Julian Assange has been running game on the internet as Mendax since its earliest days; he's an OG. From dumpster-diving for modem numbers and security codes straight to accessing NASA's servers and the U.S. Defence Agency's database-- all as a teenager in Australia. He got hold of some pretty heavy military documents that might have claimed that the U.S. knowingly bombed a protected civilian base in Iraq. There are also allegations against Julian that, around the same time, he engineered or participated in the infamous WANK (Worms Against Nuclear Killers), which targeted NASA and other U.S. agencies days before a launch which aimed to bring plutonium into space; not to mention the rumours that he could access NASA's system and move satellites. This part is all speculation really, but it's only the beginning.

As the internet evolved, Julian evolved with it. Going underground for several years, it's likely that Mendax has been behind many of the Anonymous operations (including the pre-2010 IRC groups), and had much to do with the internet's involvement in the Arab Spring. As one of the first people to found an ethical hacking group, The International Subversives, it's not unreasonable to assume that he has been involved in many ethical/hacking groups since. If you think it's too much to imagine that he's really been involved in all of this, you just don't know this guy yet.

Though he never got the chance to act on his early findings in the U.S. Military databases (the intel was time-sensitive and he was arrested shortly after obtaining it), he never lost sight of his goal. He wanted to use hacking to do good, and he saw the best way to do that as obtaining classified military or political information and releasing it to the public with the aim of exposing corruption and illegal activity. As the internet gained popularity, more people got involved.

Assange went on to help found Wikileaks, which does exactly what he always wanted to do. Wikileaks has released some of the most important and incriminating information the world has ever seen. For a detailed timeline of the most significant Wikileaks actions and releases, check out this hub: The Wikileaks Timeline

Now at 43, Assange resides inside the Embassy of Ecuador in London under political asylum, facing extradition to Sweden based on bogus sexual assault allegations, and under investigation in the US for his involvement with Wikileaks. Assange really needs our support, lets not see another Alan Turing, Jonathan James or Aaron Swartz.