Australian Julian Assange

Australian Julian Assange is the most wanted man in the last hours before the scandal was triggered by the “secret” documents from the US Department of State released by Wikileaks. Assange, 39, was born in Townsville, Australia, studied physics and mathematics and worked as a computer programmer to found Wikileaks in 2006, through which he has released numerous documents from the world powers that have exposed undiplomatic aspects.

Moreover, the Australian faces rape charges in Sweden, which he categorized as an action by Washington to discredit him. Interestingly, Sweden is the physical place where the Wikileaks server is.

Today his whereabouts are unknown. His last calving was in a video aired in Jordan on Sunday, without knowing the place where the images were transmitted from.

Assange’s parents ran a touring theatre company. In 1979, his mother remarried; her new husband was a musician who belonged to a controversial New Age group led by Anne Hamilton-Byrne. 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, frequently switching between formal and home schooling and later attending two universities at various times in Australia. He has been described as being largely self-taught and widely read on science and mathematics. From 2003 to 2006, he studied physics and mathematics at the University of Melbourne but does not claim a degree. On his personal web page, he described having represented his university at the Australian National Physics Competition around 2005. He also studied philosophy and neuroscience.

Hacking and charges
In the late 1980s, he was a member of a hacker group named “International Subversives”, going by the pen-name “Mendax” (derived from a phrase of Horace: “splendide mendax,” or “nobly untruthful”). In response to the hacking, the Australian Federal Police raided his Melbourne home in 1991; he was reported to have accessed computers belonging to an Australian university, the Canadian telecommunications company Nortel, and other organisations, 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.”