The Long, Hard Fall Of Julian Assange

The Long, Hard Fall of Julian Assange

by T.K. McNeil

 

Julian Assange Has Been Living At The Ecuadorian Embassy In London

Rogue Hacker Julian Assange Has Been Living At The Ecuadorian Embassy in London

It Is All In The Perspective

The difference between a “terrorist” and a “freedom-fighter” is essentially one of goals. One area where terms make a difference is the world of hacking. Used freely, and inclusively by the mainstream news media, “hacker” is little more than a general descriptor. All it really means, is someone who uses non-standard means to enhance their experience with technology.

They Wear Hats

If you have ever used a video-game cheat code or made non-factory improvements to your computer, congratulations, you are a hacker. The hacker world is diverse. The simplest distinction is between so-called “Black Hat” and “White Hat” hackers. Also known as “the criminal minority and the rest of us.” Though just as very few in the hacker community are nefarious, shadowy criminal types, equally few are virtuous, “White Hat” “Hacktivists.”

I Said It Was All Relative

Julian Assange Computer Programmer, Hacker, Activist and Wikileaks Founder

Computer Programmer, Hacker, & Founder of Wikileaks

As with the rest of humanity most are somewhere in-between. For most, hacking is surfing. Experimenting and testing to see what can be done with no particular goal in mind. Julian Assange is a “White Hat”. At least until recently. “Recently” being 2016 but like I said, everything is relative. Rather than being “done” as many have suggested Julian Assange and his notorious info-dumps are back in the news and not in a way many could have imagined.

Gray Hat

Assange is a lightning rod for controversy. Can you truly be controversial and popular?  Assange has never achieved popularity, but he has reached world-wide fame. I’d wager that even the most news ignorant of the populace have at least heard his name. His closest associates have said he is barely tolerable, and they continue to engage with him only because they believe in the importance of the work. Bringing truth to the world and bringing light to the dark places. Apparently forgetting that Lucifer was the bearer of light before the Fall.

Before The Fall

Julian Assange Was Accused Of Espionage And Theft In His Native Australia

Personal failings aside, Julian Assange was, and likely still is, a brilliant hacker. One of the best. This is after-all, the guy who figured out how to use and decode government data wires while still in his teens. He was however, “ratted out” and was charged with espionage (originally treason) and was tried in 1996 in a Melbourne, Australia.

Intellectual Inquisitiveness

He was convicted of 24 counts of “hacking” for crimes dating back nearly a decade. He received  leniency. The judge speaking to the matter said Assange’s “intellectual inquisitiveness” was extremely dangerous, however he “did not seek personal gain” and that was given weight. Assange was unique. He was a kid who had attended 37 different schools, lived in a cult with his restless mother and faced daily unpredictable circumstances growing up. But by the age of 15 he was sophisticated and expert enough to attack military computers, at a time before most Americans didn’t even have a personal computer.

Dr. Alina Polyakova Believes The Russian Government Is In Fact Using Wikileaks

Dr. Alina Polyakova

Motive

Another thing that was never at question was Julian Assange’s motives. The biography website Biography.com lists him as a “Computer Programmer, Hacker and Activist”. This was not to last long however, his uncompromising drive and near-pathological hatred of government (nearly being charged with treason will do that), shaded that white hat a distinctive shade of gray. Alina Polyakova, Director of the Eurasia Center volunteered this, “In his attempt to bring ‘transparency’, he ends up siding with the very regimes that deny transparency and human rights. That’s the irony of my enemy’s enemy is my friend.”

Continue reading