Julian Assange
Julian Assange | |
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 Julian Assange at 26C3, 2009 |
Julian Assange (/əˈsɑːnʒ/; born in the 1970s[1]) is an Australian journalist, programmer and Internet activist, who lived in East Africa as of 2008.[1]
Wikileaks
He is known for his involvement in Wikileaks, a whistleblower website. Assange sits on its nine-member advisory board and is a prominent media spokesman for Wikileaks. He has also been described as the site's director[2] and founder[3] (although he does not use the latter term for himself[4]), and has stated that he has the final decision in the process of vetting documents submitted to the site.[5] Like all others working for the site, Assange is an unpaid volunteer.[4]
Assange was the winner of the 2009 Amnesty International Media Award (New Media), awarded for exposing extrajudicial assassinations; the 2008 Economist Index on Censorship Award; and various other media awards.[6]
Since Wikileaks has opened, Assange has appeared at news-oriented conferences around Europe such as New Media Days '09 in Copenhagen[7] and hacker-oriented conferences, most notably as a special guest speaker at the 26th Chaos Communication Congress[8]. He has recently appeared on international news agencies such as Al Jazeera English[9], CNN,[10] MSNBC,[11], Democracy Now,[12] and RT[13] to discuss the release of the July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike.
Early life
Assange does not publish his exact age,[14] but has stated that he was born in the 1970s.[1] According to an Australian newspaper article published in 1995, he was 23 years old at that time.[15]
Assange has said that because his parents ran a touring theatre company, he was enrolled in 37 schools and 6 universities in Australia over the course of his early life.[1]
Assange helped to write the 1997 book Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier which credits him as researcher.[16] It draws from his teenage experiences as a member of a hacker group named "International Subversives", which involved a 1991 raid of his Melbourne home by the Australian Federal Police.[3][17] Wired and the Sydney Morning Herald have pointed out that there exist similarities between Assange and the person called "Mendax" in the book.[18][19] Assange allegedly accessed various computers (belonging to an Australian university, a telecommunications company and other organizations) via modem[15] to test their security flaws, and later pleaded guilty to 24 charges of hacking, but was released on bond for good conduct after being fined AU$2100.[3][17][19]
Afterwards, Assange lived in Melbourne as a programmer and a developer of freeware.[19] He was enrolled for some time at Melbourne University, studying mathematics, and has been described as being largely self-taught and widely read on science and mathematics.[19]
Starting around 1997, Assange co-invented "Rubberhose deniable encryption", a cryptographic concept made into a software package for Linux designed to provide plausible deniability against rubber-hose cryptanalysis,[20] which he originally intended "as a tool for human rights workers who needed to protect sensitive data in the field"[21].
Other free software that Assange has authored or co-authored includes the Usenet caching software NNTPCache[22], Strobe (a port scanner)[23] and Surfraw, a command line interface for web-based search engines.
In 2006, Assange described himself as "president of a NGO and Australia's most infamous former computer hacker".[24]
References
- ^ a b c d "Meet the Aussie behind Wikileaks". stuff.co.nz. 2008-07-08. Retrieved 2010-03-26.
- ^ McGreal, Chris. Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians, The Guardian, April 5, 2010
- ^ a b c Richard Guilliat: "Rudd Government blacklist hacker monitors police", The Australian (30 May 2009) [lead-in to a longer article in that day's The Weekend Australian Magazine]
- ^ a b Interview with Julian Assange, spokesperson of Wikileaks: Leak-o-nomy: The Economy of Wikileaks
- ^ "Inside WikiLeaks' Leak Factory". Mother Jones magazine. 2010-03-12. Retrieved 2010-04-09.
- ^ "Julian Assange at the centre for investigative journalism". tcij.org. 2009-06-04. Retrieved 2010-04-01.
- ^ "The Subtle Roar of Online Whistle-Blowing". New Media Days. 2009-11-19. Retrieved 2010-04-08.
- ^ "WikiLeaks Release 1.0: Insight into vision, motivation and innovation". 26th Chaos Communication Congress. 2009-12-30. Retrieved 2010-04-08.
- ^ "Video of US attack in Iraq 'genuine'". AlJazeeraEnglish. 2010-04-05. Retrieved 2010-04-09.
- ^ [1]
- ^ "MSNBC Panel discusses Wikileaks.org's "Collateral Murder" Video - Part 1". 2010-4-05.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Goodman, Amy (2010-04-06). "Massacre Caught on Tape: US Military Confirms Authenticity of Their Own Chilling Video Showing Killing of Journalists". Democracy Now. Retrieved 2010-04-07.
- ^ "WikiLeaks editor on Apache combat video: No excuse for US killing civilians". RussiaToday. 2010-04-06. Retrieved 2010-04-09.
- ^ "Inside WikiLeaks' Leak Factory". Mother Jones. Retrieved 2010-04-09.
- ^ a b Sharon Weinberger: Who Is Behind WikiLeaks? AOLNews, April 7, 2010
- ^ Suelette Dreyfus (2009-06-04). "Underground Book". Retrieved 2010-04-01.
- ^ a b "Inside WikiLeaks' Leak Factory". Mother Jones. 2010-03-12. Retrieved 2010-04-09.
- ^ Annabel Symington: Exposed: Wikileaks' secrets Wired UK, 1 September 2009
- ^ a b c d Bernard Lagan: International man of mystery The Sydney Morning Herald, April 10, 2010
- ^ http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2008/07/wikileaks?currentPage=all
- ^ Suelette Dreyfus: The Idiot Savants' Guide to Rubberhose (accessed April 9, 2010)
- ^ NNTPCache home page (accessed April 10, 2010)
- ^ strobe-1.06 - A super optimised TCP port surveyor The Porting and Archiving Centre for HP-UX (accessed April 10, 2010)
- ^ Julian Assange: The Anti-Nuclear WANK Worm. The Curious Origins of Political Hacktivism CounterPunch, November 25 / 26, 2006
External links
- Archived versions of the home page on Julian Assange's web site iq.org (at the Internet Archive)