Julian Assange

Julian Assange is a journalist and a computer programmer. He was able to leverage both those skills and create the website called WikiLeaks. It became one of the most controversial websites on the internet as well.

Julian Assange was born in the year 1971. Australia was the birthplace of this genius. He was a person blessed with an outstanding IQ. By using the skills, he was able to hack the databases of a large number of high profile organizations scattered around the world. He wanted to make his findings available to public. That’s where he decided to go ahead and create the website WikiLeaks. This website was focusing on collecting and sharing the confidential information of high profile companies and individuals. 

Due to the nature of work carried out by Julian Assange, he was named as the “Person of the Year” by Time Magazine back in the year 2010. When WikiLeaks became popular, Julian Assange had to face a lot of threats. He was also charged with sexual assault allegations. As a result he moved to Sweden. 

WikiLeaks received a lot of attention again in the year 2016. That’s when the website published a large number of emails of Hillary Clinton, who was contesting for the Presidency of United States back in the day. For this, he was punished because he violated the Espionage Act. Along with that, the popularity of WikiLeaks went down. 

Early Life of Julian Assange

As mentioned earlier, Julian Assange was born and raised in Australia. Queensland was his home district. He had to experience quite an unusual childhood. That’s because he spent some of the early years traveling along with the mother and step-father. Mother and step-father of Julian Assange have been working for a theoretical production. They were the first to discover that Julian Assange is a sharp kid when compared to others. 

The relationship between the mother and step-father of Julian Assange eventually broke. That’s where he spent more time along with the mother. They were living a transient lifestyle. In fact, Julian Assange had attended 37 different schools. He was homeschooled frequently as well.

How Julian Assange came up with WikiLeaks 

During the teenage years, Julian Assange developed a strong passion for working along with computers. In fact, he got a computer from his mother while he was aged 16 years. This sparked the interest in him to work along with computers. While spending time with computers, Julian Assange was able to figure out a method to hack into computer system. 

The very first successful hacking attempt was made by Julian Assange back in the year 1991. That’s where he hacked into the computer network of Nortel, which was a prominent telecommunications company that existed in the country. However, this was not 100% successful because he got caught. He didn’t stop his attempts. In fact, Julian Assange has been charged for more than 30 different hacking attempts only within Australia. In all such instances, he was able to get away by paying a fine for the damages caused.

Julian Assange then started working as a computer programmer. He also became a software developer. In the meantime, the intelligent mind of Julian Assange helped him to study mathematics at University of Melbourne. He could not complete the degree and he dropped out. Later he has told that he decided to drop out from the university due to moral reasons. This is where he started working with few other students. They were working for a military project. 

In the year 2006, Julian Assange started working on the WikiLeaks Project. His main objective was to come up with a website, where he can collect confidential information about high class people and share them on the internet. The website was launched in the year 2007. He was running this website from Sweden at that time. That’s because Sweden is a country that highly protected the anonymity of individuals.

In the same year, WikiLeaks published an article related to the United States military manual. That’s where information about the Guantanamo Detention Center were made available for the very first time. In addition to that, some emails from Sarah Palin, who is the Vice-Presidential Candidate were also leaked. 

Influence caused by Julian Assange for the Presidential Race of United States 

Julian Assange is a person who created a strong impact on the previous Presidential Elections that took place in United States. In the month of July, Julian Assange used WikiLeaks to publish around 1,200 emails. These emails have been stored on a private web server of the Presidential Candidate, Hillary Clinton. In addition to that, WikiLeaks also shared many other emails from the Democratic National Committee. People got to know about Hillary Clinton and her initiatives along with this. As a result, Donald Trump got a clear advantage of winning the Presidential Elections. 

Arrest of Julian Assange

In the month of April, 2019, the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange was arrested. By this time, he was spending his time in the London Embassy. Along with that, the United States authorities went ahead and filed charges against him. He was made a convict for breaking into the computer system at the Pentagon illegally. 

On 1stof May, Julian Assange was sentenced to prison for a duration of 50 weeks. Along with that, Julian Assange was charged with the offence of violating the Espionage Act. In fact, he was charged for violating this act for 17 different times. Along with that, criminal charges were made against Julian Assange.

As of now, Julian Assange is spending his time in prison. The lawsuits are still being carried out and decisions of them are pending. Therefore, we are not too sure how many more years Julian Assange will have to remain in the prison. He was one of the most controversial figures to live in this planet due to the nature of work carried out.

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