In 2010, a video of the Iraq War circulated on the Internet around the world, which was a massacre of US Army aviation forces in Iraq. The incident occurred in the summer of 2007. Two Apaches in the U.S. Army Air Force "suppressed bandits" in Baghdad. They shot directly at the re

In 2010, a video of Iraq War was circulated on the Internet all over the world. The video content was the massacre of US Army Aviation Forces in Iraq .

This incident occurred in the summer of 2007. Two " Apache " US Army Air Force "suppressed bandits" in Baghdad. They shot directly at the residents on the ground and killed more than a dozen civilians.

These videos were originally highly confidential to US Army and could never be circulated. After the incident, the US government strictly investigated the leak and finally found a website - WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks, this famous website is still relatively unpopular back then, Its founder is the famous Australian hacker Julian Assange .

Assange, this man with sharp eyes and white hair, has become a thorn in the eyes of the United States since 2010.

His website "WikiLeaks" continues to expose a large number of scandals in the entire Western world, including the United States, especially the ugly behavior of the US military in Afghanistan War and the Iraq War, which triggered world public opinion.

Soon, Assange became the number one wanted criminal in the United States at that time, and had a place on the CIA hunting list. It took the United States a full 11 years to drive him out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in the UK.

So, why did the hacker Julian Assange start WikiLeaks? What crazy things have he done? What is Assange's situation now?

1. Computer genius Julian Assange

Julian Assange was born in Townsville, Australia in July 1971. His family was not very harmonious. He had two stepfathers before he was 8 years old, and his childhood was dark.

Because of his mother's remarriage, Assange often transferred schools when he was a child. It is said that he had attended dozens of schools, and almost one school had to transfer schools after only one or two months.

Under such learning conditions, Assange had almost never been exposed to modern systematic education, and even some elementary subjects were taught by his mother.

Because of frequent transfers, Assange has no classmates or friends, which makes him very withdrawn and he prefers to immerse himself in his own world. The only subject he likes is mathematics, and in addition to this, I read some extracurricular books.

html In the late 180s, the world blew up a computer whirlwind. From the United States to Europe and Australia, personal computers and programming languages ​​attracted countless young people.

Assange began to learn programming in 1987. At first, like most children, he wanted to make his own video games. But later he was attracted by a more exciting computer gameplay, that is, hacking technology.

Assange began to hang out on the Internet when he was 17 years old. The Internet in that era was just beginning, and few people knew and came into contact with it.

At that time, Assange used a programming language to create his own website and used a mediator to surf the Internet, attack other people's servers online, and spy on some privacy. Assange, who was adolescent, cracked the website online unscrupulously, which eventually attracted the attention of the police.

In 1991, Assange and two hacking partners attacked some corporate websites in Europe and North America, and even entered the Pentagon network and flipped through the files at the U.S. Naval Operations Center.

This incident aroused the vigilance of the US military, and then the Australian police arrested people "followed the network cable" and arrested him at home.

The police found that the prisoner in front of him was just 20 years old and had such a high talent in programming. He could be said to be a genius, so he published Assange's name on the newspaper, and he immediately became famous in Australia.

In that era, the laws on hackers in various countries were not perfect, and Assange's behavior did not cause any de facto damage. Although the case was investigated for more than three years, the judge finally made Assange pay a fine of several thousand yuan.

This trial is of great significance to Assange. As a lonely person, he has longed to be recognized and paid attention since he was a child. This trial made his hacking career the first time he was paying attention to, and he became more determined to take the path of hacking.

2. I want to show myself and also want to change the world

html In the 190s, the world's Internet industry began to explode. Most countries in the world opened the Internet in the 1990s, and programming experts were very popular all over the world.

Assange was like a fish in water at this time and made a lot of money by programming. However, Assange is an ambitious person. He wants to show his talents and change the world through his own behavior.

He was very dissatisfied with the hypocritical appearance of Western governments, especially the so-called "democratic governments" in the West, and was determined to tear off their disguise.

006, Assange established a special website in Melbourne, Australia - WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks' Wiki "WIKI" is the abbreviation of the English "What I Know Is". This sentence explains Assange's original intention of founding the website, which is to publish what he knows but the general public does not know.

WikiLeaks works similar to "Billboard", the website has only one string of domain names and one email address.

People from any country in the world can send uncensored news or secret files, videos, and photos they have mastered to the email address, and the Assange team will briefly identify and publish them to the public.

These contents often involve unknown inside stories from countries and giant enterprises, so WikiLeaks attracted the attention of security departments in various countries as soon as it was launched.

At the end of 2006, Assange began to publish documents sent from all over the world. From 2006 to 2010, the "melon" exposed by WikiLeaks became larger and larger, making countries around the world very nervous.

At the end of 2006, Wiki decrypted information about the Somalia coup. Assange posted documents that Somalia officials were going to assassinate political enemies and overthrow the government. This exposure made WikiLeaks a hit.

