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Profile: Wikileaks founder Julian Assange
7 December 2010 Last updated at 06:56 ET
BBC World News
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To his fans, Julian Assange is a valiant campaigner for truth. To his critics, though, he is a publicity-seeker who has endangered lives by putting a mass of sensitive information into the public domain.
Mr Assange is described by those who have worked with him as intense, driven and highly intelligent - with an exceptional ability to crack computer codes.
He is often on the move, running Wikileaks from temporary, shifting locations.
He can go long stretches without eating, and focus on work with very little sleep, according to Raffi Khatchadourian, a reporter for the New Yorker magazine who spent several weeks travelling with him.
"He creates this atmosphere around him where the people who are close to him want to care for him to help keep him going.
"I would say that probably has something to do with his charisma," Ms Khatchadourian said.
Julian Assange has been reluctant to talk about his background, but media interest since the emergence of Wikileaks has given some insight into his influences.
He was born in Townsville, Queensland, northern Australia, in 1971, and led a nomadic childhood while his parents ran a touring theatre.
He had a child at 18, and custody battles soon followed.
Caught hacking
The development of the internet gave him a chance to use his early promise at maths, though this, too, led to difficulties.
In 1995 he was accused with a friend of dozens of hacking activities.
Though the group of hackers was skilled enough to track detectives tracking them, Mr Assange was eventually caught and pleaded guilty.
He was fined several thousand Australian dollars - only escaping prison on the condition that he did not reoffend.
He then spent three years working with an academic, Suelette Dreyfus, who was researching the emerging, subversive side of the internet, writing a book with her, Underground, that became a bestseller in the computing fraternity.
Ms Dreyfus described Mr Assange as a "very skilled researcher" who was "quite interested in the concept of ethics, concepts of justice, what governments should and shouldn't do".
This was followed by a course in physics and maths at Melbourne University, where he became a prominent member of a mathematics society, inventing an elaborate maths puzzle that contemporaries said he excelled at.
'Encrypt everything'
He began Wikileaks in 2006 with a group of like-minded people from across the web, creating a web-based "dead-letterbox" for would-be leakers.
"[To] keep our sources safe, we have had to spread assets, encrypt everything, and move telecommunications and people around the world to activate protective laws in different national jurisdictions," Mr Assange told the BBC earlier this year.
"We've become good at it, and never lost a case, or a source, but we can't expect everyone to go through the extraordinary efforts that we do."
Daniel Schmitt, a co-founder, describes Mr Assange as "one of the few people who really care about positive reform in this world to a level where you're willing to do something radical to risk making a mistake, just for the sake of working on something they believe in".
Wikileaks has published material from a number of different countries, but really hit the headlines in April, when it released video taken from a US helicopter in Iraq in 2007. The images, carried by media outlets around the world, caused widespread shock.
Mr Assange emerged into the spotlight to promote and defend the video, as well as the massive releases of classified US military documents on the Afghan and Iraq wars, in July and October.
But reporters say he can still prove elusive, and that the workings of his website remain shrouded in secrecy.
In another twist in a controversial career, he is the subject of an international arrest warrant issued by Swedish prosecutors over allegations of rape and molestation.
The claims surfaced after he visited Sweden in August and relate to separate sexual encounters with two women, which his lawyer says were entirely consensual.
Mr Assange says the allegations are part of a smear campaign against him and his whistle-blowing website.
An initial investigation in August was dropped after only a day, but in September Sweden's Director of Prosecution reopened the case.
On 24 November, a Swedish court rejected his appeal against a detention order. The case is currently being considered by the Supreme Court.
Following the Wikileaks release of thousands of classified US diplomatic cables, the deputy foreign minister of Ecuador - a strong opponent of US policy - said it would offer Mr Assange residency "without any conditions".
However, Ecuador's President Rafael Correa later said the offer had "not been approved by Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino - or the president".
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Wikileaks founder Julian Assange refused bail
7 December 2010 Last updated at 10:14 ET
BBC World News
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The founder of the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks, Julian Assange, has told a court he will fight extradition to Sweden.
Bail was refused and the Australian, who denies sexually assaulted two women in Sweden, was remanded in custody pending a full hearing next week.
