julian assange playing a risky game, page-21

Driven to dissent - like father, like son.

Sarah Whyte
December 5, 2010

''Father declared me a sociopath, mother thinks I'm a monster and this romantic situation is oh-so-very-uncomfortable.''

This tweet on November 5 could come from any angst-ridden young person but it is from the Twitter account of Daniel Assange, 20, son of Julian Assange, editor of the website WikiLeaks.

The website created intense controversy by publishing embarrassing US diplomatic cables. Adding to the situation are sex abuse allegations against Julian in Sweden.

Daniel, a software designer from Melbourne, is reported to have had minimal contact with his whistleblower father for three years, yet the pair seem to share many traits and views.

On his Twitter page Daniel laments the failure of journalism - much like Julian tells the few reporters who have gained access that journalism should be more like a science to be credible.

Daniel's love of online coding (''I released a tiny bit of open-source code, and somebody is actually using it! :O This feels like a profound moment in my programming life,'' he tweeted on November 20) mirrors Julian's 23 years of hacking and professed quest for truth. In 1997 Julian helped invent ''rubbernose deniable encryption'', which has been described as a cryptographic system made for human rights workers wanting to protect sensitive data.

Daniel studied a bachelor of science at the University of Melbourne. Julian studied physics and pure mathematics at the same university and the University of Canberra but did not graduate.

In 1987, when Julian was 16 and living in Melbourne, he joined a computer hacking group called International Subversiveness. He called himself Mendax, meaning ''nobly untruthful''.

Daniel - who also uses an online identity, Somnidea - was born to a 16-year-old mother, who has never been identified, when Julian was 19. A year later Daniel's mother fled with him.

In 1999 Julian registered a website, leaks.org, but did nothing with it. In the same year, after nearly 40 legal hearings and appeals, he worked out a custody agreement with his former wife for Daniel, then nine, after forming the group Parent Inquiry into Child Protection.

When Daniel was 16 Julian asked him to join him in a website he called WikiLeaks. According to the news blog Crikey, Daniel was sceptical and not being on the best of terms with his father, declined. ''I never thought he was going to succeed,'' he told the blog.

Now Daniel seems to have warmed to WikiLeaks. On his website he wrote:

''I have much respect for my father and his cause, and these ridiculously ill-handled allegations of sexual abuse serve only to distract from the audacious awesomeness that he has actually done.''

The Sun-Herald tried to contact Daniel but received no response.

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/driven-to-dissent--like-father-like-son-20101204-18kpr.html