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You're a fountain of information Russ! :thumbsu:

Could you send me a pdf copy? My email address is .....:eek:...I'll pm you.
 
I've been perusing my copy of Underground. Assange wrote an interesting bit on his alias Mendax in the final Chapter - Afterword - about what happened to the hackers whose stories were told in the book. For Assange it's post his 1991 activities. You can see that his need for leaks started in the early 1990's.

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In 1992 Mendax and Trax teamed up with a wealthy Italian real-estate
investor, purchased La Trobe University’s mainframe computer
(ironically, a machine they had been accused of hacking) and started a
computer security company. The company eventually dissolved when the
investor disappeared following actions by his creditors.

After a public confrontation in 1993 with Victorian Premier Jeff
Kennett, Mendax and two others formed a civil rights organisation to
fight corruption and lack of accountability in a Victorian government
department. As part of this ongoing effort, Mendax acted as a conduit
for leaked documents and became involved in a number of court cases
against the department during 1993-94. Eventually, he gave evidence in
camera to a state parliamentary committee examining the issues, and
his organisation later facilitated the appearance of more than 40
witnesses at an investigation by the Auditor-General.

Mendax volunteers his time and computer expertise for several other
non-profit community organisations. He believes strongly in the
importance of the non-profit sector, and spends much of his free time
as an activist on different community projects. Mendax has provided
information or assistance to law-enforcement bodies, but not against
hackers. He said, ‘I couldn’t ethically justify that. But as for
others, such as people who prey on children or corporate spies, I am
not concerned about using my skills there.’

Still passionate about coding, Mendax donates his time to various
international programming efforts and releases some of his programs
for free on the Internet. His philosophy is that most of the lasting
social advances in the history of man have been a direct result of new
technology.

NorTel and a number of other organisations he was accused of hacking
use his cryptography software--a fact he finds rather ironic.
Click to expand...


And it was Assange who pushed to put the book on the net for free - consistent with his current beliefs.

___________________________________________________________________

PREFACE TO THE ELECTRONIC EDITION
___________________________________________________________________
Why would an author give away an unlimited number of copies of her book
for free?

That’s a good question. When ‘Underground’’s researcher, Julian
Assange, first suggested releasing an electronic version of the book on
the Net for free, I had to stop and think about just that question.

I’d spent nearly three years researching, writing and editing the nearly
500 pages of ‘Underground’. Julian had worked thousands of
hours doing painstaking research; discovering and cultivating sources,
digging with great resourcefulness into obscure databases and legal
papers, not to mention providing valuable editorial advice.

So why would I give away this carefully ripened fruit for free?

Because part of the joy of creating a piece of art is in knowing that
many people can - and are - enjoying it. Particularly people who can’t
otherwise afford to pay $11 USD for a book. People such as cash strapped
hackers. This book is about them, their lives and obsessions. It rubs
clear a small circle in the frosted glass so the reader can peer into
that hazy world. ‘Underground’ belongs on the Net, in their ephemeral
landscape.

.....

By releasing this book for free on the Net, I’m hoping more people
will not only enjoy the story of how the international computer
underground rose to power, but also make the journey into the minds
of hackers involved. When I first began sketching out the book’s
structure, I decided to go with depth. I wanted the reader to
think, ’NOW I understand, because I too was there.’ I hope those
words will enter your thoughts as you read this electronic book.
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Here is a link to Underground's online version.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~suelette/underground/justin/contents.html

And here is the download page. There are several formats but not pdf.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~suelette/underground/justin/index.html


And here is a link to an SMH article about Assange and the Underground book and Mendax. The books author Sue Dreyfus refused to name Assange as Mendax or reveal any of the hackers in the books true identities. But the court case of Assange and Mendax are the same. There are some quotes from the book about Mendax.

The article is from April this year when Wikileaks released footage of an American helicopter gunship killing Iraqi citizens and two Reuters journalists on a Baghdad street in July 2007.

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/international-man-of-mystery-20100409-ryvf.html
 

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LOL I paid a few bucks for a second hand copy of that Underground *years* ago, has been gathering dust on the dark side of my bookshelf. Must drag the thing out again. Cheers REH !
 
If you want to get inside Assange's head a little more then this long (about 45 screens) New Yorker magazine article on him in June is worth a read.


A Reporter at Large
No Secrets
Julian Assange’s mission for total transparency.
by Raffi Khatchadourian
June 7, 2010


If you look at his family background as a kid, his mother on the run from a viloent 2nd husband - Assange's step father and whose name he took - Assange had lived in 37 different places by the time he was 14. He accuses his step father of "there was evidence that the man belonged to a powerful cult called the Family—its motto was “Unseen, Unknown, and Unheard.” Some members were doctors who persuaded mothers to give up their newborn children to the cult’s leader, Anne Hamilton-Byrne."

Assange’s mother believed that formal education would inculcate an unhealthy respect for authority in her children and dampen their will to learn. “I didn’t want their spirits broken,” she said.

It discusses his time hacking as Mendax.

