CAJ_The most famous hacktivists

The most famous group of hacktivists of our times arguably is WikiLeaks, the individuals behind the leak of various documents related to the Afghanistan war and the Iraq war. With Julian Assange being the mastermind of the project, the organization has had its fair share of scandals. In 2010, Assange was persecuted for allegedly sexual offenses against two women in Sweden which he fled only to be taken in custody in London a few months later. A lot of controversy surrounded this arrest, with many people being suspicious about its timing. It just seemed a bit too convenient for US authorities to have him locked up behind the pen at a critical time for the US government. Whether he is guilty or not has not been decided yet to this very moment – it would arguably be a big disappointment for his supporters and a great victory for his critics if he indeed happened to be guilty.

But what is it that makes the hacktivists behind WikiLeaks as well as its founder such controversial figures? Well, first of all, they released the Afghan War Diary, a compilation of over 70000 documents revealing among other things the controversial relations US intelligent services had with the Taliban during the war, even citing increased Taliban attacks. In 2013, they released details about the CEOs of 20 surveillance companies in Europe.

WikiLeaks is comprised of several well-known hacktivists such as Assange’s former buddy Daniel Domscheit-Berg (now they are estranged with Domscheit_Berg having created his own whistleblower organization named OpenLeaks), the vast majority of its hackers, however, remains unknown to the public. But Assange himself might very well be its most colorful figure. Having been raised by a very anti-authoritarian mother, the Australian seemed predestined for later whistleblower activities. The lack of respect for authorities is something a lot of hacktivists seem to have in common anyway.

Even though Assange as well as Edward Snowden are probably the most well-known hacktivists/ whistleblowers in the public’s eye, I’ve always wondered if there weren’t other, much lesser-known hacktivists possessing as explosive material as the former two. They only distinguish themselves from the former two in regard of the fact that they do not get that much coverage by the media. One of them is the hackitivist Jacob Appelbaum who is currently living in Germany due to better privacy conditions. He created the portmanteau hacktivism and also is in favor of TOR, which is the abbreviation of The Onion Router, a network that enables Internet users to remain totally anonymous while surfing and also allows one to dive into the so-called Deep Web. But more on that later.