Julian Assange - WikiLeaks (5 page)
Read Julian Assange - WikiLeaks Online
Authors: Sophie Radermecker
The first raid took place following the eight-week long tapping of a hacker called Phoenix and his two stooges, Nom and Electron. Their conversations clearly mentioned their exploits and future hacking targets.
The cell was well formed and the investigators were doing very well. The second raid landed the three young members of the International Subversives: Mendax, Prime Suspect and Trax.
Operation Weather
was almost complete, but it would take three years for the authorities to bring the case to court.
For the trial, the computer security team at Nortel in Canada wrote up a report claiming that the hacking caused damages that have to be paid to the tune of 100,000 dollars. The attorney general described Julian Assange as a person who allowed himself unlimited online access and acted like an almighty god in the virtual world. And in a way, that was true because no system could quench his thirst for knowledge.
Facing the attorney general's request asking for a sentence of ten years in prison, Julian was suddenly confounded. He believed that hacking, or having a âlook-see,' was a victimless crime and intended to fight the charges, but the two other members of the group decided to cooperate with the authorities. Julian felt betrayed and couldn't accept Prime Suspect's confession.
When the judge addressed the court at the end of the trial by announcing, “the accused shall now rise,” nobody stood up. Julian decided not to get up, showing great strength of character.
Nevertheless, he pleaded guilty to twenty-five out of the thirty-one charges, as the six others were dropped. During final
sentencing, Judge Leslie Ross said, “It seems clear that the facts are nothing else than an extreme and intelligent inquisitiveness and the pleasure of being able to surf through these various computers.”
Assange got off with a fine of some 2,000 dollars.
The virtual world offered Julian a richer and more vibrant life, regardless of the trials faced in the real world.
For him the choice was clear. What could there possibly be in a world where you were accused even though there were no victims? The call to adventure was online, waiting, with its challenges, battles and revolutions.
Julian has never felt guilty about his desire to find out and learn everything the computer world has placed at his disposal. Today he says that this experience contributed to his geopolitical education. He's proud of having been such a young activist. He honed his skills in two worlds that were already clashing. The virtual world reveals the naked truth of how systems, companies and governments work, while in the real world you are persecuted and punished for your desire to learn and ability to know said information.
H
ACKERS' DIALOGUE
Xavier Mattelet rarely used the two straps of his black backpack. He threw it over his shoulder and walked briskly out of his office.
Xavier was an energetic and enthusiastic man. He graduated from engineering school a year ahead of everyone when he was just twenty-three years old. Three years later, he started freelancing as an IT security engineer â he liked his freedom. He had to travel for work sometimes for an audit, but most of the time his work was sedentary. Like every other day that week, around 7 p.m. he walked down Rue des Maraîchers. Lost in his thoughts, he didn't notice that he had run into an old lady with a dog, a mother with her two children and a man in a suit that would turn around in his direction after having looked at him for a moment. Further up, he turned to the right, Rue des Bains. While passing in front of the Center for Contemporary Art, he smiled thinking to himself that he'd never been there. Another right turn then a quick left and he was at number 5 Rue Charles-Humbert. He lived in a nice little old building in the center of Geneva. The tenant on the ground floor lovingly kept flowers on her windowsill. He told himself that people live in the same place, but not necessarily in the same world. Fourth floor, no elevator, nice old-fashioned wooden door. He unlocked the door and walked in.
The first thing he always did was to turn on the computer, even before turning on the lights or taking off his jacket and his shoes. He opened his IRCII client and logged onto his personal channel. He then went to the kitchen, put two pods in the Senseo coffee machine and presses the âstart' button.
Back in front of his screen, Neo212 was already online in the chat room, as always.
Neo212
: Hey Clue, what's new with you, engineer boy?
Clue
: I just finished a thing for the European Parliament. What's new in your world?
Neo212
: I had fun with MS Research's structure deformation model. I can deform my face into all kinds of stuff;)
Clue
: Fun!
Neo212
: The info is on the forum.
Xavier turned up the heat by two degrees. He got up to fetch his coffee mug in the kitchen even though the water hadn't finished dripping yet. A few drops fell into the receptacle. He walked silently through his apartment and put the mug on his desk.
Neo212
: I made it into a FB
3
application. I got 400,000 players in one day. And I got more than 90% of âlike'. Who's the king?
Fkb00
: Hey king, I'm staring at passports of all the guys at the university and the most common passwords are âpassword' and âhome'. Talk about lame.
Neo212
: That's why Jazz wrote this little script to be able to figure out the level of difficulty and crack passwords. You can find it on all kinds of sites.
Fkb00
: I think we'll have to install it at the university because that was just too easy.
Clue
: The first meeting of the hacker party is being held next week. You're all ready to log out for that?
Neo212
: ????
Fkb00
: Tell me more.
Clue
: We can change things with what we know how to do.
Fkb00
: Change what?
Clue
: Improve democracy, develop the sharing of info, improve open source. Go beyond the fun attitude.
Fkb00
: Hm, it's all been done, right? WWIII has already started, it could even be over. Did anybody notice?
Neo212
: I'm in the matrix, I know that I can do what I want ;)
Xavier smiled.
Clue
: Give it some meaning. We can develop the applications that tomorrow's democracy will use. It's up to us to define which system we want.