The post hacking period whereby he had a long custody battle for his son and him setting up an activist group Parent Inquiry Into Child Protection with his mother who was a hippie. "They distributed flyers to child-protection workers, encouraging them to come forward with inside information, for a “central databank” that they were creating. “You may remain anonymous if you wish,” one flyer stated. One protection worker leaked to the group an important internal manual. Assange told me, “We had moles who were inside dissidents.”

For the tech heads out there it talks a bit about the WikiLeaks servers and systems. "These machines are maintained by exceptionally secretive engineers, the high priesthood of WikiLeaks."
 
In post 24 and 29 I said that the link to underground .com says the book costs $99 and I gave links to the online version respectively.

The Underground wiki page says

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underg...ness_and_Obsession_on_the_Electronic_Frontier

The original download site www.underground-book.com was taken over in 2008 and now offers a link to Amazon where copies of the book may still be available. The site www.underground-book.net has the book freely available in electronic form.
Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underg...ness_and_Obsession_on_the_Electronic_Frontier

As a couple of people have requested a pdf copy of the book, and I have sent it to them, if anyone else wants it then you can find it at;

http://www.underground-book.net/

and click on the "Download complete book" link
 
Well the end might be nigh for Assange.

I wouldn't trust the Swedish legal system. And my late brother inlaw was a Swedish district court judge and worked as a chief clerk at the Swedish Supreme court. :eek:
 
did they seriously threaten to storm the embassy and take him?

that shows you how serious they are, and that he isnt paranoid about the swedes shipping him off to the us.

i have to laugh, i dont know the guy so i cant pass judgement on his character, his motives what he has done or whether he is a good person or not.

what i do know is that he has exposed some heinous crimes by people hiding behind the old " in the interests of freedom/ for the safety of freedom/ democracy" bullshit.

im still yet to see anyone held to account for any of those things but the guy that exposed them is in danger of " disappearing", and believe me if the us get their hands on him he will disappear.

i will say this,

he could be the biggest arseh*le in the world, he could punch little children in the face for fun. none of that lessens the truth of what he revealed. ie, an american gunship gunning down journos and children and lying about it.

so when the people who have something to lose point the finger at him and claim such intangibles as " he is endangering the lives of people" etc i believe them about as much as i believe in flying pigs.

frak i still get so angry whenever i think about this.
 
Saw an ad tonight on Channel 10 promoting their Julian Assange telemovie. I saw they use the name Mendax his hacking name in the Underground book I have discussed above.

Channel 10 have called the telemovie Underground - The Julian Assange Story. You can watch some teaser videos at

http://ten.com.au/underground.htm

A couple of stories

http://www.news.com.au/entertainmen...ssange-telemovie/story-e6frfmyi-1226465850214

IT'S the Australian telemovie even the CIA will probably watch - now here's your first look at Ten's hotly-anticipated Underground - The Julian Assange Story.

With the real founder of WikiLeaks cooling his heels in the Ecuador embassy in London, his early years will play out on the small screen soon after it is expected to make its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival this month.

From the producers of Balibo and The Slap, the Channel 10 commission tracks an adolescent Assange who first comes to international notice as a teenage hacker living at home with his mother in suburban Melbourne.

http://www.news.com.au/entertainmen...ssange-telemovie/story-e6frfmyi-1226465850214

and

Can Julian Assange save Channel 10?

JULIAN ASSANGE should be Channel 10's white knight.

Starring Rachel Griffiths and Anthony LaPaglia and produced by the team behind The Slap, the timely, star-studded telemovie Underground: The Julian Assange Story certainly deserves to be the ratings-winner that Ten sorely needs after a series of duds.

Underground focuses on Assange's formative days as a teen computer hacker in the late 1980s in suburban Melbourne - long before he became internationally famous as the founder of Wikileaks.

The 90 minute telemovie portrays Assange - played brilliantly by newcomer Alex Williams- as a flawed hero, railing against the establishment.

"We do not steal or damage anything - we only want to reveal the truth," Assange tells Detective Ken Roberts (LaPaglia) to explain his reasons for hacking into computer databases.

Like Underbelly, Howzat and PaperGiants: The Birth of Cleo, Underground sheds light on an intriguing chapter of Australian history.

It takes place in an era when computer crime was still unexplored territory for the Federal Police, who were mystified how a teenager - operating under the hacker profile Mendax - could possibly infiltrate international banks, telecommunications companies, US Military secrets and even the police computer system itself - from a squatter's house in Thornbury using only a Commodore 64 and a suburban phone line.

Ultimately it is Assange's past as peaceful protester and his love of Aussie rock band Midnight Oil - rather than any sort of technical slip-up - that leads police to track him down.

What makes Underground fascinating viewing is that helps explain why Assange later starts Wikileaks.
Though most of us are familiar with Assange's current legal woes, his first brush with the law, his relationship with his mother, Christine (Griffiths) and his experiences as a young father are a revelation into what motivates the man today.

Can Julian Assange save Channel 10?
 

