Julian Assange The Founder of WikiLeaks

1. Julian Assange The Founder of WikiLeaks By: Jennie Russell Comp 1631, Winter 2011

2. Background: • Before he was 14 Julian and his mother had moved 30 times and for his school career he has been to 37 different schools and was sometimes home schooled • at 16 he began hacking and then made a group with two other hackers called International Subversives • Assange’s rules for the group was “Don’t damage computer systems you break into (including crashing them); don’t change the information in these systems (except for altering logs to cover your tracks); and share information

3. Assange was called “Australia’s most famous ethical computer hacker” by Personal Democracy Forum • the Australia Federal Police became aware of his group and in 1991 he was discovered hacking into Nortel, the Canadian telecommunications company and also accessed Australia University computers and the pentagon and other organizations. • In 1991 his home was raided and 3 years later he was charged with 31 counts of hacking and related crimes.

4. He pleaded guilty to 25 counts and 6 charges were dropped • Assange was released on bond for good conduct • He served no jail time because the judge concluded that he hadn’t stolen any information or done any damage. • In 1989 Assange had a son and after his legal issues he and the child's mother went through a lengthy custody battle. Assange and his mother later created Parent Inquiry Into Child Protection

5. 1993 – Assange was involved in beginning one of the first public internet service providers in Australia 1994 – he lived as a programmer and a developer of free software 1995 – Assange wrote the first free and open source port scanner called strobe 1996 – he contributed multiple patches to the PostgreSQL project 1997- Assange did the research for the book Underground : Tales of hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier

6. 1997 - he co-invented the Rubberhose denial encryption system. His original intentions for the system was for it to be used “as a tool for human right workers who needed to protect sensitive data in the field”. Other software he either wrote or co-wrote through the years are Usenet Catching software and Surfraw 1999 – Assange registered the domain leaks.org “but” he says “then I didn’t know what to do with it”. 2003-2006 – Assange attended the University of Melbourne where he pursued a Bachelor of Science. He never graduated from university.

7. WikiLeaks: • WikiLeaks was founded in 2006 and was officially launched in 2007 • WikiLeaks is a non-profit media organization • There goal is to bring important news and information to the public. WikiLeaks provide a secure and anonymous way for sources to get there information to there journalists. • WikiLeaks has a nine-member advisory board which Assange sits on and he is also the media spokesman on it’s behalf

8. The media describe Assange as a founder or director of WikiLeaks but he has said that he doesn’t see himself as a founder but as an editor in chief. He has the final say on what gets posted on WikiLeaks. • Assange has said that WikiLeaks has released more classified documents than the rest of the world’s press combined. • The Age called him “ one of the most intriguing people in the world” and “internets freedom fighter”. • Reportably a factor in motivating Assange to drop out of University and start WikiLeaks was the fact that his fellow students were doing research for Pentagon’s DARPA(Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency)

9. Some of WikiLeaks stories: • War, killings, torture and detention • Government, trade and corporate transparency • Suppression of free speech and a free press • Diplomacy, spying and (counter-)intelligence • Ecology, climate, nature and sciences • Corruption, finance, taxes, trading • Censorship technology and internet • filtering • Cults and other religious organizations • Abuse, violence, violation

10. WikiLeaks has leaked a lot of stories but some of the bigger ones are: • WikiLeaks published information that played a key role in the 2008 elections in Kenya and fuelling the anger that recently brought down the government of Tunisia • They released information on membership roles of a neo-Nazi organization in Britain • They also released secret documents from the church of Scientology

11. The story getting the most press and that WikiLeaks is getting the most trouble from are the documents they released on the U.S. • WikiLeaks released a video of an American helicopter opening fire on a group of suspected insursions. Some were armed but two journalists were caught in the fire. Around a dozen people got killed and some were innocent savilions • WikiLeaks most recently released 76 000 classified field reports of US operations in Afghanistan

12. Awards: 2008 – WikiLeaks was awarded the Economists Index on Censorship Award 2009 – WikiLeaks received the Media award from Amnesty International UK 2010 – He received the Sam Adams Award - He also received runner up for the Person of the Year in Time Magazine 2011 – He was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize

13. Currently: • Julian Assange is on house arrest in England, while fighting extradition to Sweden for questioning in 2 sexual assault cases. He calls it a smear campaign. • There is legal attack from the US government which would like to charge him with espionage for publishing volumes of classified materials from the state department and pentagon.

14. Julian Assange has been called a hero, a villain, a martyr and a terrorist and many other things. He has a lot of support for what he does but he also has people who think what he is doing could potentially hurt a lot of people. The US want him to pay for all the stuff he has leaked about them but then other people say it is good he leaked this stuff. WHAT DO YOU THINK?

15. Work cited: Assange, Jilian. WikiLeaks, 2010 Jilian Assange: Whistleblower, TED Global. 2010 Jillian Assange, Wikipedia, 2011 Jillian Assange, The Man Behind WikiLeaks. Pro. Tanya Simon, Howard L. rosenberg. CBS., 2011. 60 minutes Jilian Assange: Why the World Needs WikiLeaks, TED Global., 2010