Clue
: They're going to impose tons of laws on us to try and diminish a movement they don't understand.
Neo212
: I don't care about laws, I just want to define the future. I think it's funny that these dinosaurs around the world don't get it.
Fkb00
: You're not alone.
Neo212
: Well, yeah, that's the point. Proud to be a n3rd
4
!
Do you know any girls for a guy like me?
Fkb00
: If I had one I'd keep her to myself! But let's not talk about that now in front of Clue.
Neo212
: I'm not fan of groups.
Clue
: It's not about that, it's about defining new democratic codes together before others do it for usâ¦
Clue
: ⦠in a way that we don't like.
Clue
: WikiLeaks is starting to shake things up. There's going be a clampdown of the old world.
Fkb00
: So it's like Generation Y, time to get up? Pass. But the battle will be fought online, right?
Neo212
: Democracy is at the fringe of technology, it's so cool to experience this online.
Clue
: Did you see what they did for the expenses of the English MPs? They're going to think twice now before spending taxpayers' money.
Neo212
: Missed that, do tell...
Clue
: Some hackers cracked open the data and sent a copy of the expense accounts of 646 English MPs to the
Daily Telegraph
that broke the story. It was more than a year ago. Abuses and excessive reimbursements, more often than not committing fraud, but they also realized that the system itself allowed for incongruities. They've now come up with new laws to adjust the system.
Fkb00
: They should do that to every political system.
Clue
: If we all get involved, it'll happen. A WikiLeaks for every country.
Fkb00
: The moment we know that people have personal interests, we'll know which way these people are going to tip the scales. It's strange to be analyzing our own human truth. Does truth set people free?
Clue
: Truth frees from manipulation and deceitful constraints, so everybody can choose their own path.
Neo212
: To choose the path of passion, we'd have to blow up a serious number of systems, including the university's system with the bits of paper called diplomas.
Clue
: To do all that we need liberators, minors of truth who destroy every corrupt institution.
Neo212
: And exposing them would be enough to destroy them. If we have to break into secure systems, I'm the guy for the job.
Then the phone rang. It was about 8 p.m. and all was calm in November 2010. Xavier glanced at the caller ID number. He sighed. The ghosts of the past had come back to haunt him for a brief moment. The breath of a lost love.
He grabbed his mug and gulped his cold coffee, taking him straight back to crystal clear reality. If you let a good coffee get cold, it got even more bitter and difficult to swallow. So he didn't want to give up, now was the time to play it out. He moved a bit more toward his keyboard.
5
Clue
: All the systems of governance are authoritarian. They use secret to turn their actions to their advantage without citizens knowing the scope of these actions.
Fkb00
: Would you go as far as saying it's a conspiracy?
Clue
: You said it first!
Neo212
: We can make models of power structures to discover their flaws.
Clue
: To neutralize any conspiratorial system, the first thing to do is to organize massive leaks.
Neo212
: Ah, the joys of leaks!
Fkb00
: A strategy of disorganization, not bad!
Clue
: If the leaks are massive, the environment of the systems will change by exposing their functional mode.
Fkb00
: In other words, as soon as people are aware of abuse, they'll rebel.
Clue
: At least they'll put pressure in one way or another. The abusive systems of governance will then have to face increasingly more constraints that will force them to either reform or fall.
Neo212
: It sounds easy, but the different power structures are affected differently by leaks.
Clue
: It's mostly about exposing their real motivations, and everyone can take up a position relative to that.
Fkb00
: I dare say that injustice remains unanswered unless it is revealed. For people to act intelligently they have to know the truth about what's going on.
Neo212
: The verb conspire comes from the Latin
con
, together, and
spirare
, to breathe.
Clue
: There ya go, that's it!
Neo212
: And what do we do now, breathe together, right?
Fkb00
: 1d107
6
! Conspiracy feeds on holding back info!
Clue
: 570p
7
, you guys, stick with me.
Clue
: To radically change the behavior of a regime, we have to think clearly and courageously because if we've learned anything, it's that regimes don't want to be changed. We have to think beyond those who came before us.
Neo212
: New technology and what we're able to do with it gives us means of action that our predecessors didn't have. Don't forget,
I'm the king
. I can do something...
Fkb00
: b19 390
8
! Then what key structure leads to bad governance? And I answer secret, manipulation and the feeling of power.
Clue
: We need to develop a way of thinking about this structure that is strong enough to carry us through the mire of competing political moralities and into a position of clarity.
Neo212
: I'm not for parties and I don't like morality. You understand what I do virtually!
Fkb00
: That whole left-right political thing is over. The entire world understands something is rotten in almost all systems. The entire political elite conspires, but not always for the same reasons. Some want more power, others financial favors or something else... Do we have to rate these reasons?
Neo212
: In any case conspiracy is the primary planning methodology to maintain or strengthen authoritarian power. I'm fleeing this rotten world to go and play with distorting my face and those of my friends.
Clue
: What's shocking is that the authoritarian power opposes people's will to truth, love and self-realization. In the end, people don't even fight against injustice, but accept it, as they no longer believe in their power to act or the weight of their voice.
Neo212
: And Neo saw the source in front of him eliminating everything, so he moved forward to merge with it!