Mr Assange told a judge at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court he would contest extradition.
A Wikileaks spokesman said Mr Assange's arrest was an attack on media freedom.
Kristinn Hrafnsson said it would not stop release of more secret files and told Reuters on Tuesday: "Wikileaks is operational. We are continuing on the same track as laid out before.
"Any development with regards to Julian Assange will not change the plans we have with regards to the releases today and in the coming days."
Secret locations
He said Wikileaks was being operated by a group in London and other secret locations.
Five people, including journalist John Pilger and socialite Jemima Khan, stood up in court offering to put up sureties but bail was refused and he was remanded in custody until 14 December.
Scotland Yard said Mr Assange was arrested by appointment at a London police station at 0930 GMT.
Mr Assange is accused by the Swedish authorities of one count of rape, one of unlawful coercion and two counts of sexual molestation, alleged to have been committed in August 2010.
The allegations involve two women, Miss A and Miss W.
If the district judge rules the arrest warrant is legally correct, he could be extradited to Sweden.
But the process could take months, especially now that he has indicated he is objecting to extradition.
Police contacted his lawyer, Mark Stephens, on Monday night after receiving a European arrest warrant from the Swedish authorities.
An earlier warrant, issued last month, had not been filled in correctly.
Mr Stephens said his client was keen to learn more about the allegations and anxious to clear his name.
He said: "It's about time we got to the end of the day and we got some truth, justice and rule of law.
"Julian Assange has been the one in hot pursuit to vindicate himself to clear his good name."
Mr Stephens said Mr Assange had been trying to meet the Swedish prosecutor to find out the details about the allegations he faces.
Mr Assange has come in for criticism in the last week for the revelations made on Wikileaks.
On Monday Foreign Secretary William Hague criticised the website for publishing details of sensitive sites, including some in the UK, saying they could be targeted by terrorists.
Former US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has described Mr Assange as "an anti-American operative with blood on his hands".
Wikileaks was forced to switch to a Swiss host server after several US internet service providers refused to handle it.
It has also come under cyber attack and several companies, including PayPal and Amazon, have refused to supply it.
On Tuesday another company, Visa, also suspended all transactions involving Wikileaks.
Mr Assange appeared before a district judge at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court. City of Westminster deals with most extradition cases but there are huge differences in the time it takes.
Extradition can be extremely swift if the accused waives his legal rights.
But some cases, such as the extradition of computer hacker Gary McKinnon to the United States, have been going on for years because of legal challenges.
A European arrest warrant is designed to speed up the process but there can be delays.
Last week a district judge finally agreed to extradite British businessman Ian Griffin to France 18 months after he was arrested for the murder of his girlfriend in a Paris hotel. Mr Griffin had been claiming he was mentally ill.
Gerard Batten, a Ukip MEP, said the Assange case highlighted the dangers of the European arrest warrant because the judge has no power to listen to the evidence to judge if there is a prime facie case.
He said: "What concerns me is that it could be used against political dissidents. I don't know of the quality of the evidence in Mr Assange's case but it does seem that he is involved in political turmoil and intrigue and there are a lot of people keen to shut him up and there is nothing a court in the UK can do to look at the evidence before they extradite him."
Mr Assange is an Australian citizen and his supporters have written an open letter to Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard asking her to protect him.
One of the signatories, prominent barrister, Julian Burnside QC said: "First and foremost Julian Assange is an Australian citizen who is entitled to the protection of his country and does not deserve to be betrayed by his country.
"Julia Gillard has been making it virtually impossible for Assange to return to Australia where he is entitled to be. And she has even threatened to cancel his passport. That is an outrageous stance to take."
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Game of cat and mouse
28 Nov: First secret US diplomatic cables released on Wikileaks website
29 Nov: US brands cable leaks an "attack on the international community" and says criminal investigation ongoing
29 Nov: Former US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin calls for Mr Assange to be "pursued with the same urgency we pursue al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders"
3 Dec: Wikileaks forced to change web address after coming under cyber attack
3 Dec: Sweden issues new European arrest warrant for Mr Assange over sex crime allegations but wording is wrong
6 Dec: Sweden issues new warrant and passes it to police in UK
7 Dec: Mr Assange is arrested in London after voluntarily walking into a police station and appears in court
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Wikileaks defended by Anonymous hacktivists
7 December 2010 Last updated at 07:40 ET
BBC World News
LINK
Internet hacktivists have fired the latest salvo in the Wikileaks infowar.
