There's something about becoming famous. If you're in a good, part time band that plays sleazy bars for next to no money, the fans who discover your talent in that bar feel like they're part of your family. They buy you drinks when the set is finished (or even while you're on stage). The following that you build with the local suicide girls contingent probably means that you get laid frequently enough. It's a tough life, but everyone in that life is rooting for better things for you, because they know you're, well, good at what you do.
And then you get that break. Someone who can get you better gigs shows up at the bar one night to check out the buzz around your band. Suddenly, you're playing better houses for actual money. The self-cut CDs start getting play on the local college station. Then the breakthrough song happens. You're a rock star. Those local suicide girls? Who needs one of those barflies when you can slip between the sheets with Lady Gaga?
Has Julian Assange fallen into that trap?
Julian Assange has attained rock star status with Wikileaks. He's got a lot of groupies. Did he let his guard down, and step out of bounds with some of those groupies, as was apparently alleged in quickly withdrawn rape charges filed in Sweden? Or did two of his "suicide girls" simply feel the need to remind him where he started? It's so very easy to make a lot of enemies in the business he's in.
I've never really been part of the 2600 computer underworld. Still, a long time ago, I dabbled on the fringes and even got to know Kevin Poulsen a bit (before he became respectable) and received troubleshooting help with my PGP key ring directly from Phil Zimmerman back in the BBS days. I'm putting this out there just to establish a bit of cred in what follows.
It occurs to me that one of the tenets of operating in the realm of computer hackery is maintaining a low profile and some degree of anonymity. When someone in this shadowy netherworld starts to gain notoriety at the expense of anonymity, the wrong sort of ears and eyes start to pay a lot of attention.
In the case of Assange, he's attracted the most potent mix possible: the various tentacles of the United States intelligence apparatus, and I suspect, the animus of some former associates who are buried far behind the 2600 firewall. As the popularity and branding of Wikileaks gained momentum over the past year or so, is it possible that Assange fell into a personal trap that has bedeviled many athletes and rock stars: did he start paying too much attention to his own press clippings and stardom, and get reckless?
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This morning, I opened up the latest issue of Rolling Stone (which I've actually started reading again since it reinvented its relevancy), and landed on a story titled, "The Most Dangerous Man in Cyberspace". It's the tale of Julian Assange's domestic U.S. partner in Wikileaks, Jacob Appelbaum. (And since the article is currently behind RS's pay firewall, you'll have to rush out and buy a copy of the dead trees publication, but it's worth the price if you're interested in the Wikileaks saga.)
On July 29th, federal agents detained Appelbaum at Newark airport when he returned from a trip to Europe. His cell phones and computer were confiscated, and he was grilled for several hours, reportedly refusing to provide any information to authorities regarding Assange's location or any other details about Wikileaks. Since then, he's gone underground.
The story is a fascinating read about the cyber shadows where Appelbaum and Assange operate. Both men have a lot of skills and contacts inside that bubble, and no doubt, have made a few enemies with their emerging personal high profiles. You know the first rule about fight club, right? You don't talk about fight club.
Julian Assange, and to a lesser extent Jacob Appelbaum, have been talking about the clandestine networks that enable their own fight club. In the process, they've opened themselves up to a lot of potential for retribution, from both the government agencies that we know are pursuing them, to the 2600 world that we don't.
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The issuance of rape charges earlier today by Swedish authorities against Assange certainly got the 'connect the dots' conspiracy theorists riled up, and the CT background noise will grow even louder now, particularly since those charges have since been withdrawn. After all, who among us doesn't like a good conspiracy theory (even if that's not allowed on DKos)? And at this early hour, there are still many more questions than answers about how the charges originated. You can read more about it here and here in the original diaries posted on DKos regarding this event.
Over the past week or so, it's been reported that Wikileaks is about to publish more documents from Afghanistan, and that they have access to over 200,000 Department of State memos and correspondence. At the end of July, a mysterious (and encrypted) file titled "insurance" was posted at the Wikileaks site.
I guess the moral of the story is this:
When you become a rock star, a lot of people want to knock you down a peg or three. That's where a site or show like TMZ gets most of their good dirt. In the case of an anarchistic loose confederation of activists and hackers such as Wikileaks, the line is long, and includes many more people than just professional intelligence agents.
At the end of the day, it may turn out that Assange is taken down more by his own hubris than by any nefarious skullduggery or plots against him. It certainly wouldn't be the first time in recorded history that something similar has happened. The apparently specious original rape charges against him that were quickly withdrawn are a clear warning. Morals-type charges filed against anyone are serious, regardless of how and/or why those charges came about. There is no faster way to destroy someones personal credibility than with a morals charge.
Ask Scott Ritter.