In the next few years, WikiLeaks relied on insiders to absorb information from hackers.

In 2009, they cracked emails from European meteorologists to prove that Europeans exaggerated data on earth's warming, so as to threaten developing countries at the meteorological conference and let them set lower carbon emission standards. The news of

has brought doubts to the Copenhagen Climate Conference, and has also caused China and other countries to jointly oppose Europeans to come up with a "gradient displacement plan."

In 2010, Assange released a video of "the US military man-killing British journalists and civilians in Baghdad in 2007", which triggered media from various countries.

After this incident, the US Department of Defense held a press conference to acknowledge the authenticity of the video, but also defended itself, saying that "this accident cannot represent the Iraq War."

Assange struck while the iron was hot, and from July to October of that year, hundreds of thousands of documents on the Afghan War and Iraq War were published continuously, and the US military's killing of prisoners, abuse of prisoners, indiscriminate killing of innocent people, and raped them.

These messages made the United States fall into the abyss. The Obama administration holds meetings every day to clarify the facts. Hillary called EU and asked them to control this Assange and let him control his mouth.

3. Assange is about to be extradited by , or may have been in prison for 200 years

In Europe, where "free speech", Assange has no reason to be arrested, so the EU let Swedish take action, saying that Assange raped a woman in Sweden and issued a wanted warrant for him. After the incident, Assange hid in the UK and surrendered at the end of 2010.

But after Assange was arrested, he was called "Robin Hood in Hackers" and "conscience in the Internet age". Many hackers spontaneously attacked the websites of major companies and promoted the rescue of Assange on the homepage.

and even some civil groups have organized lawyers to defend Assange.

Finally, the UK opened up to Assange's website and he was released on bail. But the United States does not want to give up on this big fish. In 2012, Assange was again requested by the British procuratorate to extradite him to Sweden for trial.

This time, Assange ran to the Ecuadorian Embassy and stayed here for 7 years.

For these 7 years, Assange has lived in a small room with curtains, but he is still remotely controlling the operation of WikiLeaks.

Although Assange lost his freedom at this stage, he did not give up the opportunity to avenge the United States.

In 2015, WikiLeaks exposed Hillary's " email gate ". At that time, just one month after the election, Democratic candidate Hillary was exposed to use his personal email to handle government affairs and release confidential American documents on the Internet at will.

Assange also exposed the Democratic Party's behavior of smearing Republican in the election, These news made the Democratic Party lose support, Trump finally became the president of the United States.

The Democratic Party and the political forces behind it wished they could eat Assange's meat alive, but Assange hid in the embassy and had food and drink, and also had the identity of an Ecuadorian citizen. He rested at ease.

But in 2017, the situation changed. In the Ecuador election, the newly appointed President Moreno did not like Assange.

Moreno took the slogan of "revitalizing the economy" when he ran for president. But in South America, what should we talk about revitalizing the economy without the help of the United States? so Moreno wanted to please the United States, and one of the conditions for the transaction was to hand over Assange.

More than a year after Moreno came to power, in the spring of 2019, Ecuador deprived Assange of his citizenship and canceled his protection. British police immediately arrested Assange on April 11.

Assange was arrested, and Western countries celebrated each other. Sweden and the United States wanted to extradite him. In the end, the two countries discussed, Sweden gave up the extradition of Assange and gave the thorn to the United States.

At this time, the United States had planned more than a dozen felony crimes, including "espionage", "leaking confidential documents", "endangering American security", etc., and it would be enough to sentence decades.

Once Assange is tried in the United States, he will be sentenced to several life imprisonment for several crimes, and the total sentence of even reaches between 175 and 200 years.

In January 2021, the British court rejected the United States' request to extradite Assange, but on April 20, 2022, the United Kingdom announced that it would allow Assange to be extraditioned to the United States.

As soon as this news came out, protests arose in the UK, and the media said that Assange's extradition represents the trampling of freedom of speech in the UK.

However, the United States has been repeatedly hit by leaks in recent years. Using Assange to kill the chicken to warn the monkey is the best solution, and the United States will not give up Assange easily.

Fortunately, even though Assange was extradited, the "WikiLeaks" website is still operating and continues to expose Western scandals.

The website has a group of mysterious funders who have donated money to Assange's lawyer team. After Assange announced that he would be extradited, these sponsors also shouted that they would never give up on him and would do everything possible to regain Assange's freedom.

Assange is still in a prison in London. As for whether he will really be in prison, it depends on whether the British government will let him go.

As for Assange's fate, even Mexican President Lopez came out to stand: "If Assange died in American prison , we must launch an event, that is, to demand the removal of Statue of Liberty , because its existence is meaningless.”

text/Business Wild

Reference materials:

, "Assange, a hacker with political paranoia", Guan Fei

, "Hacker Robin Hood-Julian Assange", Wu Jingjing