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Chapter 1: What was Julian Assange's early life like?
Before we begin today's episode, we would like to start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we're recording, the Gadigal people, and pay our respects to elders past and present. Hi, I'm Hannah. And I'm Sarah. Welcome to Big Talk.
Big talk deep dives into the big news stories that you've heard of but you don't know the serious and salacious details about.
We revisit the most shocking headlines of the past that have shaped the world we know today. And in these next two episodes, we're looking at Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.
So this is a new setup for us. This is exciting. Guys, we might sound like a little jilted this time, but that's because we are trialing something new. We're trying to see how this looks and sounds in more of a video format because it's my dream to be a YouTube channel presenter and this feels like the closest way to it.
I don't even think there was any need for this except Sarah was like, you know what would be cool? If we were news presenters.
If we were news presenters. And we put all of our research on a little teleprompter so that we're looking at the cameras and we see how it goes. And we changed the screens so that it looks like we're in a library. Can you tell?
I... Please enjoy. But also it's nice to look up from the laptop and have more of like a sort of steady kind of flow, I think, too. I mean, when I want to add my jokes in, it's going to be a little tougher now, but I'll find my ways.
Yeah. So we have a little clicker now. You'll see us be like, hold on, click, stop. That's what we're doing. Yeah. So that we can giggle and then we'll go back to it. Anyway, this is the new format.
Stop using the clicker like those Disney Channel ones in the corner. And you're watching Disney Channel. This is giving me so much power. Oh, I can tell. You two are like, uh-uh, stop.
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Chapter 2: How did Julian Assange transition from hacking to founding WikiLeaks?
I just love the Subway cookies. Anyway, back to the particular computer attitude. Most of the time, the group weren't doing any damage. They were hacking just for the sake of hacking crazy goals if you weren't doing any damage. The international subversives followed the hacker code of conduct. It's a guideline to ethical hacking. That
It recommended to its followers that if you want to take information from an organisation, make sure you do it without harming the company's systems in the process. So no bugs or malware, no changing passwords, no deleting stuff. The core tenet was that knowledge can't be stolen. It deserves to be free, but also do no harm.
Julian's adherence to this hacker code of conduct didn't last long though. As he approached adulthood, do no harm wasn't really the vibe anymore. And so, at the age of 18, Julian joined a new hacking group.
And in true teenage boy form, this new group was called WANK in capital letters. WANK. W-A-N-K. WANK stood for Worms Against Nuclear Killers.
They were really trying to find that acronym. They were really trying to find that acrostic poem.
I love them. And don't worry, I will explain the worm bit in a second, but Wank called themselves a hacktivist attack group, and their main focus was NASA. So at the time, NASA was launching a plutonium-powered spacecraft called Galileo, which was being sent nearly 800 million kilometers away to study Jupiter. However... Three years prior, there was a Challenger disaster.
This was back in the late 80s. And so there may be some Gen Zers listening who haven't heard of this before, but we'll do a quick recap for you guys. Please don't say that like we're not fucking Gen Zers ourselves.
In case you're like little Gen Zers.
I'm an elder Gen Zer.
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Chapter 3: How did the public respond to the WikiLeaks revelations?
So returning to his international subversives group, Assange's hacking efforts continued over the next six years. But this time he was back to following the hacker code of conduct. But unfortunately for Julian, perhaps emboldened by the success of Wank, this time the AFP were able to catch up with him. And even hacking when you don't hurt a company system is still illegal apparently.
It's crazy, yeah.
So his downfall was a Canadian telecom company and the Australian National University. So at the age of 25, Assange pled guilty to 24 charges related to hacking, and he was ordered to pay fines with no jail time. But his run with the law truly stifled his boundary-pushing habits for the next 10 years.
Shifting away from his illegal hacking ways, Assange put his skills to use in a legal capacity, working as a technology security consultant and developing open source software on the side.
Crazy hobby, crazy side hustle.
And here he began to find a special interest in cryptography. Cryptography is basically turning information into unreadable code that you can only unlock with the correct decryption key. It's something we're probably all a bit familiar with nowadays, the concept of firewalls and encrypted devices. But way back in the early 2000s, this was hot shit.
God, talk to me about decrypting. Talk dirty to me. It is. Yeah. Remember when it was like you used to buy those like Norton virus protective things in like a DVD case or something? You have to spend like 35 bucks. I actually did forget about that.
Yes. It's crazy. Wow, we've come so far. Harvey Norman went off at that stage.
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Chapter 4: What were the significant leaks that established WikiLeaks' reputation?
Whilst his more illegal habits may have been simmered down, his anti-authoritarian beliefs only cemented in the background. And now, in his mid-30s, Julian's beliefs about how governments should and shouldn't act began to coalesce into something larger, something that would eventually lead to WikiLeaks.
So at the age of 35 now, Julian wrote three essays, publishing his beliefs on the ways he believed government should function. He titled these, the first one, The Non-Linear Effects of Leaks on Unjust Systems of Governance. Second one, State and Terrorist Conspiracies. And third, And Conspiracy as Governance.
Chapter 5: What ethical dilemmas arose from WikiLeaks' publications?
I want to take a moment to pause here and both explain and interrogate Julian Assange's beliefs put forward in these papers, because a lot of this becomes relevant when we get into the formation and the goals of WikiLeaks. So let's break this down. Basically, Assange believes that governments use secrecy to maintain power over the public.
However, Assange also believes that government should not be run in secrecy. He equates governmental secrecy with authoritarianism and dictatorships. So he believes practically all information governments attain should be public information. He believes this would be equal distribution to power to the public. Also, he doesn't just feel this about governments.
He also feels this about the way large corporations work in similar ways to governments, corporations that hold a lot of power.
Obviously, governments and corporations aren't run this way. And whilst you can campaign as much as you want to change how these things work, it obviously takes a long time. But what's a quicker route to passing power to the public? Well, by leaking information from these organisations. Hack into their systems, find out what they're keeping secret and get it published.
And why is it so effective?
It's two reasons. One, it redistributes the power of knowledge to the people, especially when this knowledge is proof that these organisations are working in unjust ways. And the second, organisations are forced to be more cautious and less able to communicate within themselves or to other organisations in case more leaks happen.
This then causes communication to be inefficient, hurting the abilities and functions of the unjust organisation. This is the start of an ideological move for Assange, away from the mindset of an individual hacker and to that of a global transparency activist. Someone who is actively trying to incite change in the ways that governments function, not just someone with a single agenda like wank.
So let's just take a second to recap where we're at. Julian has a breadth of technological skills. He's got a strong set of beliefs around transparency of information, and he wants to help take down unjust governmental organizations by collating and publishing secret information. But he's aware of the repercussions of his actions. Whistleblower protections are incredibly weak in the early 2000s.
So if he wants to make his change, he needs a way to protect himself and his sources. Enter WikiLeaks.
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