Julian Assange

In this course

Assange exemplifies how digital infrastructure and asymmetric information systems can expose state violence while simultaneously becoming targets for counter-surveillance and control. In the course readings, his WikiLeaks project appears in discussions of stylometry and data forensics as a case study in how technological systems designed for transparency paradoxically generate new vulnerabilities—making activists themselves legible to the surveillance apparatus they oppose. The reference suggests that Assange's work is central to understanding the feedback loops between radical information disclosure and the intensification of biometric and linguistic tracking technologies.

Background

Julian Paul Assange is an Australian editor, programmer, and publisher who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. He came to international attention in 2010 after WikiLeaks published a series of leaks from Chelsea Manning, a United States Army intelligence analyst: footage of a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad showing war crimes committed by the U.S. Army, U.S. military logs from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and U.S. diplomatic cables. Assange has won over two dozen awards for publishing and journalism.

Mentioned in 1 reading