," Christine Assange told the Herald Sun.
She did not comment on the sex crimes charges in Sweden. But she said lately, Assange had distanced himself from his family to protect them.
Assange, too, declined to address the charges in the October interview with CNN in London when he pulled off one of his famous antics by walking out from the live interview.
"This interview is about something else. I will have to walk if you are... going to contaminate this extremely serious interview with questions about my personal life," he said.
Then, he pulled off his microphone, said sorry, and walked away.
Assange has described himself as a cynical and the kind of person who can hack into the most sophisticated computer system but can forget to show up for an interview or cancel at the last minute.
Even when he walked out during the CNN interview remained calm and collected. He displayed a stately demeanor helped by his profusion of gray hair – which grew at an early age – and an equally steely facial expression.
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