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If channel 10 think the public love this guy and want to watch a telemovie about him then I'll be suprised if it does really well because most people I know think he's a hypocritical dick.
 
StrappingTape said:
If channel 10 think the public love this guy and want to watch a telemovie about him then I'll be suprised if it does really well because most people I know think he's a hypocritical dick.
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You don't have to be loved to attract an audience. People thought Kerry Packer was an arseh*le and a ****, but they still flocked in big TV audience numbers to watch Paper Giants and Howzat.
 
footyhead07 said:
He likes the sound of his own voice a bit too much.

Attention whore type with mummy issues.
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There are definite mummy issues there. Rachel Griffiths playing mum was probably a commercial decisions. She would help with the international sales as would Anthony La PaPaglia playing the AFP cop who first discovers the hacking group activities run by Electron and Phoneix (see my page 1 posts for details) and which Mendax ( Assange) joins and then goes off and does his own hacking.
 
most people you know probably dont know the first thing about him and are spouting completely uneducated nonsense.

im not even sure how he can be labelled a hypocrite?

show me what he has done that goes against what he has said??

look mate you can disagree with what he has done, but at least do it on factual terms.
 

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philthy05 said:
most people you know probably dont know the first thing about him and are spouting completely uneducated nonsense.

im not even sure how he can be labelled a hypocrite?

show me what he has done that goes against what he has said??

look mate you can disagree with what he has done, but at least do it on factual terms.
Click to expand...

Well seeing he is fighting in the courts to surpress things he believes are personally private to him but then releases private stuff he's been given regardless of what the courts say. How is that not hypocritical? He doesn't even stand up to his own bullshit about transparency, he only wants to be when it suits him.
 
has he had any information suppressed in court?? where do you get that from?

there is a difference between denying charges brought against you and believing the government shouldnt hide its indiscretions from the voting public. they are 2 different things.
 
12 years on Ch 10 are repeating Underground: The Julian Assange Story, with his release and return to Oz.

Ive been reading this thread and watching the show and a few minutes agoo, it had a scene where Assange had just made online contact with the AFP cop who headed up the investigation for the first time. They had a brief online back and forth as an his AFP colleague kept saying, keep him talking so they could trace him.

The cop Ken Roberts asks him in his 3rd or 4th question, Why are you doing this?

He responds with - I'm going to reveal the truth.

Then he sends his last message Goodbye Ken.

Ken's colleague then shouts out weve got the address and yells it out as a few cops run out of the office. Ken swears out something and says thats my bloody home address.

This is late 1990 early 1991. Around the time of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and their hacks into US defence forces produce evidence of US preparing for Gulf War 1.

In 1990 the foundation of what Wiki Leaks would become, had already been established.
 
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philthy05 said:
most people you know probably dont know the first thing about him and are spouting completely uneducated nonsense.

im not even sure how he can be labelled a hypocrite?

show me what he has done that goes against what he has said??

look mate you can disagree with what he has done, but at least do it on factual terms.
Click to expand...

Does that extend to the media? I watched SEVEN's drawn out coverage of Assange's arrival in Australia and he was constantly referred to as a journalist. Julian Assagne has never studied journalism nor has he been employed by a mainstream media outlet to write or broadcast opinion or fact. Assange studied physics and programming at University without completing a degree.

Prior to Wikileaks he was engaged as a computer hacker and has a shady past in that regard. In 1994 Assange was charged with 31 counts of hacking including hacking of Telecom Australia. 1996 Assange pleaded guilty to a further 24 counts of hacking but struck a plea bargain and avoided jail.

Do I think Assange was victimized by the US Goverment? Yes, he probably was and he suffered as a result. Assange is no hero though and has a dubious history including being suspected of hacking NASA.

There is a lot more to Julian Assange than Wikileaks.
 
raptalia said:
Does that extend to the media? I watched SEVEN's drawn out coverage of Assange's arrival in Australia and he was constantly referred to as a journalist. Julian Assagne has never studied journalism nor has he been employed by a mainstream media outlet to write or broadcast opinion or fact. Assange studied physics and programming at University without completing a degree.

Prior to Wikileaks he was engaged as a computer hacker and has a shady past in that regard. In 1994 Assange was charged with 31 counts of hacking including hacking of Telecom Australia. 1996 Assange pleaded guilty to a further 24 counts of hacking but struck a plea bargain and avoided jail.

Do I think Assange was victimized by the US Goverment? Yes, he probably was and he suffered as a result. Assange is no hero though and has a dubious history including being suspected of hacking NASA.

There is a lot more to Julian Assange than Wikileaks.
Click to expand...

Cool. Not sure what that’s got to do with my 12yr old post which had nothing to do with proclaiming Assange was a journo or that he’s of good personal character?





Tho while we’re on the subject I’m not sure we want to classify a journalist based on the metrics you provided. What passes as journalism today? Is someone with a degree and a paid role at a mega-corporation more deserving cause they retweet Kendrick Lamar cause it drives traffic to the site so they can sell more ads to McDonald’s? Eh.
 
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