Providing transparency: Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom Credit:Peter Meecham "If I can provide some transparency with these people," he said referring to Assange, "then I will be happy to do that." Last week a hacker going by the name Guccifer 2.0 released what appears to be the Democratic Party's opposition research on presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump as well as financial reports and donors' personal data. It has since produced more reports purporting to be about the presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's donors. While data theft from US presidential campaigns have happened before, the prospect of hackers - especially ones backed by a foreign nation - dumping US election-related data during the campaign for the global public's consumption is new. Kim's warning suggested evidence of such an attack was available months before the event was revealed.

WikiLeaks' Julian Assange Credit:Getty Images ​Guccifer 2.0 said his hacking effort was underway for almost a year. Based on the nature of the attack, independent researchers in the US concluded the hack was conducted by or for the Russian government. And Assange, who now reportedly holds the rest of the DNC hack information, says more information will soon be released. When contacted about future data releases, WikiLeaks replied only: "We have a very big publishing year ahead." Asked this week via social media if the damning information Assange claims to have on Hillary's campaign comes from "Russian hacks", Kim replied: "No comment."

A Twitter account belonging to Guccifer 2.0 has been contacted for comment. WikiLeaks is gearing up for more data drops. Earlier this month, Assange said his site would be leaking documents that would provide "enough evidence" to indict Hillary Clinton. On June 18, WikiLeaks released a file for followers to download and retain as insurance to back up the organisation's future leaks. Calling it "WikiLeaks Insurance", the file is not viewable without a second encryption key which can be released if "anything happens to WikiLeaks". Although Hillary Clinton is the subject of investigations over her handling of emails, even Assange admitted it was unlikely the US Justice Department would indict her based on whatever information he had. Assange, who has lived at the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012 to avoid a series of extraditions that could see him tried in the US for his role in the Cablegate leak, is seen as being friendly to Russian interests.

In 2013 his father travelled to Syria to meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a Russian ally. Not only does Assange's call for transparency appear to be focused overwhelmingly on Western countries, the hacker-turned-dissident tweets statements that tend to support Russian positions on a variety of issues. Assange also claims ot have helped ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden travel to Russia. New Zealand-based Kim, meanwhile, is in a protracted legal battle with the United States Department of Justice, which accuses him of criminal copyright infringement through his now defunct Megaupload file hosting service. In 2012, police raided his home. Fergus Hanson of the Sydney-based Lowy Institute and author of Internet Wars: The Struggle for Power in the 21st Century, says that although the Guccifer 2.0 attack is "just a short cut way for [Russian-backed hackers] to gather internal knowledge about Trump (hoovering up the pack that Clinton's team has already gathered)" the theft of the data is "not that surprising". "If they use it to somehow help Trump against Clinton say, then that is totally different."

Nonetheless, Hanson doesn't see it as damaging as other major leaks including the Chinese government hack on the US Office of Personnel Management, which will "will have repercussions for decades." The threat of further data dumps on the Clinton campaign comes as Russia has moved away from traditional diplomacy towards a variety of strategies for advancing its international political goals. After the initial DNC hack was revealed, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign said: "What appears evident is that the Russian groups responsible for the DNC hack are intent on attempting to influence the outcome of this election." Former US intelligence officer Fred Hoffman says there are scenarios in which Russians could try to influence the election. "There's a number of very good reasons for the Russians to have hacked both the DNC and the Clinton Foundation computers," he said.