A group called Anonymous has hit sites that have refused to do business with the controversial whistle-blowing site with a series of distributed denial-of-service attacks.
It mirrors similar attacks aimed at the Wikileaks site.
Targets include the Swiss bank that froze founder Julian Assange's assets and PayPal which has stopped processing donations to Wikileaks.
Anonymous is a loose-knit group of hacktivists, with links to the notorious message board 4chan
Increased traffic
A member of Anonymous who calls himself Coldblood told the BBC that "multiple things are being done".
"Websites that are bowing down to government pressure have become targets," he said.
"As an organisation we have always taken a strong stance on censorship and freedom of expression on the internet and come out against those who seek to destroy it by any means."
"We feel that Wikileaks has become more than just about leaking of documents, it has become a war ground, the people vs. the government," he said.
So far the denial-of-service attacks (DDoS), which swamp a site with so many requests that it becomes overwhelmed, have failed to take any sites offline although that is not the point of the attack, according to Coldblood.
"The idea is not to wipe them off but to give the companies a wake-up call," he said. "Companies will notice the increase in traffic and an increase in traffic means increase in costs associated with running a website."
DDoS attacks are illegal in many countries, including the UK.
Coldblood admitted that such attacks "may hurt people trying to get to these sites" but said it was "the only effective way to tell these companies that us, the people, are displeased".
Anonymous is also helping to create hundreds of mirror sites for Wikileaks, after its US domain name provider withdrew its services.
"At the last count there were 507 mirrors of Wikileaks," said Coldblood.
Ending contracts
Wikileaks has been hit by a series of denial-of-service attacks, following the release of a quarter of a million US embassy cables.
It is unclear who is behind the attacks but it seems that Wikileaks is getting too hot to handle as many of the businesses that work with the site, distance themselves from it.
On 3 December, domain name provider EveryDNS cut off service, citing the denial-of-service attacks as the reason.
Amazon also ended an agreement to host the site, saying Wikileaks failed to adhere to its terms of service.
It said that Wikileaks was unable to ensure that it "wasn't putting innocent people in jeopardy" by leaking classified documents.
Online payment company, PayPal, has permanently restricted Wikileaks' account, making it harder for supporters to make donations.
MasterCard Worldwide is also choking payments to the site.
The Swiss bank, PostFinance has closed the account of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
In all cases, the companies have insisted their decisions are not politically motivated.
PayPal said Wikileaks' account had violated its terms of services.
PostFinance, meanwhile, claimed Assange had provided false information when opening his account.
BitTorrent file
But some have taken a different view.
French internet service provider OVH said it had no plans to end the service it provides to Wikileaks.
"OVH is neither for nor against this site. We neither asked to host this site nor not to host it. Now it's with us, we will fulfil the contract," said OVH managing director Octave Klaba.
"It's neither for the political world nor for OVH to call for or to decide on a site's closure," he added.
French industry minister Eric Besson had called for the site to be shut down, saying France could not host internet sites that "violate the confidentiality of diplomatic relations and put in danger people protected by diplomatic secrecy".
But on 6 December, a French judge declined to force OVH to shut Wikileaks down, saying the case needed further argument.
Wikileaks has amassed some high-profile enemies including Senator Joe Lieberman, who chairs the US Homeland Security Committee.
He has urged the US government to "use all legal means necessary to shut down Wikileaks before it can do more damage by releasing additional cables".
Dr Joss Wright, a research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute thinks it could be too late to legislate Wikileaks offline.
"Wikileaks has released an encrypted file containing all of the embassy cables," says Dr Wright. "The information is already out there."
Dozens of copies of that encrypted file have been shared using peer-to-peer networks, such as BitTorrent. "Once the information is there, it's virtually impossible to stop people sharing it," said Dr Wright.
Founder of Wikileaks Julian Assange has been arrested and is due to appear at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court later.
He is accused by the Swedish authorities of sexual assault.
